Richard Daley, the former mayor of Chicago, recently sat down with the editors of The Wall Street Journal to talk about ways they made the city ‘greener’ (and we’re not talking about the green dye poured into river system from Lake Michigan on Saint Patrick’s Day).
The first priority?
“You have to ask, what’s your responsibility to the city? First of all, cleanliness. Picking up trash,” he said. “After that, you start doing landscaping, basically planting trees, which is important to the air quality. You get people who have not worked involved in this effort through a re-entry program. You also have to explain why you’re doing it.”
He said in the beginning, the media questioned why he spending so much money on buying trees.
“You have to explain to them how environmentally important that is,” said Daley.
All public buildings were built with the U.S. Green Building Council.
“We also have a green center of technology to educate developers, architects, engineers, contractors, trade associations and unions,” he said. “There’s also permitting. If you’re going to build green, give them a special permit to do that as quickly as possible.”
He said the tough part is that the public doesn’t always understand sustainability.
“And from my experience,” he said. “We don’t have a national plan for the environment. It’s basically the city and the private sector or not-for-profits.”
He said the business community has to become advisers and part of the solution.
“Government cannot do all of it alone,” Daley said. “We should have a commission representing federal, state and local governments, and the business community. You would need a three-quarters vote to make decisions.”
Where should the money come from? Daley said to start with offshore profits that companies are making.
“Bring them back at a 5% tax. Then say that the companies are going to contribute 15% into an infrastructure fund each year. At a national level, every company. And then X amount of money will come from local and state governments,” he said.
Daley also said the country must look at the rules and regulations to see if that is a place to save money.