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After much collaboration among community partners and input from entrepreneurs seeking kitchen space, we are excited to share what we’ve learned though our research and discuss existing kitchen projects that will continue the cause of increasing access to licensed and affordable kitchen space in Cleveland.  Join us for the next Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition forum, “City Kitchens: dreaming up, building out and sharing the spaces that grow our local food entrepreneurs,” on May 21^st at 5:30pm in the Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Tasting Room.   This event is FREE but registration is required—REGISTER HERE.  View the Community Kitchen Incubator page to learn more about the work that has led up to this event or to learn more about developing kitchen projects.

Here are ten simple ways you can be a Sustainable Cleveland Ambassador and help to engage more people in building a thriving green city on a blue lake.

1. Going to a conference? Include a slide or 2 about Sustainable Cleveland.Slides and Talking Points for Download Here
2. Talk to a peer organization about Sustainable Cleveland and how you are involved.
3. Blog or write an article for your website or newsletter.
4. Like us on Facebook!
5. Tweet about Sustainable Cleveland @Clevealnd2019
6. Share our website with colleagues. www.SustainableCleveland.org
7. Sign the Cleveland Commitment and share it with others.
8. Highlight Sustainable Cleveland in a webinar or presentation to your colleagues or employees.
9. Do a short interview and be featured on our blog or on social media.
10. Submit a guest blog post for our website.

The kickoff was free and open to the public. Participants learned about current projects in Cleveland including wind turbines, solar panels, bio-energy, polymer waste-to-energy and energy efficiency technologies that make renewable energy more effective. Local businesses, including Mo Bite Productions and Honey Hut Ice Cream,  provided food samples to the lunchtime crowd. We also had local food available for purchase.

If you missed the Year of Advanced and Renewable Energy Kickoff, you can still get involved.

Exhibitors included LEEDCo, CMHA, Blue Pike Farm, Energy Avenue, Tremont West Development Corp, Dovetail Solar & Wind, RES flow, and others.

Councilman Matt Zone was one of 30 stakeholders who gave input into the typology.

On Wednesday, January 24th, the City of Cleveland Complete and Green Streets Task Force hosted a 4-hour workshop with stakeholders to gather input on the Street Typology for City streets.

Street typologies further define streets by relating them to the adjacent land use and their function for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit. A good example of a Street Typology is Brunswick, Maine. 

Alta Planning and Design facilitated the workshop for participants from many organizations including: Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, City Planning, Cuyahoga County Planning and Public Works, Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Metroparks, Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, Bike Cleveland, Ohio Department of Transportation, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition, YMCA of Greater Cleveland, Office of Sustainability, City Department of Aging and Cleveland City Council.

Participants learned about best practices in Complete Streets and in Green Infrastructure in the Right-of-Way. Then they began to classify Cleveland’s streets based on size, capacity, connectivity, land-use and transportation use type. After creating classifications, the participants prioritized design elements for each classification.

The next step in this project will be to create a draft typology for public review and feedback. Stay tuned to this website or subscribe to our monthly email updates (on the rightside of the homepage) to get engaged in this project.

Bike Share Task Force: In anticipation of the feasibility study, the Bike Share Task Force formed to provide a platform to advise the project and to assist with stakeholder engagement. The Bike Share Task Force consists of representatives from many organizations who see the potential benefits of bike sharing in Cleveland:

• Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
• ClevelandCity Planning
• GreenCityBlueLake Institute
• Bike Cleveland
• Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority
• Cleveland City Planning Commission
• Positively Cleveland
• Midtown Cleveland
• Ohio City Inc.
• Downtown Cleveland Alliance/Cleveland Bike Rack
• Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency
• Cuyahoga County
• University Circle Inc.

Consultants: The lead consultant, TDG is a leading engineering, planning, and landscape architecture firm specializing in multi-modal transportation.  TDG served as the author and principal investigator for Bike Sharing in The United States: State of the Practice and Guide to Implementation (2012), an independent study of current bike sharing programs in the United States, on behalf of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The purpose of the guide is to assist communities contemplating bike share with answers to common questions, guidance on conducting feasibility studies, and information on how to successfully launch and manage a program. www.bicyclinginfo.org/bikeshare

BrownFlynn is a sub-consultant that will lead the community engagement portion of the feasibility study. BrownFlynn is a women-owned sustainability and corporate social responsibility consulting firm

Current bike share systems operating in the United States. Click for an interactive map.

Why Now? Bicycling in Cleveland is on the rise. The most recent American Community Survey indicated an increase of 280% from 2000 to 2010 of people commuting to work by bicycle. Numerous bicycle-related businesses and services have opened in the City, including a commuter bike parking station, The Bike Rack. This past September cyclists and civic leaders created Bike Cleveland, a unified bicycle advocacy organization serving greater Cleveland.

Also, the City has recently adopted two pieces of legislation that will increase safety for the growing number of cyclists:

1. The first Complete and Green Streets ordinance in the state that requires road projects to incorporate best practices in Complete Streets and Green Infrastructure.

2. The Bicycle Transportation Safety ordinance that includes provisions to make streets safer for biking and walking, including a 3-ft passing requirement.

Benefits of Bike Sharing: Bike-sharing in urban areas can positively affect how residents, employees, and visitors experience a city.  Bike-transit systems allow for more people to access cycling for short trips, replace vehicle use, cycle for fitness and recreation, and for tourists and residents alike to explore a city.

Project Details: The Bike Share study is divided into two sections: a feasibility study and, dependent on the results of the feasibility study, an implementation plan for a flexible and automated on-demand bicycle sharing system. The feasibility study will include locations and sitings, integration with the existing transit system, technical discussions, and best practices. The feasibility study will incorporate public engagement in order to gather data about public interest and public feedback pertaining to bike sharing in the City. We anticipate the engagement process will address the particular needs of geographic areas of the City and the transportation network.

If determined feasible, the Implementation Plan portion of the project will provide a concise and comprehensive plan for the launch of the bike share network, including:

• realistic projected costs of implementation;
• recommended business model and business plan;
• timeline for implementation;
• performance standards/evaluation criteria; and
• operations and maintenance plan.

We are looking forward to launching this project this month and determining if and how bike sharing can be a beneficial option for Cleveland’s citizens, commuters and visitors provide economic development opportunity and reduce our city’s carbon footprint.

LAND studio, in partnership with Cleveland Public Library and Agnes Studio, has produced a cookbook comprised of recipes from 40 Clevelanders. The Cookbook was created to highlight a focus on community, sharing, and the importance of food as it relates to culture and the history of Cleveland. The cookbook serves as a resource for cooking, a platform for storytelling, and as a way to connect Clevelanders across cultures and communities.

The newly published book grew out of the March 2012 Lockwood Thompson Dialogue series at the Cleveland Public Library. Each year, under the direction of LAND studio, the program brings nationally and internationally recognized leaders in art, design, and contemporary culture to the library for free dialogues about emerging issues.

Because Greater Cleveland is in the midst of a food revolution, with urban farming, local foods, and a growing, renowned culinary scene, LAND  and CPL decided to focus the 2012 dialogue series of food and the bonds it creates in families and the broader community.

You can get a copy of the book at the gift shop in the Louis Stokes wing of the library’s main downtown branch or download it at http://www.land-studio.org/our-work/cleveland-cookbook.

By Doreen Schreiber

When the Office of Sustainability was established in 2005, the City of Cleveland established sustainability as a priority and a decision making framework. Over the past seven years, we have developed policy, programs and initiatives to meet our goals of quality of life, resource efficiency and cost savings, including the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 initiative—a ten-year effort to design and develop a sustainable economy for Cleveland.

Energy efficiency and advanced and renewable energy are key components of this strategy and recent progress in this area may be under attack. The City of Cleveland and many Sustainable Cleveland stakeholders are committed to energy conservation, energy efficiency and advanced and renewable energy—as a way to save money, to protect the environment and as a driver for an economy based in sustainability.

In 2008, the City voluntary adopted an advanced and renewable energy portfolio standard for Cleveland Public Power and supported SB 221 in its inception. In 2012, the City has joined the Better Building Challenge and the newly formed Cleveland 2030 District, leading by example through a commitment to energy energy efficiency and greening our buildings.

The benefits of Ohio’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard (EERS), as outlined in SB 221 (2008) and supported in SB 315 (2012), are critical to the residents and businesses throughout the City of Cleveland. The energy efficiency efforts in Ohio’s EERS improve our bottom line, put people in our community to work, make our businesses more competitive, and save residential customers money. The rebates available through Ohio electric utility companies have had a positive impact on our efforts to green our building stock in Cleveland and are a key incentive for work such as the Cleveland Energy $aver program for the residential sector and work spearheaded by COSE for the business and manufacturing sectors.

The City of Cleveland has focused time and effort developing and implementing sustainability goals to help advance our city. Chief among these efforts has been our commitment to the development of more energy efficient buildings and operations in our City. As part of the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 initiative, we have goals to increase the number of certified green buildings, the growth in the green economy, the amount of energy from renewable sources, and to decrease our carbon footprint.  We see energy efficiency as an important way to strengthen our bottom line, cutting energy waste from our budget. Presently, the City of Cleveland is wrapping up $4 Million in energy efficiency and conservation projects that have been implemented since 2010.

We also recognize the important job creation benefits to our community associated with energy efficiency investments. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has found energy efficiency investments create jobs at three times the rate of investments in traditional energy sources. Even more importantly, energy efficiency is a labor-intensive industry that creates jobs locally. Rather than sending dollars to generation resources outside the community, we can invest at home, dedicating resources to local businesses working on the ground to help build our city’s energy future and create jobs.

The energy efficiency programs developed under Ohio’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard are working in our community. Cleveland residents and businesses have continued to take advantage of programs to improve the performance of their homes and businesses. Without these programs, opportunities for energy savings investments are limited and  residents and businesses will lose the ability to stay ahead of the energy cost curve. What is more, energy efficiency is cheap. According to the Ohio Manufacturers Association, “The cost of a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy efficiency averages around 3 cents per kWh; a new natural gas plant, on the other hand, has an average cost of 8 cents per kWh. In other words, pursuing energy efficiency results in significantly lower total energy costs for Ohioans.”

Even with the state’s expanded natural gas resources, energy efficiency continues to offer a sensible way to protect against future energy cost increases. We recognize that consumers must pay for energy efficiency programs through bills, but the costs consumers pay for these programs is far outweighed by the savings they provide.

According to American Electric Power (AEP), energy efficiency programs in their service territory will cost customers $436 million between 2009 and 2014, but will save customers a total of $1.483 billion – a net savings of more than $1 billion. First Energy estimates customer savings to be more than $700 million throughout the same period. In addition to benefits from program implementation, the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard leads to lower overall energy costs due to reduced market demand from efficiency investments, according to the Ohio Manufacturing Association.

As the economies of Ohio and Cleveland continue to recover, we cannot afford to abandon energy efficiency programs at this time. Ohio must affirm its support for lower electricity bills, increased jobs, and sustainability by supporting the Energy Efficiency Resource Standard.