City Government & Green Programs: A Guide to Avoiding Regulations

As environmental consciousness slowly creeps into our day-to-day life, whether through plastic bag restrictions or composting programs, how these behaviors become a part of our routine is rooted in where we live. City, state, and national governments around the world are gradually hopping on the environmental train and attempting to implement their own green projects in their communities. Whatever the program, how to implement it is a central question for city governments. Primarily, there are four popular options: regulation, leading by example, incentive, and persuasion. Regulation, as the least voluntary approach, seems appealing because of its perceived effectiveness. If residents, companies, or other actors don’t have a choice in their behavior, the intended goal of the program will be achieved, right? Not necessarily. Strict regulation alone can lead to confusion through lack of education or guidance of the involved actors, and thus, city governments should assess the specific situation of their municipality before resorting to regulation because the alternative methods of incentivization and persuasion offer positive outcomes for their community.

Regulations are deceivingly appealing because of their perceived effectiveness in guaranteeing compliance. But this isn’t the entire story. In some cases, regulations are enforced without leadership or guidance for those involved. As a result, industries and companies are confused and frustrated on how to comply with the new standards. This can lead to dissatisfaction with the city government and subsequent loss of support for the green program or even the government as a whole. For example, in December 2009, the former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, signed a suite of four laws called the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan (GGBP). One of the four laws for a greener New York City mandated “benchmarking and public disclosure of the building's energy and water consumption.”[1] In Sadhu Johnston’s book The Guide to Greening Cities, Johnston reports that initially, the New York building owners were confused about “what the new energy usage benchmarking requirement meant and how they should comply.”[2] Moreover, the building owners complained that “it has been challenging for them to work with the utility to obtain comprehensive building energy use data.”[3] The city’s Urban Green Council eventually responded to this confusion among building owners and provided a checklist of steps required to comply, training sessions, a call center, and a website to further clarify the requirements.[4] Still, it’s clear that regulation is much more than signing a law into force, it requires further follow up and education into how to fulfill the law’s requirements. Another characteristic of regulations to consider is each city’s individual capacity to adopt a regulation. For example, it is a major debate among environmentalists as to whether developing countries should be held accountable for implementing environmental efforts to the same degree as developed countries. In a debate on the “Vulnerability, Resilience, and Post-Disaster Reconstruction International Debates” website, experts discussed whether developing countries should adopt green building certifications such as LEED or BREEAM.[5] In the debate, Dr. David Wachsmuth, an Assistant Professor in the School of Urban Planning and an Associate Member in the Department of Geography at McGill University, presented the opposing remarks. In his argument, he notes that “In a world with sufficient resources, “any” solution (regardless of its impact scope) should be welcome. But in a context of limited resources and limited public and political attention to environmental issues...we cannot afford this strategy.”[6] While this debate deals with applying a regulation to an entire country, Dr. Wachsmuth’s argument can be applied to answering whether a one-size-fits-all regulation can fit every community. As he states, each country, and each city has its own priorities. The second widespread regulation is enforced without considering the specific situation of each of the affected communities, complications arise and it can prevent fulfilling other needed initiatives. Thus, regulation, widespread or specific, should be heavily monitored and supported by its enforcing government.

            The constant attention and support required for a successful implementation of a regulation by a city government also raises the point of the importance of leading by example. As Lucia Athens, former manager of Seattle’s new green building program puts it, “If we weren’t doing it ourselves, how could we ask others to?”[7] It is both important for the mayor to strongly support the green program their city is pushing and for the city government to personally implement the change it is pushing. Sadhu Johnston offers the example of his experience working with former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley in The Guide to Greening Cities “when a mayor strongly supports his greening policy, it incentives and clarifies the work of their staff.”[8] Further, when city governments begin by organizing its own building assets to conform to its new green intentions, they can “provide a platform for engaging the public and members of the business community and asking them to take similar steps.”[9] Additionally, city governments’ personal and strategic investment into urban infrastructure can “spur private investment that quickly dwarfs the public investment in terms of dollars spent.”[10] This was the case in both Portland and Seattle when the city’s investment in the streetcar system catalyzed the private investment into development of the surrounding neighborhoods with increased foot traffic.[11] All this being said, the mayor’s support and the city’s willingness to lead by example is not always the key to a successful green initiative. In some cases, political opponents of the mayor become opponents of the green program supported by the mayor as well. This was the case in New York City when Mayor Bloomberg supported reducing the number of lanes on certain streets to increase safety and improve traffic flow.[12] Janette Sadik-Khan and Seth Solomonow write in Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution, “While this counterintuitive approach enjoyed widespread support and improbably high poll numbers, it also enraged a small but vocal army of opponents. They were a mix of people who disliked Mayor Bloomberg and were skeptical of any government action that was environmental, healthy, or ‘vaguely French.’ They denounced the changes and politicized the very data that should have transcended the passion surrounding these changes.”[13] Thus, leading by example cannot always guarantee widespread support, but it is generally a helpful dimension to include when implementing a program or change in policy.  

            When leading by example fails, incentives are another step to try before resorting to regulation. This was the situation Johnston found himself in when meeting with the Home Builders Association of Greater Chicago to talk to them about following the city’s lead in constructing green buildings. Instead of overwhelming support, the meeting mainly consisted of the builders complaining about the length of time, normally one hundred days, taken for a permit to be approved for building.[14] Through his discussion with the builders, Johnston revealed an opportunity for providing an incentive among involved industries to construct green buildings. The incentive was outlined as follows: “A LEED-certified housing development would get permitted in thirty days instead of about one hundred, and if developers added other features, such as additional affordable housing units, or increased the accessibility of the units, they could get even faster permitting and a waiver of up to $25,000 in permit fees.”[15] Johnston reports, “By 2008, when the program had been in operation for a couple of years, Chicago had more projects seeking LEED certification than did any other North American city (including those that mandated LEED certification.”[16] The incentive program was overwhelmingly successful. Economic incentives have been successful across a range of governments. In China, the government made green building requirements mandatory for all government buildings, but used economic incentives to motivate the private sector as well.[17] In Salt Lake City, sustainability director, Vicki Bennett, addressed her city’s air pollution concern by creating the Clear the Air Challenge, “a public-private partnership and social marketing campaign that provides information and incentives to encourage residents and business to voluntarily cut back on driving.”[18] Through the incentive of rewards like “bus passes, bikes, ski weekends, and hotel stays,” the Clear the Air Challenge participants tracked their miles saved by switching to “public transit, biking, walking, carpooling, and using cleaner vehicles and fuels.”[19]  The Clear the Air Challenge reported “More than 9,000 individuals and institutions” participating during the first two years, “reducing vehicle miles traveled by an estimated 3.6 million, thereby reducing associated emissions by about 1,600 tons.”[20] Rewards and incentives that actively encourage residents and businesses to change their behavior are successful and avoid the unfortunate connotation of forceful compliance like formal regulations.

            Another method of changing behavior is through persuasion. Persuasion is similar to an incentive approach because it involves voluntary participation, but, instead of rewards, persuasion involves a deeper level of education and marketing in order to engage the involved actors. Recently, cities have gotten into the habit of marketing themselves. Cleveland, Ohio is “a green city on a blue lake,” Asheville, North Carolina, is “the world’s first Foodtopian society,” Phoenix, Arizona, wants to be known as the “smartest energy city in the world,” and so on.[21] By marketing themselves, each of these cities are labeling their values and subsequent intentions. As a result, residents of these areas, whether new or old, come to understand what their city represents. Johnston writes in The Guide to Greening Cities, “These kinds of well-branded initiatives can be very effective in getting people and institutions to focus on a shared vision or common goal and then getting them excited about working individually and collectively toward it.”[22] Further, other methods of persuasion like Community-Based Social Marketing (CBSM) campaigns have become popular among green city leaders.[23] These campaigns use tactics such as “making the change convenient; creating ‘benign peer pressure’ to change; providing ‘trusted messengers’ to advocate for the change; requiring public commitments to change and providing prompts, reminders, and positive feedback; and fostering competition and providing rewards” to encourage positive change in behavior.[24] Various city governments have implemented strategies that use CBSM tactics in order to persuade their residents or stakeholders to change their behavior. One simple example is in Vancouver where strategic city planning to create “convenient, and compact housing choices and multimodal transportation choices” resulted in low-carbon lifestyle choices because of the neighborhood's planned convenience.[25]

            Whether regulation, leading by example, incentives, persuasion, or a combination of the options, will be the most effective method to implement a green program is up to each city government to decide. It is quite possible that regulation is the best method for ensuring change, but a consideration of the other methods is best practice. For, if every city assessed and tracked the involved parties and their incentives, they can make an informed decision on which method makes the most sense for ensuring the success of their green program. That being said, city governments should also be wary of pushing certain plans before their city is ready. Flint, Michigan’s city government was so concerned with attracting new residents rather than assessing the effects of its shrinking population that they failed to realize the effect their lower tax revenue was having on their existing population.[26] While green initiatives should be at the forefront of cities’ initiatives that have the resources, those who still need to develop other programs should avoid falling into the trap of peer-pressured development before they’re ready.

Bibliography

Vulnerability, Resilience, and Post-Disaster Reconstruction International Debates. “6th Debate,” March 20, 2018. https://oddebates.com/6-sixth-debate/.

Gou, Zhonghua, ed. “Green Building in Developing Countries: Policy, Strategy and Technology.” Electronic resource. Springer EBooks, Green Energy and Technology, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24650-1.

Johnston, Sadhu Aufochs, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” EBook Comprehensive Academic Collection - North America, 2013.

Morckel, Victoria. “Why the Flint, Michigan, USA Water Crisis Is an Urban Planning Failure.” Cities 62 (February 1, 2017): 23–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.12.002.

Sadik-Khan, Janette, and Seth Solomonow. Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution. New York, New York: Viking, 2016.

[1] Johnston, Sadhu Aufochs, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” EBook Comprehensive Academic Collection - North America, 2013, 88.

[2] Johnston, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” 88.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 89.

[5] Vulnerability, Resilience, and Post-Disaster Reconstruction International Debates. “6th Debate,” March 20, 2018. https://oddebates.com/6-sixth-debate/.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Johnston, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” 40.

[8] Ibid., 21.

[9] Ibid., 22.

[10]  Ibid., 85.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Sadik-Khan, Janette, and Seth Solomonow. Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution. New York, New York: Viking, 2016, 4.

[13] Sadik-Khan, Solomonow. Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution., 4.

[14]  Johnston, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” 22.

[15]   Ibid., 23.  

[16]   Ibid., 24.

[17] Gou, Zhonghua, ed. “Green Building in Developing Countries: Policy, Strategy and Technology.” Electronic resource. Springer EBooks, Green Energy and Technology, 2020, 19.

[18] Johnston, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” 82.

[19] Ibid.  

[20] Ibid., 82-83.

[21] Ibid., 97.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 98.

[24] Johnston, ed. “The Guide to Greening Cities.” 98.

[25] Ibid., 97.

[26] Morckel, Victoria. “Why the Flint, Michigan, USA Water Crisis Is an Urban Planning Failure.” Cities 62 (February 1, 2017): 23–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.12.002.