Leading the Charge for Sustainability An interview with Lynnette Young, Damespointe. Lynnette Young, former COO of the City of Atlanta and now the founder of Damespointe, a consulting firm working with the City to implement Mayor Shirley Franklin’s Sustainable Atlanta Initiative.

Southface Journal (SFJ): Let’s start with a brief overview of Sustainable Atlanta. What are the key elements in the plan?

Lynnette Young (LY): It’s the Mayor’s initiative, something she sees as part of her legacy. She feels that she will have failed if she does not begin the discussion of sustainability with city government, as well as with citizens. In her two recent state of the city speeches – one to the city council and one to the business community - sustainability was the pillar upon which the speeches were built. She discussed the importance of sustainability, not just for us now, but also for future generations. The goal is to begin to take action around increasing sustainability. Part of the process has been to conduct “best practices" research, where we looked at 34 peer cities, from that 34 we narrowed it to 20, and then again to 10 so we could thoroughly focus we cut down to 10 that we focused on really hard. That gave us the opportunity to assess lessons learned, not only what you would do again, but what wouldn’t you do.

The first phase was an internal look at city government, its buildings, energy use and policies. Now we are beginning the external phase, [where] we are bringing together various constituencies from throughout the community. We have formed a Sustainable Atlanta Advisory Board, chaired by Dr. Michael Battle of the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC), who has started a program in “Theo-ecology” at ITC. We felt he was the right person to bring together all the different stakeholders – the business community, academia and advocacy groups. The role of the advisory board is to vet the ideas and policies and to be a resource [to the city].

Support is coming from major businesses like Coke, UPS, Home Depot; all the major players in the business community and academia including Georgia Tech and ITC. [The] Kendeda [Fund] is also playing a major role. A number of organizations are also involved, including advocacy groups. The Board began meeting in January and everyone was extremely energized [regarding] what is going on. Coke has offered a loaned executive to Sustainable Atlanta and others are offering various pieces. Emory University MBA students are helping us to look at finance options; another team of Emory undergraduate students are gathering information about the commuting needs of City employees. Georgia Tech students and faculty are also working with us to determine City government’s carbon footprint. All their findings will later be presented to the City.

SFJ: What are some of the long-and short-term goals of the initiative?

LY: Well, clearly, long term, Atlanta becomes a more sustainable city. The Mayor has signed Kyoto Protocol and the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, as well as an open letter to President Bush concerning climate change. One of those long-term goals is to meet the objectives of those documents, which includes reducing dependence on fossil fuel and utilizing renewable resources efficiently. It includes understanding what it means to be sustainable and that we can’t move forward as a successful city and region without embracing sustainability.

SFJ: You mentioned the Mayor’s intent is to be as sustainable as possible in our region. What are some ways you are reaching out to the region to promote sustainable practices?

LY: We are working with ARC [Atlanta Regional Commission] to develop metrics for municipalities in the region. What information needs to be on everyone’s scorecard? This is part of a conversation with other [municipalities] in the region. The air doesn’t stay above Atlanta, it moves all around and so we have to have these conversations regionally.

SFJ: Let’s talk about how transportation fits into sustainability. We know that an efficient transportation system is crucial to a sustainable city, so what kinds of transportation initiatives does the plan for Atlanta include?

LY: We continue to have discussions about what can be done regionally in the area of transportation. It’s not something you can solve just in Atlanta. It has to be explored with the entire region and state. Also we keep looking at what more can we do with MARTA. How do we take better advantage of MARTA, leverage it more? How do we partner with MARTA to get Atlantans both within the city and regionally to see MARTA as a great alternative to driving? Certainly the Beltline is a major player in the transportation plan for the city – that’s 22 miles that hits almost every neighborhood within a certain radius. Then there is the Peachtree Corridor study and the recommendations that came out of that, which looked from one end to the other, not just downtown or midtown or Buckhead, but the whole length of Peachtree. We think these things taken together give us the beginnings of a system. We are trying to lay the foundation for future Atlantans to build off of. [Plus,] continuing to work with the state to get them to understand how crucial transportation is to Atlanta and the region.

SFJ: What legislative or procedural elements are being put in place to ensure that Sustainable Atlanta has a life past Mayor Franklin’s administration?

We are institutionalizing what we are doing as we begin implementation, which [has the effect] of blending it into the fabric and framework of city government. Sustainable Atlanta is laying the foundation for future mayors, city councils and citizens. We are looking at how we can put things in place that the next two generations can build off of. For instance, the [City] Council passed legislation stating that new or renovated city buildings will be at least LEED –Silver certified.

The Department of Planning has begun discussion about some policy issues, [such as] should the city allow only green building? What does that look like?

And we are trying to engage the whole community in asking how we see Atlanta. Do we see ourselves as a green city? What does that mean? What kind of process does that require? The city must play a role, it can’t just decree. It has to work with the community and take the lead in [answering questions, such as] how to you implement green building? How do you get over the resistance? Which I think we are doing.

SFJ: What are some examples of what the City is doing to be a role model to our corporate citizens? We’ve already mentioned requiring LEED Silver certification for city buildings, which is a good start. What else?

LY: We are looking at our lighting efficiency, energy efficiency, continuing to look at water conservation – looking at retrofitting toilets throughout city buildings and looking at incentives to encourage others to do the same.

We continue to look to improve air quality. We are using xeriscaping™, not for entire parks, of course, but some areas. Medians strips, for instance, we have some pilot projects going on [which will conserve irrigation water on medians].

We are looking at paper reduction; examining our chemical use and moving to bio-degradable cleaning supplies.

We are retraining our employees. The biggest thing we can do is to cascade the knowledge through our employees and their families. There is nothing we or any organization can do that is bigger than getting our employee base to take [conservation lessons] home and change behavior in their homes. We can change all the light bulbs in the world, but that won’t be as important as changing individual behavior. How do we reach the whole population – 5 million and growing to seven million – how do we reach all seven million people?

SFJ: How can citizens get involved with Sustainable Atlanta?

LY: By getting involved with advocacy groups. There are plenty of organizations, such as Southface and the Clean Air Campaign, as well as a great many others, that are doing great work to ensure Atlanta is a healthy place to live. By educating themselves and changing their behaviors citizens can become part and parcel of what has become a global movement.

In some ways it is going back to the future. A lot of this is not new; it is common sense and it includes things our parents and grandparent taught us. Not the science side of it, the practice of it. Turn off the lights, don’t waste water. Things we do in ordinary life, the things we have come to take for granted. Doing a better job of managing our personal environment and being better stewards of the natural and built environments. Most of all become involved, because this is really about emotional investment.

SFJ: What thoughts do you want to leave us with?

LY: The thing I want to end with is the fact that regardless of what the cities or states do or don’t mandate, we have no option other than to make the investment in and the commitment to sustainability. To look at sustainable design of the built environment and realize that the principles remain the same for all [which] means we have to look also at the social equity piece of it. Regardless of whether you are building public housing or a five million dollar home or a major commercial building, the underlying principles remain the same; we want everyone to share equitably with good health, clean air, good water and efficient buildings. We must find a way to imbue it into everything we do.