New Initiative: Greening Our County, Together

Today, we kicked off an exciting and, hopefully, historic effort to put Hamilton County on the cutting edge of the "green" movement. We gathered dozens of cities, townships and villages from across the County to begin what we are calling our County Climate Initiative.

For many reasons, our county/region has one of the largest carbon footprints in the country. The challenge is to reduce it--but with that challenge comes true opportunity:

Opportunity to improve our quality of life, environment and public health--and to attract new citizens because of that improved quality of life;

Opportunity to reduce (taxpayer) costs through more efficient use of energy and creative alternatives;

Opportunity to create jobs through the new "green economy," and through an approach that creates demand for those new jobs.

To get there, rather than each government in the County reinventing the wheel, our initiative's aim is to do the work in one partnership. In the coming months, we will meet together, guided by moderators and consultants (providing help at no cost), to work through different topics (energy use, solid waste, etc.) where each governmental body can make concrete improvements, and generate real savings and carbon reductions.

At the end of the process, we will put together a Countywide toolkit, giving each community numerous practical options for how each can address the energy/green issues most important to their community. Then, as each community picks from among those options, we will lay out our overall County "Greenprint" (as opposed to a blueprint, get it?) to a greener future, and create a collective carbon saving calculator to keep track of our results.

Today, we were thrilled that dozens of community leaders from across the County came to our first organizational meeting, so we're off to a great start. And thanks to Thane Maynard of the Zoo for being the honorary chairman of this effort.

For more information, or to participate in this exciting and important effort, check out our website at: http://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/climate/