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Louisville receives award for environmental sustainability

Receives Outstanding Achievement City Livability Award

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Sept. 9, 2105) — Representatives from the U.S. Conference of Mayors presented Mayor Greg Fischer with the Outstanding Achievement City Livability Award today for Louisville’s work to bring environmental sustainability to neighborhoods.

“Our City Livability Awards Program gives us the opportunity to highlight mayoral leadership in making urban areas cleaner, safer, and more livable,” said Jocelyn Bogen, director of the City Livability Awards Program for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “We are grateful to Waste Management, Inc. for its many years of support for the City Livability Awards Program, and for the opportunity to showcase the innovation and commitment of mayors and city governments across the country.”

Louisville’s Green Living Program is what captured the attention of the City Livability Awards Program, standing out from the more than 200 submissions nationwide. A component of Brightside’s One Bright City initiative, the Green Living Program, launched in 2014, educates individuals and households on how to live more sustainably through a competition-based incentive.

“Green Living effectively combines two of our main goals, health and sustainability,” Fischer said. “The program was created to incentivize behavior change by citizens and businesses—a major challenge in reaching our city’s sustainability and health ambitions. We are honored to be recognized nationally for these efforts.”

The program encourages residents to participate in smoking cessation programs, become more active, eat healthier, emit fewer pollutants into the air, reduce gas, electric and water bills and divert waste from the landfill. Since the program’s launch, eight neighborhoods, including over 300 households, have registered to participate. The enrolled neighborhoods represent all facets of the city, including urban, suburban and multi-ethnic neighborhoods.

Thus far, the Shawnee neighborhood participants have had the greatest success, achieving the program’s Green Level. Out of a possible 160 points, 51 Shawnee households have worked together to tally 90 points by using alternative transportation, becoming tobacco free, using reusable shopping bags, pledging to be energy efficient as well as other sustainable practices. The group will continue to work to gain additional points with the hopes of advancing to the next three levels: silver, gold and platinum.

Louisville is one of four other cities to receive the prestigious Outstanding Achievement Award for cities with populations of 100,000 residents or more joining Charleston, S.C., Irvine, Calif., Kansas City, Mo. and Philadelphia.