Going green at City Hall

July 3, 2008 04:14 PM Email| Comments (0)| Text size – +

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.