How can we become a greener city while working within political realities?

Residents of Bellevue expected the city to keep pace with other cities’ environmental achievements. To meet these expectations, but within the framework of existing policies, the City Manager’s office sought help in creating a responsive Environmental Stewardship Plan.

MY CLIENT

City of Bellevue: Bellevue is the fifth largest city in Washington, with a population of about 140,000. It’s moniker as “a city in a park” comes from the wooded neighborhoods, trails, and parks that surround the downtown commercial center. Visit City of Bellevue.

MY WORK

• Assess the City’s progress and gaps on environmental stewardship, as documented in the Comprehensive Plan and operation plans within each department.
• Facilitate meetings with the City Manager’s office and department heads
• Develop and fill out a strategic framework for environmental stewardship, through which to communicate context, justification, goals, performance indicators, and target performance.
• Compile the results into a concise document for distribution

RESULTS

• A first-time Environmental Stewardship Plan for public consumption
• Met community expectations while advancing innovative steps that the City Council and department heads could agree to
• The basis for reporting environmental performance to this day