Menino: Boston City Hall will go green
By John C. Drake, Globe Staff
From squeezing more words onto city documents to installing automatic shut-offs for lights, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino is taking steps to turn the concrete behemoth of City Hall into a lean, green governing machine.
The mayor signed an executive order today decreeing that city departments must purchase only environmentally friendly cleaning products, hire only cleaning contractors with a specific "green" certification, and expand recycling programs.
"This is yet another step in which the city is working toward reducing waste and creating more innovative strategies to improve the efficiency and sustainability of our operations," Menino said.
There have been some complaints that City Hall and other municipal buildings have lagged in simple, consumer-oriented environmentally friendly steps, such as enabling lights to be shut off at night and providing easy-to-use recycling containers.
According to the mayor's office, some of those issues are being addressed. At City Hall for example, computers are now set to automatically shut off overnight and several agencies are using energy efficient lighting that turn off lights when rooms are not in use.
The mayor's executive order follows:
1. All City of Boston departments adhere to the City’s new Green Cleaning Policy both for all City-managed building maintenance programs and for any new contracted maintenance services; 2. Within 60 days, the City of Boston Purchasing Agent and the Chief of Public Property, in consultation with City departments, shall publish Environmentally Preferable Procurement (EPP) guidelines covering all goods and services purchased for building maintenance and operations; 3. All City departments shall seek to expand recycling programs in all municipal buildings and new cleaning services contracts; 4. Within 60 days, the City of Boston Chief Information Officer, in consultation with City departments, shall issue a Green Information Technology Roadmap to further reduce municipal consumption of resources; 5. The City will establish a Green Operations coordinating committee to further pursue and develop additional measures to reduce municipal consumption and increase efficiency.
The order came one day after Governor Deval Patrick signed a landmark bill removing obstacles to alternative energy development in Massachusetts.
Readers, what do you think of Mayor Menino's initiative? Have your say on in our comments section below.
Comment
Permalink
Email
About time...good first step but we need more, how about solar panels on the roofs of all municipal buildings?
I thought it already had gone green like the State House. Oh, I see. You don't mean "gimme, gimme, gimme" green you mean eco green. Sorry.
Menino's is not as noble as he is presenting himself
1) The biggest environmental impact that can be squeezed out of boston's city hall is an HVAC replacement. Menino actually had a proposal cross his desk some years ago for replacing the HVAC system. It's a million-dollar job that would pay for itself in just 1-2 years. Menino rejected it, because in order to build his new city hall, he needs to justify destroying the old one. So, the HVAC system must remain antiquated to make the building less attractive to keep.
2) When it's 95-degrees in Boston on a Sunday summer afternoon, city offices are empty, yet the air conditioning is still set to 70-degrees. You don't need a green technology initiative to fix that. Just manually adjust the thermostat on Friday afternoon, and set it back on Monday morning. It's common sense.
3) If you look up at city hall any given evening, the building is practically empty after 6pm, but it's brightly lit inside every window on every floor. This is not simply a problem with a lack of switches; the switches that are there are left on. The problem is that there is no policy that city employees are expected to turn off the lights when they leave the room. Menino has had the authority to tell employees to conserve since he took office 14 years ago, but he simply hasn't. He's not any better than George W. in playing lip service to energy conservation.
About the only GREEN that is known to City Hall and the Commonwealth for that matter is the color of the money they liberally spend on themselves and pork projects.
Menino announcing a green City Hall. HAsn;t he done this about 12 times already? NOTHING NEW MENINO should be his nickname. Boston needs a NEW MAYOR.
This whole green movement is a bunch of BS by coporate America to cut costs and create a bubble. Think for a second people, why in gods name are the people who were polluting the world a few years ago all of a sudden the saviors of the earth. Kind of seems odd. I don't buy any of this green nonsense for a second. I am 50, the climate has not changed, people's intelligence has though. To prove my point, take a look at Mr. Green himself Al Gore. Its kind of ironic that he owns the most stake in a company selling carbon credits. Just a conincidence right. Keep drinking the Kool Aid and thinking your saving the world. In reality your being lied to and manipulated and when this bubble doesn't work, the powers that be will move on to something else and like sheep you will all follow.
It's about time! They should put some solar (electric and hot water) panels on City Hall too.
how about less parking in boston. Every project the mayor is involved with (see South Boston Seaport) involves way too much parking. This is the leader in bostons environmental problems, too many cars. But the mayor is about 20 years behind when it comes to this. He fought to kill JPs green line, did nothing to get Roxbury a real line, just silver buses, and allows developers to smother Boston in parking. He should move to the 'burbs, he seems to be more of a framingham, park and ride type guy.
I am not kidding when I say that it would be really cool if they hung large oil fueled torches--at a slight angle--from the columns in the big hall.
Of course you'd have to evacuate the exhaust somehow (maybe with the new mechanical system other posters suggest is needed).
The Greenest way to go for government at all levels:
1) Cut the Size of Government
a) fewer people\b) fewer lights
c) fewer Cfm or conditioned air
d) fewer sq ft of offices, fewer escalators, fewer elevators, fewer computers
2) the big ad greenest payoff -- CUT Taxes and Regulation -- let the Private Sector do wat it does best -- Innovate!!!
Westy
West
The Greenest way to go for government at all levels:
1) Cut the Size of Government
a) fewer people\b) fewer lights
c) fewer Cfm or conditioned air
d) fewer sq ft of offices, fewer escalators, fewer elevators, fewer computers
2) the big ad greenest payoff -- CUT Taxes and Regulation -- let the Private Sector do wat it does best -- Innovate!!!
Westy
West
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
contributors
Recent Blog Posts
browse this blog
by categoryRelated Blogs
Organizations
Information Sources
INside Boston.com