Clinton Climate Initiative & USGBC partner to create “Climate Positive” communities

The Clinton Climate Initiative, an outgrowth of the Clinton Foundation, recently launched a new program to guide communities toward being “climate positive”, meaning they would reduce their CO₂ emissions below zero. The idea is to get building developers and government officials working together holistically to implement large-scale energy saving strategies. The US Green Building Council, creator of the LEED green building certification program, brings technical expertise to the effort in combination with the Clinton Foundation’s long history of philanthropic investment around the world.

Climate positive strategies will focus on clean energy generation, building techniques, waste management, transportation, water management, and outdoor lighting systems. The Clinton Foundation, incidentally, is already walking the talk by purchasing RECs from BeGreen to offset their own carbon footprint. That’s a great starting point for a much bigger outreach program to reduce carbon footprints on a large scale.

Here’s what former President Clinton has to say about it:

See below for the surprisingly long list of communities and urban projects that have signed up to be Climate Positive. The list kicks off with Destiny, Florida, beach tourism mecca and home to thousands of waterfront condos. I’ll be interested to see how Destiny progresses toward their negative carbon footprint and how they communicate it to the thousands of tourists who visit each year…

The projects participating in the Climate Positive Development Program so far are:
• Destiny, Fla., USA.
• Dockside Green, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
• Godrej Garden City, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India.
• Elephant & Castle, London Borough, Southwark, UK.
• Albert Basin, East London, UK.
• Magok Urban Development Project, Magok-dong Gayang-dong, Seoul, South Korea.
• Mahindra World City, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
• Menlyn Maine, Pretoria, South Africa.
• VicUrban @ Officer, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Panama Pacifico, London & Regional, Panama.
• Zonk’izizwe Town Center, Johannesburg, South Africa.
• Victoria Harbour, Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
• Toronto Waterfront-Lower Don Lands, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
• Treasure Island Redevelopment Project, San Francisco, Calif., USA.
• Stockholm Royal Seaport, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Pedra Branca Sustainable Urbanism, Palhoça, Greater Florianópolis, Santa Catarina State, Brazil.