Is Los Angeles Green Business friendly?

How Green is our city? When Green Consulting in Los Angeles and Malibu I’ve been quick to discover the local green cities and the not so green ones...

The most effective, progressive, community involved cities in the Green Movement have all recognized that in order to have an impact on their community their city government must make it a priority. A green city needs an action plan for how the city will address their impact on the environment.  Cities like Santa Monica, Portland, Pasadena, Berkely, San Francisco, and the City of Los Angeles, have all created action plans at various levels. And they have been able to demonstrate a much greater impact on their community by these organizing efforts.

Santa Monica for example, started out by developing the ‘Santa Monica Sustainable City Plan’ initially adopted in 1994. More recently they have changed their Environmental Programs Division into the Office of Sustainability and the Environment. Under this program the City of Santa Monica has been able to develop a multitude of programs both privately and publicly funded, and is known as one of the leading sustainable cities and a leader in support for Green Businesses.

The City of Santa Monica was also one of the initial participants in the SCORE evaluation and sustainability benchmarking tool, now widely being used to assist business, governments, and educational facilities to assess their level of sustainability and to develop targets for improvement.

The City of Los Angeles is now working to develop a Green Business Certification program for their local businesses as part of furthering their Sustainability Initiatives. This is likely to have a significant impact on the community’s involvement with their collective impact. It’s also a great way for the community and it’s businesses to come together.

Other cities have chosen to try to implement smaller scale initiatives and regulations to try to curb their city’s environmental impact.  Malibu recently adopted and implemented an ordinance banning all use of plastic bags at point of sale for purposes of carrying away goods or products and hired Globally Green to assist them in trying to develop Green Building Standards for the city.  While these initiatives are very important and are some good first steps, in a progressive community such as Malibu, I believe these steps can go farther to utilize city resources in support of a more sustainable community.

With the resources, talent, and community awareness in Malibu, implementing an overall Sustainable City Plan could guide the community to have a more measurable impact.

What can we do to help our community be greener and more sustainable? Please share! :)