West Hollywood City Council Commends Environmental Task Force

January 5, 2009

The West Hollywood City Council continued its support of sustainable initiatives Monday, January 5 through commending participants in the city's Environmental Task Force for developing recommendations on how the the City could advance its sustainability efforts. 

Global Green's Green Urbanism team members Walker Wells and Troy Simpson led the 12-month process and drafted the final report that outlines short- and long-term suggestions and methods for measuring success, as identified by the task force. Recommendations are broken down across five categories:

• Energy Use & Efficiency
• Green Space & Open Space
• Transportation & Mobility
• Waste Reduction & Recycling
• Water Use & Reduction

Some key examples of recommendations made by the task force include the creation of a bicycle transportation network, a City-managed energy efficiency and solar power information center, increased recycling requirements and infrastructure, and additional water conservation demonstration sites. All recommendations pivot on an integrated approach to education, the creation of a city “Sustainability Coordinator” position, and the establishment of indicators to track progress toward success in each of the respective categories. 

In taking the report to council, the staff report called for the City to hire a consultant to develop sustainability indicators and directed each city division responsible for the various recommendations in the report to return to council in 90 days with responses and plans for implementation.

This work builds upon Global Green's collaboration with the City of West Hollywood, which resulted in the creation of the City of West Hollywood Green Building Program for Private Development, an aggressive program that won the California Chapter of the American Planning Association's (APA) 2008 "Outstanding Innovation in Green Community Planning" award. 

Click here to download the full report.