Council President Richard Conlin
City Council President Conlin representing Seattle and North America at "Greenest Cities Worldwide" conference
Seattle – This week, Seattle City Council President Richard Conlin is at a conference in Växjö, Sweden, named the ‘Greenest City in Europe,’ representing North America. He is presenting Seattle’s best practices, key policies and community engagement efforts toward the City’s goal of Carbon Neutrality.
Based on information from ICLEI, an international organization of Local Governments for Sustainability, Växjö has identified and invited the greenest city from each of the other five continents to present their successes at the conference.
Seattle is honored to be named as the green city representative for North America. President Conlin will be speaking at the conference on Thursday, September 15.
The other four cities are: City of Darwin, Australia; City of Curitiba, Brazil; City of Durban, South Africa; and the City of Singapore.
"It is an honor to receive this international recognition for our work in energy conservation, transportation, climate protection, and other sustainability efforts," stated President Conlin. "It’s an impressive group of cities to be in the same league with. I’m looking forward to learning from the leaders of Växjö and other cities about their work and being inspired by fresh ideas that might be applied in Seattle."
In Växjö, the carbon dioxide emissions per capita are less than half of the average of the industrial countries in the EU and almost a fourth of that of the U.S. The goal is to become completely free from fossil fuel by year 2030. Following is an overview of what Växjö has done to earn the designation of ‘greenest city in Europe’:
- Efficient energy usage
- Continuous and increasing work with sustainable transport alternatives
- Organic and locally cultivated foods in the kitchens of the municipality
- Wooden housing
- Development of greenbelts
- Increased share of renewable sources of energy
- New alternatives within renewable sources of energy
- Coordinated transportation within the municipality operations.
ICLEI is an association of over 1,200 local government members who are committed to sustainable development. ICLEI members come from 70 different countries and represent more than 569,885,000 people.
President Conlin will present his findings at a future council briefing.
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