Press Release: Salt Lake City updates Sustainable Infrastructure Policy as new projects kick off

*Aerial photo of Pioneer Park in Downtown Salt Lake City.*

Oct. 7, 2024

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Salt Lake City is celebrating Utah’s 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 Utilities’ 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 Mendenhall’s 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.

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Press Release: Salt Lake City announces partnership to bolster environmental resiliency in historically excluded communities

Sept. 19, 2024

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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 REC® model with Solar Stewards for financial contributions. Okta is the first identified buyer of Salt Lake City’s Social REC® via the Solar Stewards’ Marketplace.

“Salt Lake City is not only investing in solar energy to power our municipal operations and reduce pollution,” said Mayor Mendenhall, “we have also formed a unique partnership that will help us invest money from that solar back into the community.”

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How to Recreate More Sustainably

By SLCgreen Intern Kailee Sendle

Salt Lake City is renowned for its recreation opportunities. With the Wasatch mountains right in our backyard, it is no surprise that many Salt Lakers, including myself, have an intense passion for outdoor recreation. Often those who love the outdoors already do their part in protecting it, like recycling and limiting single-use plastics, but when it comes to how we recreate, making sustainable choices may seem a bit more daunting. Check out these tips for making your outdoor adventures more sustainable.

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Landscaping Equipment Exchange Spring 2024 Program Outcomes

Here at SLCgreen, we’re always working to find actionable, high-impact strategies to improve local air quality. This spring, we ran our first-ever Landscaping Equipment Exchange (in the past we’ve partnered with the State’s program). Our goal is to remove highly polluting gas-powered landscaping tools from the airshed and replace them with electric alternatives. Through this spring’s program, the City was able to:

♻ Recycle 707 pieces of gas-powered equipment.

⚡ Support the purchase of 1,324 electric landscaping tools.

🌏 Reduce annual air pollution by 5,869 pounds.

The Landscaping Equipment Exchange Program is part of Clean Air SLC – a new suite of air quality programs offered by the City to benefit Salt Lakers. It includes the landscaping exchange, the e-bike incentive program, and a forthcoming indoor air quality program – all meant to clear the air in our communities and homes.

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Press Release: Innovation Grants Awarded to Four Projects that Will Transform Waste to Reduce Wildfire Risk, Lock Away Climate Pollution

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, “carbon 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.”

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Happy Plastic Free July!

By SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara

*“Plastic Free July” by Alachua County CC BY 2.0*

What is “in” this season? Refusing, reducing, and reusing plastics for a more sustainable summer.

So … What is Plastic-Free July?

Plastic-Free July is an initiative started by the Plastic Free Foundation, an organization founded by Rebecca Prince-Ruis that works towards the vision of a plastic free world. Since its beginning in 2011, the campaign has spread across the world, amassing an estimated 89 billion participants. Over the last five years, participants have collectively avoided 1.4 billion kilograms of plastic.

The movement has inspired global action from Hong Kong to the Philippines to Melbourne. Examples include plastic free hospitality initiatives, community engagement centered on reusable alternatives, and refilling stations for household cleaning supplies and personal-care products.

Now, you may be wondering: why are single-use plastics such an issue?

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The Ride Forward: Salt Lake City’s First E-bike Incentive Program

By SLCgreen Intern Kyle Anderson

Note: Salt Lake City ran a pilot e-bike incentive program in 2024. This program had one-time funding and will not be continued in 2025.

Think about your last short-distance commute. Maybe you were running errands. Maybe you were on your way to work. Or maybe you were meeting up with friends at your favorite bar or coffee shop.

Salt Lakers have all kinds of reasons for getting around and enjoying this city we call home. Transportation is an important and necessary component of our day-to-day, but in the face of worsening air quality and the sustained effects of climate change, it’s a component we have to be increasingly conscious of. The question is no longer just about where we’re headed or when we get there, but how we choose to do so. And thanks to a new e-bike incentive program launched by SLCgreen, the possibilities for more sustainable transportation in Salt Lake City are expanding.

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Pollinator Spotlight: Hummingbirds

By SLCgreen Intern Kate Kuwahara

*Image source: Rufous-tailed Hummingbird © Andy Morffew (https://www.flickr.com/photos/andymorffew/23540580394) CC by 2.0*

Let’s 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.

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Priority Climate Action Plan

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 we’ve called the Greater Salt Lake Area Clean Energy & Air Roadmap (SL-CLEAR).

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Help Us Set our Climate Priorities: Take the SL-CLEAR Survey by February 11

🌍 Tackling Climate Change: A Race We Can Win Together! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

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.

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