Salt Lake City is committed to protecting the public health and safety of its residents, including ensuring access to clean air, clean water and a livable environment. đ This Earth Month, take some time to learn about how weâre working toward our Climate Positive 2040 Plan and tips you can start with today to make positive change in your life, community, and for a healthier planet.
Continue reading
Every year, we release a Year-in-Review featuring our high-level accomplishments as well as priorities for the year ahead. This is an important time and opportunity for us to take stock, learn from the experiences we had the previous year, and to continue to improve our programs, services, and operations.
While we engage with Salt Lakers mostly through recycling questions and efforts, we do so much more! Here are some highlights from 2024 and keep a lookout for more details in our 2024 Year-in-Review booklet coming soon. (Check out our full 2023 Year-in-Review booklet here!) Letâs take a moment to look back at what weâve accomplished in just this year.
Continue readingBy SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara
Photo credit: Downtown SLC Farmers Market
The holiday season is upon us! This can be a time to gather with loved ones and enjoy some great food, often bringing recipes we only enjoy once or twice a year. Holidays can also be a great place to start when rethinking long-held traditions, habits, and how our actions can impact our community. Food waste is a major issue in the U.S.âŻeven outside of the holiday season. AboutâŻ40% of all food produced in the U.S. never gets eaten, and this amount increases by an additional 25% between Thanksgiving and New Year’s! Â
However you celebrate, we encourage sustainable habits around gathering for the holidays, from food waste to decorations. And what better place to start than buying local food! Salt Lake Cityâs Winter Farmersâ Market returns on Saturdays beginning November 9th and will operate weekly from 10AM to 2PM through April 19th (closed November 30th and March 15th). SLCgreenâs summer intern Kate Kuwahara visited the Downtown Summer Farmers’ Market for the first time and shares her new perspective on farmerâs markets and learning more about our food systems.Â
Continue reading
Oct. 7, 2024
Para leer este comunicado de prensa en español, oprima aqui
Salt Lake City is celebrating Utahâs first-ever SITES- and Envision-certified projects following its recently updated Comprehensive Sustainability Policy. Glendale Regional Park, where work began last month, is on track to become the first SITES-certified project in the state and one of the largest park investments the City has ever undertaken. Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilitiesâ new water reclamation facility, which began construction in 2020, is the first Envision project registered in the state.
Enacted last December in alignment with Mayor Erin Mendenhallâs sustainability goals, the updated Sustainable Infrastructure policy added Envision and SITES to its approved certification pathways. The Envision framework is designed to help implement more sustainable, resilient, and equitable projects, while SITES supports nature-based landscapes that enhance biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and conserve resources. These two additional systems allow for a more diverse range of City projects to utilize sustainability frameworks.
Continue reading
Sept. 19, 2024
Para leer este comunicado de prensa en español, oprima aqui
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall announced an innovative partnership with Solar Stewards to fund solar, air quality, and community resilience projects in historically underserved areas of Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake City is exchanging renewable energy certificates (known as RECs) produced on its solar array at the Sorenson Multicultural Center through a unique Social RECÂź model with Solar Stewards for financial contributions. Okta is the first identified buyer of Salt Lake Cityâs Social RECÂź via the Solar Stewardsâ Marketplace.
âSalt Lake City is not only investing in solar energy to power our municipal operations and reduce pollution,â said Mayor Mendenhall, âwe have also formed a unique partnership that will help us invest money from that solar back into the community.â
Continue reading
Earlier this year, Salt Lake City Sustainability staff once again joined their counterparts of the 4 Corners Carbon Coalition (4CCC) to identify innovative carbon dioxide removal (CDR) projects to receive grant funding so that they can be replicated and scaled for greater impact in our region. In July, 4CCC announced four awardees that would be receiving $335,000 of funding for their liability biomass projects (read details in the press release below).
You might be wondering what CDR and liability biomass are. As 4CCC puts it, âcarbon dioxide removal (CDR) describes diverse processes, on land and at sea, that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and durably lock it away in geological, biological and synthetic formations for decades, centuries, or even millennia.â
Continue readingBy SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara
Letâs celebrate National Pollinator Week with a special guest: the hummingbird!
Hummingbirds are amazing creatures with many extraordinary abilities and are one of many essential pollinators. Other pollinators include birds, bats, moths, flies, butterflies, beetles, wasps, and of course, the most well-known pollinator: the bee, of which there are over 20,000 species worldwide.
Continue reading
When it comes to addressing the climate crisis, the best time to act is now. That’s why it’s so exciting that SLCgreen and partners across Salt Lake County and Tooele County just finished creating a Priority Climate Action Plan (PCAP) for the region through what weâve called the Greater Salt Lake Area Clean Energy & Air Roadmap (SL-CLEAR).
Continue reading
đ Tackling Climate Change: A Race We Can Win Together! đââïžđââïž
Mitigating climate change is both a sprint and a marathon. The challenge? We need to cut our emissions and local air pollution drastically in the near term while investing in projects that can have sustained impact over time. The good news? The Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act has provided billions of dollars in federal funding to support climate action. If we make a compelling emissions reduction plan, we can apply for implementation funds to execute.
Continue readingBy SLCgreen
Every year, we release a Year-in-Review with featuring our high-level accomplishments as well as priorities for the year ahead. (Check out our full 2023 Year in Review booklet here!)
Itâs also an important time and opportunity for us to take stock, learn from the experiences we had the previous year, and to continue to improve our programs, services, and operations.
While we engage with Salt Lakers mostly through recycling questions and efforts, we do so much more! Here are some highlights from 2023 and keep a lookout for more details in our Year-in-Review booklet coming soon. (In the meantime, you can take a look at previous annual reports for 2022 and 2021.) Some notable achievements include:
Continue reading