City of Worcester, MA

City of Worcester Designated a Green Community

For Immediate Release: 6/10/2010 2:50 pm

Worcester, MA (June 1, 2010) - The City of Worcester has recently been designated a "Green Community" by the Commonwealth under the State's Green Community Act.

The Green Community designation is the highest recognition the City can receive for its energy efficiency efforts and well-positions the City to capture significant grant funds from State, Federal and private sources, which will be used to maintain existing and establish new, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

The City of Worcester, through our Energy Efficiency and Conservation Program, aggressively pursued the State's designation as a "Green Community" as part of its Climate Action Plan initiatives. In order to achieve this designation, the City was required to satisfy five criteria including:

1. As-of-Right Siting for Renewable/Alternative Energy Projects;
2. Expedited Permitting for Eligible Energy Facilities;
3. 20% Municipal Energy Use Reduction Plan;
4. High Fuel Efficiency Vehicle Fleet Purchase Policy; and
5. Adoption of Energy Efficient Building Code (Stretch Code) (30MB).

Our efforts to successfully fulfill these criteria reflect our strong community partnerships; a collaborative endeavor and a shared vision for a sustainable energy future.

This prestigious designation will benefit the City on multiple levels. It provides recognition of our community-wide efforts to conserve energy, identify and utilize renewable energy sources, implement recycling programs and promote the reduction of energy and fuel use both as a municipality and as a community. It will also enable the City to market itself on a regional, national and global basis as a City that is attractive to companies in the green energy sector, thus boosting our economic development business attraction and expansion activities.

For video of the City Hall ceremony click City of Worcester Receives "Green Community" Designation.