The city of Cincinnati, Ohio is updating and adapting its Green Cincinnati Plan. This resilience strategy and plan was adopted in 2008, and first revised and readopted in 2013.
The Green Cincinnati Plan has helped establish Cincinnati as a national leader in sustainability, and as an attractive destination for businesses and individuals. It presents a comprehensive set of recommendations for addressing global climate change as a City and region.
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, who pays for the plan from his own budget, says, “We owe it to our kids and grandkids to do what we can to combat climate change. We have to do what we can in our corner of the world to live up to our moral responsibility to care for this earth.”
This update is designed to advance the sustainability, equity, and resilience of the city. The Plan will help map Cincinnati’s path to 100% renewable energy by the year 2035, starting with a proposal to build the largest city-owned solar array in the country.
The plan will have several focal areas, each with a Task Team charged with identifying key recommendations to be included in the 2018 plan. Task Teams include:
- Energy (including energy conservation and renewable energy);
- Transportation (including increased fuel efficiency, alternative fuels, mass transit, and bike/pedestrian);
- Waste minimization, reuse, and recycling;
- Built environment (including green buildings and more efficient patterns of development);
- Food (including the local food economy and food choices that reduce climate impacts);
- Natural Systems (including greenspace, water and air);
- Education & Outreach (focused on driving sustainable behaviors);
- Resilience (including efforts to prepare Cincinnati for the changes in the local climate and weather patterns).
“The city has already had to pay $50 million in damages from storms just this year,” Oliver Kroner, the city’s sustainability director says. “The updated plan focuses on resilience planning, recognizing changes and what we need to do to adapt.”
Recommendations developed by the Task Teams will be evaluated based on economic, equity, and greenhouse gas impact.
Background on the Green Cincinnati Plan:
In 2008 Cincinnati adopted the Green Cincinnati Plan as a roadmap for how Cincinnati can be a national leader in addressing global climate change — and make Cincinnati a healthier place to live.
The Green Cincinnati Plan identified more than 80 specific recommendations for how to reduce contributions to global climate change. The recommended actions generally shared several characteristics: 1) effectively reducing green house gas emissions; 2) reducing dependence on non-renewable energy sources; 3) saving more money than the recommended actions cost; 4) supporting local job creation and the local economy; 5) helping clean Cincinnati’s air, land, and water; and 6) relying on voluntary rather than regulatory approaches.
The Green Cincinnati Plan also quantified annual contributions to global climate change at 8.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) for the City of Cincinnati, and 432,000 tons of CO2e for Cincinnati City government. At 25.5 tons per person, Cincinnati is slightly above the national average of 24.5 tons per person. The Plan established greenhouse gas emission reduction goals of 8% within four years, 40% within 20 years, and 84% by 2050 (42 years).
Making It Happen:
After five years, most of the recommendations of the Plan were being implemented according to schedule and the City had met its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by two percent per year. To build on this progress, an updated version of the Plan was created.
Developed in partnership with Green Umbrella, the regions sustainability alliance, the Green Cincinnati Plan (2013) adds to the sustainability framework of the 2008 Plan. New chapters on water, outdoor recreation and climate adaptation continue to move the city’s sustainability efforts forward and evolving partnerships create opportunities to accomplish more together.
Photo of solar parking array courtesy of the Cincinnati Zoo.
See Green Cincinnati Plan website.
See proposal to build nation’s largest city-owned solar array (PDF).