Final Greenworks Progress Report Released by Nutter Administration

This year marks the end of both the Nutter Administration and the Greenworks implementation timeline, and as a result, the Office of Sustainability has released its 2015 Greenworks report as both an annual update and a final report.

Greenworks launched in 2009 to serve as the City of Philadelphia’s first comprehensive sustainability plan. The plan incorporated existing work within City government, referenced best practices, and brought in new ideas garnered from both City employees and external partners.

The report looked at sustainability in the broadest terms through five overarching goals related to energy, environment, equity, economy, and engagement; 15 measurable targets; and more than 160 specific initiatives.

While during the plan’s six years it was unable to meet all 15 targets, the Office of Sustainability said made progress toward all of the plan’s overarching goals and began or completed work on nearly all initiatives. Of the 15 target areas, the City has exceeded, met or nearly met 7 of its goals and is trending in the right direction on 4 others.

For example, the city failed to lower city government energy consumption by 30 percent or increase the size of the regional clean economy by 25 percent but exceeded its goals in improving air quality toward attainment of federal standards and reducing vehicle miles traveled by 10 percent.

Some samples of data from the report:

At the end of the report, the Greenworks Report includes several suggestions for moving forward and continuing sustainability work, from increasing incentives for City departments to reduce energy use to making sustainability priorities culturally relevant for all Philadelphians.

Find the full report here.

Additionally, the Office of Sustainability released a web-based mapping and visualization tool that showcases citywide sustainability progress. The map was created with local geospatial analysis firm Azavea, the Greenworks Map  and provides an easy way to access information about the City’s place-based sustainability investments. Azavea also helped build the Office of Sustainability’s energy benchmarking map, released earlier this year.

Images via 2015 Greenworks Report