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Sustainable Business Network members and other sustainable-minded citizens gathered at Temple University’s Fox School of Business to hear what five of the mayoral candidates had to say about the Good Economy Challenge, which focuses on:

• Improving the small business climate in Philadelphia.
• Prioritizing local and sustainable business procurement by City government, universities, and other institutions.
• Advancing the City of Philadelphia’s Green City, Clean Waters plan.
• Ensuring Philadelphia reaches 20,000 solar homes by 2025.
• Creating additional incentives for Certified B Corp businesses.

Before the debate began, we took some time to hear what some of the sustainable leaders in attendance at the forum expected to hear.

“Eight years ago, when Mayor Nutter ran, there was a really transformative moment when he spoke at the [Academy of Natural Sciences] and he was the only candidate who could speak intelligently about sustainability. It was a pivotal moment of his campaign, and if you talk to Luke Butler or Alan Greenberger or other people on his campaign, the team was really energized from that,” said John Moore, president of Investor’s Circle. “I don’t necessarily expect to see that out of this crew.”

Margaret Lenzi, vice chair of the Philadelphia Cooperative Alliance’s board, said that she wanted to see the candidates make cooperatives a priority.

“I would like to hear from the candidates that they would make cooperatives a priority in terms of giving business and land from the Land Bank for development to cooperatives, because cooperatives are owned and controlled by local residents and therefore they keep the wealth and the jobs in the neighborhood,” she said.

Judy Wicks was looking forward to hearing what each of the candidates had to say about the fossil fuel energy hub.

“One of my big issues is the fossil fuel energy hub, and I’m eager to see where each candidate stands on supporting or opposing because it has huge implications for the future of our city,” she said. “I’m opposed to it for many reasons, including exposing our citizens to pollution that would increase dramatically, as well as the disruption of the pipeline coming through, and just the larger picture of creating more climate change.”

The forum began with each of the candidates giving opening statements before answering a series of questions by moderator Chris Rabb. Read our Storify with tweets from Green Philly Blog, Generocity, Forsei Consulting and other attendants at the forum:

For more information on the candidates thought, check out Green Philly Blog’s recap, and read what the city council candidates had to say in our recap of the #GoodEconomyPhilly Tweet Chat.
Images via Mo Manklang. Alex Vuocolo contributed to this article.