Defining a Green City

Like Christmas, we are watching the commercialization of Earth Day. Under the guise of any good excuse; community leaders, politicians, and environmental organizations use Earth Day as a bold opportunity to promote their favorite project. Earth Day is less and less a call to action, and more and more of a chance to draw attention to what we pay attention to what we neglect all year long.

One of the bold examples of commercialization is the self-proclaimed "Green City" attributions made by city after city. In the spirit of simple transparency, how does a city earn Green city status? Does it come by proclamation or award by a civic group courting favor from the politicians in power? Is it secretly awarded if a city has a few LEED certified buildings in the thousands of non-LEED certified buildings? Perhaps it happens when a city like Naperville, IL gets props for doling our grants from ARRA funds for Green business improvements. Perhaps, a Green city comes from a bold move to change over the money-losing transit system to propane as a fuel.

The point is that there is presently NO WAY to verify that any city is Green or sustainable because the standards are not defined or factual. Neither is there a system to measure compliance. In truth, it seems to me that there are no Green cities because there is no way to know what measurement applies.

Can someone in a village of midgets claim to be tall? Does a darker shade of green make a lighter shade less green? Does perfume really work if you live on a pig farm? These oxymoronic challenges point out how we can get lost in mediocrity while claiming to be exceptional.

Green businesses should not make claims that are not supported in fact and verified by a third-party audit. If this were true, the number of verified Green businesses per city would be a credible way to measure the Green or sustainable progress of that city. Rather than a pile of pennies on the table purported to equal $100, getting community businesses to earn a Green certification using a universal scorecard, the pennies are neatly packing into paper tubes in piles of $10 each. We now know that there is $100 in pennies rather than guessing.

Starting our project at the beginning, why not ask community businesses to achieve an honest Green business certification? I do not refer to some artificial, paper chase certification offered by an ad hoc Green committee that meets every third Thursday of the month. And, not an Internet knock-off that came with a membership fee and completing a few online questions. Businesses need to have an audited and nationally-recognized program that was earned by implementation of Green practices.

A Green city, therefore, is proven by hitting some minimum standard of community achievement. We can all be happy for a tree-planting effort, but the reality is that people and businesses got us into this mess. It will take honest stride by people and businesses to get us out of this mess.

It seems to be a fair measure to point to the volume of businesses and homes that have been independently certified as a Green operations. In a TV series about Will Sonnett, he often recited how skilled he was with firearms and often spoke to strangers about this prowess in a way that intimidated them. In the first episode, he mentions that his son is an expert with guns, while his grandson is better, "and I'm better than both of 'em -- no brag, just fact." Most environmental claims are mostly boast and not well-established fact. Yet, the avid press fills up space by reporting the impressive claims of the "Green City" program.

I look forward to the next Earth Day when a city official can stand up with a verified report of all the certified Green businesses and homes in town. This will not happen by proclamation but by implementation of a serious Green program that has been seriously pressed forward by a dedicated team of Green advocates. We all want a Greener world and community. It comes when we get everyone to participate in a way that can be measured.

It should be our hope that next Earth Day, politicians will stand up and report that they have earned the right to be called a Green city because they earned it.

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