by Shane Henson — August 15, 2012—ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability USA, an organization that offers a comprehensive approach to help local governments achieve their sustainability, climate protection, and clean energy goals, recently released a fun and easy-to-use tool to further their cause, the Green Business Challenge App.
According to ICLEI, this powerful and customizable Web application allows any city, town, or county to launch a friendly competition among its business community to save money, energy, water, and reduce waste. Participants access the app through the local government’s Web site, and use it to register, take a baseline survey, browse a library of tips and resources, update their achievements, view a scorecard that tracks their progress toward goals, read customized suggestions for ways to increase their score, and operate a carbon calculator.
Program administrators can use the app to customize the program, view reports on participants’ progress, and send mass e-mails to maintain engagement. ICLEI offers an additional guidebook and toolkit on how to run a Green Business Challenge, which incorporates the experience of Chicago and other communities.
ICLEI says nearly a dozen cities and counties have already launched successful Green Business Challenge programs, including Chicago, Houston, Port of San Diego, Arlington County, and Charleston, South Carolina. In 2011, participants in the Chicago Green Office Challenge reportedly saved a collective $17.5 million in energy costs, reduced energy use by 124 million kilowatt hours, kept more than 85,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and diverted 43 percent of their waste from landfills.
