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Do sustainability plans affect urban sustainability outcomes in Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose?

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Do sustainability plans affect urban sustainability outcomes in Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose?

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Content 1 

Do Sustainability Plans Affect Urban
Sustainability Outcomes in Santa Monica,
San Francisco, and San Jose?

Erin McMorrow

Committee: Professor David Sloane (Advisor)
Tridib Banerjee
Manuel Pastor

University of Southern California
Price School of Public Policy

December 18, 2013

2 

Table of Contents
 

Introduction 4
Literature Review 21
Research Design and Methodology 36
Santa Monica Case Study 42
San Francisco Case Study 179
San Jose Case Study 263
Lessons Learned 325
Conclusions and Summations 348
References 350
Appendix A 355

 
3 

Abstract

This study focuses on whether sustainability plans, through their creation and implementation,
affect urban sustainability outcomes in three Californian cities: Santa Monica, San Francisco, and
San Jose. These early adopter cities address core tensions in planning theory and practice between
environment, equity, and economy. I utilize cross-case synthesis techniques to examine the
linkages between plans, implementation and outcomes in the three cities explored. To frame and
guide these case studies, I consider findings from planning theory, policy implementation, and
newer community organizing literature. Through the case studies, I identify the following key
lessons: 1) What makes a sustainability plan strong is “The Three P’s:” people, programs, and
purpose, 2) Operationalizing “The Three E’s” of environment, equity, and economy is crucial, and
while all three take effort, equity is significantly the most difficult, 3) Urban Planning as a field
and professional practice has been glaringly absent in the story of the development of these urban
sustainability plans.

4 
Chapter 1: Introduction
 
With the majority of the world’s population living in urban areas, the importance
of urban sustainability for overall global sustainability has never been greater (Lee 2007;
McGranahan and Satterthwaite 2003; Glaeser 2012; Farr 2007). Cities consume
enormous amounts of energy and resources from both within and beyond their boundaries
(McGranahan and Satterthwaite 2003; Sassen 2005; Wackernagel and Rees 1996), and
cities in developed nations are responsible for the majority of consumption and pollution
in the world (Rees 1997). At the same time, cities offer the potential to reduce carbon
footprints per capita by bringing people, places, and things close together (Glaeser 2012).
Cities have tremendous potential as instigators for change, and are also centers of
structural, political and economic power, both internally (Logan & Molotch, 1987) and
globally (Sassen 2005). Indeed, cities, particularly those in industrialized nations, serve
as the major loci for sustainability efforts around the globe.
In 1987, at the international level, the Brundtland Commission wrote the Report
of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED): Our Common
Future in preparation for the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janiero in 1992 (also known as the Earth Summit).
1

The definition of sustainability in the Brundtland report, as well as Agenda 21, which
emerged from the UNCED conference, together inspired considerable action toward
sustainable development at the local level. Agenda 21 provides a roadmap that can be
utilized by cities, which is facilitated by the organization ICLEI – Local Governments for

1
The report can be found at: http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm
5 
Sustainability.
2
At the same time, scholars studying sustainable cities focus on core
questions regarding the human and ecological relationship to urban systems. At the heart
of this field of inquiry is the exploration of how urban systems, ecological, social, and
economic, can be sustained in perpetuity. In other words, what is sustainability and what
is a sustainable city? Underlying this question is the understanding that current systems
are both inherently interlinked and often in conflict, and generally are not sustainable in
the long term.
In basic terms, any sustainable system is one that is stable in perpetuity, rather
than being poised for collapse. Such closed loop, zero waste systems are observed in
nature, such as the water cycle and the carbon cycle. Sustainable systems are cyclical and
interconnected. Unsustainable systems have inputs and outputs out of balance, produce
significant waste, and eventually collapse. The same is true with regard to institutional
sustainability; a sustainable institution is self-sustaining, coherent, and thus resilient, as
opposed to being fractured, repetitive, wasteful, and inherently unstable. Any sustainable
system, physical or institutional, exists in harmony with its own internal working as well
as its surrounding systems. In a basic sense, zero waste systems exemplify efficiency.
Any system, including an economic system of exchange, which produces waste
(including physical waste or human externalities), is neither fully efficient nor
sustainable.
In practical terms, a sustainable city thus internally embodies a closed loop, zero
waste system, which is resilient and able to sustain itself in cyclical perpetuity. Such a

2
“ICLEI originally stood for the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives,” but in 2003
the organization dropped the full phrase and became “ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability” to
reflect a broader focus on sustainability, not just environmental initiatives” (http://www.iclei.org/iclei-
global/who-is-iclei/faq.html)
6 
city is also in harmony with external systems, such as the watershed of which it is a part,
and the regional economy, of which it is also a part. In contrast, most contemporary urban
systems are at odds both internally and with their larger surrounding systems.
The unsustainability of contemporary cities has become increasingly clear, and
the efforts to remedy this enormous problem have grown. Despite the oft-cited complex
nature of the sustainability concept, cities are in fact moving forward in designing
sustainability plans, and are working out approaches to implementation. In 1996, Scott
Campbell noted, “In the battle of big ideas, sustainability has won: the task of the coming
years is simply to work out its details, and to narrow the gap between theory and
practice” (Campbell 1996). In the last ten years, the number of American cities with
significant sustainability initiatives has nearly doubled. In 2003 Kent Portney (2003)
identified twenty-five cities that had “some sort of sustainability polices or programs.” In
2013, “at least forty nine of the largest fifty-five cities in the United States have invested
significant amounts of time, resources, and political capital in the development of
initiatives to pursue varying levels of sustainability” (Portney, 2013). Some of the earliest
plans were developed in cities such as Seattle, Portland, and Chattanooga (in the 1990’s)
and some of the more recent adopters include, Boston, Albuquerque, and Washington,
D.C (in the late 2000’s). In 2009, a professional group called the Urban Sustainability
Directors Network (USDN) formed with over 100 sustainability directors from the US
and Canada. The growing trend of development of urban sustainability plans and hiring
of professionals indicates the positive desire to move toward sustainability, while it also
highlights the need for real data around outcomes to inform this ongoing work.
7 
Existing plans vary in their levels of comprehensiveness; some cities define
sustainability narrowly to environmental issues, and others, much more broadly by
including economic and social equity issues. The basic question as to what it means to be
a sustainable city, and how do we measure it, drives this research. Portney (2013)
actually poses a related question, but does not attempt to answer it: “Are sustainable
cities activities actually making a difference in terms of economic development,
environmental quality, and environmental and social justice?” (Portney, 2013). While
Portney (2013) argues that not enough time has passed to assess whether or not the first
plans adopted have been successful, my research illustrates that a number of important
outcomes can be identified and are essential to understand in moving forward with
implementation.
Specifically, this study focuses on whether sustainability plans, through their
creation and implementation, affect urban sustainability outcomes in three Californian
cities: Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose. These early adopter cities address core
tensions in planning theory and practice between environment, equity, and economy, and
hopefully contribute to moving the understanding of urban sustainability forward in a
way that is useful to planners (Campbell 1996). Admittedly, these cities are unique in
their levels of wealth, political cultures, political-economic histories, and regulatory
contexts, relative to many other cities in the country and in the world. All three are quite
wealthy cities, with Santa Monica and San Francisco being exceptionally wealthy in
terms of municipal funds as well as residents on average. Perhaps most importantly, all
three have experienced significant gentrification over the last few decades, which plays a
great role in understanding the core tensions within the city, as well as the contexts of the
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key players. I do address how these cities were chosen as case studies, and I argue that a
great deal can in fact be learned from their experiences.
As in any study, observations are limited to the data available, and perspectives
can be missed in the process. I do my best in this research to reach the core individuals
involved in the formation and implementation of the plans, however unofficial players
are more difficult to find over time. Still, because of the first-mover statuses of these
cities, I do believe there was ample data to allow me to probe deeply into the core stories
of the creation and development of these plans. With the caveat that interviews must be
balanced with an understanding of the larger context to better understand the story, I
present the inevitably incomplete data with as much context as possible and believe that
my conclusions are sound and useful with regard to other cities. I am also confident that,
while these cities do have some qualities that differ from other US cities, my core
findings are translatable, and are generally quite relevant to other cities in the US. I have
found in this research that, yes, absolutely sustainability plans do achieve measurably
movement toward sustainability, on more than one level in these cities. Of course, Santa
Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose are all first-movers with early sustainability
language and plans, developed in the 1990’s. While they have existing indicator data
around sustainability outcomes, I do not rely solely on these indicators to assess their
success. My in-depth interviews reveal a great deal more than the cities themselves
provide, and I supplement them by presenting them alongside data from departments and
online sources. While I initially intended to focus more on each city’s indicators, a much
larger picture of institutional governance outcomes emerged through the interview
process.
9 
I narrowed my search to cities in California in order to keep state and federal
policy contexts constant for comparison. The state policy context of California is very
specific because of the state’s uniquely high levels of environmental regulation and
coastal regulation, which would make comparing across states difficult. The search was
then narrowed to cities with more than 80,000 people and cities within a significant-sized
region to capture a basic level of complexity and diversity (rather than looking at tiny
homogenous communities, for example). Cities were narrowed down to a core list and
then compared along thirteen relevant categories. The following are the cities considered
and the city criteria considered.
From the sample cities, I chose Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose. They
each have complete, comprehensive plans and indicators, and importantly, their plans (or
in the case of San Jose, sustainability language adopted into the general plan) were
adopted prior to 1998, long before the other sample cities. They were early adopters, and
have enough years of information collected to provide data for my study. The other cities
have considerably less data. The following is a more in-depth comparison between the
three cities (see Table 1).

Table 1. San Francisco, Santa Monica, and San Jose Comparison
San Francisco, CA Santa Monica, CA San Jose, CA Similar?
City population 80,5235 (2010) 87,664 (2008) 945,942 (2010) No
Population growth Growing (2004) Stable (Portney 2004) Growing (census) Somewhat
Region Population 7.4 million (2009) 9.8 million (2009) 7.4 million (2009) Somewhat
Politics Very liberal Very liberal
Liberal for the
country, but more
conservative than
SF and SM; still
represented at the
federal level by
almost all
Democrats Yes
10 
Wealth
Wealthy, but has
internal income
disparity
Wealthy, but has
internal income
disparity
Wealthy, but has
internal income
disparity Yes
How to characterize,
based on planning
literatures
Very aggressive
(Portney 2004)
Very aggressive
(Portney 2004)
Less aggressive than
SM or SF as of
2004, but still
aggressive (Portney
2004) Yes
Challenges in
comparing?
Unique case, very
liberal, also
city/county issue
Unique case, very
liberal
Silicon Valley
dynamic is unusual
All relatively
unique cases,
but similar to
each other
Have a plan? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Year
implemented/age of
plan Adopted 1997 Adopted 1996
Started process in
1980, sustainability
provision of general
plan adopted 1994,
2007 Green Vision
adopted by city Yes
Similarities and
differences in plans
Originated in
collaboration created
by county, adopted
by city and county
All done within city
government with
community
collaboration
Not a separate plan,
seen as part of
comprehensive
planning (Portney
2004) Somewhat
Linked to general
plan or no? Linking over time Linked but separate Completely linked Somewhat
Adoption process
Highly participatory
(Portney 2004)
Highly participatory
(Portney 2004)
Not enough
information yet,
unclear Somewhat
Indicators? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Include an equity
component? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Plan components
Air quality,
biodiversity,
energy/climate
change and ozone
depletion, food and
agriculture,
hazardous materials,
economy and
economic
development,
environmental
justice, risk
management, human
health, parks/open
spaces and
streetscapes, solid
waste, transportation,
water and
wastewater,
municipal
expenditures, public
information and
education
Resource
conservation,
environmental and
public health,
transportation,
economic
development, open
space and land use,
housing, community
education and civic
participation, human
dignity
Land use and
growth
management,
watershed
management,
integrated waste
management, energy
and air/climate
programs,
transportation,
economic
development,
environmental
compliance,
legislative review
and advocacy,
community relations
and public education Somewhat

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The three cities have relatively similar levels of wealth, although San Jose has more of a
mixed economy with regard to blue-collar jobs than Santa Monica and San Francisco.
High housing prices and a coastal component are also relatively constant between the
cities, however again, San Jose has overall lower housing prices and considerably less of
a coastal component than the other two cities. Political leanings of the three cities are
similar, with San Jose being less liberal than the other two cities, but still quite liberal
relative to the state and the nation. All three cities have also taken similar (aggressive)
approaches to adopting sustainability plans. And all three cities are part of significantly
larger regions. All three plans were born in some primary way from city government with
significant citizen input, and each linked to its city’s general plan, although to varying
degrees among the three. The cities are different in size. Santa Monica and San Francisco
are known for being far to the left on the political spectrum, wealthy, and also leaders in
environmental initiatives. However, while these characteristics could make these cities
difficult to compare to other American cities, within the three, wealth, political leanings,
and environmental leadership are relatively constant.
In all, I chose Santa Monica, San Jose, and San Francisco among California cities
because they have a number of characteristics in common, and also have a few
characteristics that are different and can be examined for comparison. Importantly, they
all have long-standing, robust and complete sustainability language and plans with
indicators, while approaches to adoption and implementation differ greatly.
The structure of this comparative case study analysis does not lend itself to highly
specific independent and dependent variables, because many factors are involved.
However, in rough terms, the independent variable in this study is ‘plan formulation and
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implementation’ which includes the plan’s linkage to municipal government and the
processes with which the plan is implemented. The dependent variable is ‘outcomes’,
which includes progress toward stated goals, comparison of progress across cities, as well
as institutional governance and cultural effects.
A close look at the processes within these three cities reveals a great deal about
what makes sustainability plans, and what makes them strong. Through the case studies,
I’ve identified the following key lessons:

1. What makes a sustainability plan strong is “The Three P’s:” people,
programs, and purpose.

2. Operationalizing “The Three E’s” of environment, equity, and economy
is crucial, and while all three take effort, equity is significantly the most
difficult.

3. Urban Planning as a field and professional practice has been glaringly
absent in the story of the development of these urban sustainability
plans.

A combination of elements, people, programs, and purpose, are what come
together to make a plan a living document that affects change, rather than something that
sits on a shelf. People are the lifeblood of sustainability plans. The prevailing mentalities
of people inspire and drive the creation of plans. People, inside and outside of city
government, support, create, and implement the plans. Programs form the structure of the
plan from which all outcomes flow; they include funding, staff, and legal legitimacy
through linked policies. And purpose is the spirit that drives through the plan, the people,
the programs, and turns a civic intention into movement toward prolonged sustainability.
At its most basic, an urban sustainability plan is essentially the setting of an intention by
a city. For it to be created, creative and committed leadership is necessary. In all three
13 
cities, while the level of community involvement varied, at least a prevailing mindset
toward sustainability and innovation existed in some way. In every case, creative
leadership, both within the municipal government at the mayoral and council levels, as
well as community leaders outside of the government were crucial forces in bringing the
plans into existence. In Santa Monica and San Francisco, significant community
participation in the formulation of the Plan greatly affected overall community buy-in,
while in San Jose the plan has been primarily driven by the municipal government, with
community outreach as part of the implementation strategy only. Community
participation was an important part of San Jose’s General Plan formation, which includes
the Green Vision goals, however I still argue that greater community participation in San
Jose could potentially make the plan stronger. Though what drives most of the
implementation on the ground in all three cities is municipal programs with staff,
funding, and linked policies to move plan goals forward.
Second, the Three E’s (equity, economy, and environment), equity is the least
readily approached in sustainability plans. It has the least goal areas in all three cities, and
the least clear indicators with the least measurably positive outcomes. Deep internal
conflicts exist around the nature of wealth disparity and displacement in these cities, and
community groups play the biggest force in pressuring cities toward social equity goal.
Interviewees struggled for the most part to talk directly about equity, and certainly the
issues of gentrification in wealthy cities and lack of resources in less wealthy cities
contribute to the difficulty. Also, the very understanding of the sustainability concept,
even when a city includes the language of The Three E’s in their written plan, tends to
lean toward the environment in the minds of both staff and community.
14 
Finally, a more overarching observation is that urban planners, and the Planning
Department did not play a central role in the formation of the plan. In Santa Monica and
San Jose, a number of goal areas touch the Planning Department, and there is a process in
place to integrate the goals into the general plan. Still, throughout the interviews, nobody
recommended that I speak with anyone in the Planning Department, and no names of
planners were brought up as key players in the formation and implementation of the Plan.
While each city’s history is different, and each city is organized differently, the
opportunity for greater involvement by planners as leaders and architects of such an
important large-scale planning process seems clear.
Overall, through my in-depth case study approach, a complex and interesting
story about why and how urban sustainability plans affect outcomes has emerged. The
evidence is clear that sustainability plans do indeed achieve measurably movement
toward sustainability. They do so at varying degrees in each city, and they do so in terms
of clear, quantifiable metrics, as well as in a number of less immediately quantifiable
ways. I argue that these key findings can be, in fact, transferrable to other cities. While
these cases are indeed unique, every city is unique, and even the extent to which these
cases are similar serves to reveal how different the history and personality of each city is.
While some cities certainly have advantages in moving forward plans like these, the basic
building blocks of a plan that can positively affect outcomes can be found in many cities.
Certainly, the lessons will have to be applied with an eye to the unique nature of each city
and its strengths and relative disadvantages. However, I do believe that most cities could
benefit from a sustainability plan, and can successfully create and implement one that can
bring measurable benefits in a relatively short time. Cities can also help each other by
15 
sharing information and resources, and organizations such as ICLEI can be a great help in
providing resources to cities of all sizes, political persuasions, and levels of wealth. The
following is a table outlining the key findings in each city:
Table 2. Key Findings

Key finding Santa Monica San Francisco San Jose
What makes a
sustainability plan
strong is “The Three
P’s:” people,
programs, and
purpose.

The Plan is carried
out through the
Office of
Sustainability and
the Environment,
which is linked to
specific policies,
and by the staff
members
implementing
related
programming. The
larger urban culture
of wanting to be an
environmental
leader drove
outcomes.

The Plan is carried
out through the
Environmental Code
and by the staff
members
implementing
programming at the
Department of the
Environment. The
larger urban culture
of wanting to be an
environmental
leader and early
adopter drove
outcomes.

The Green Vision,
while not
extravagantly
funded, has staff
and programs
attached to every
goal, as well as
another layer of
implementation at
the General Plan
level. The main
cultural inclination
toward innovation
drives outcomes.

Operationalizing
“The Three E’s” of
environment, equity,
and economy is
crucial, and while
all three take effort,
equity is the most
difficult.

The equity indicator
targets could further
be refined and
strengthened,
overall policy and
program efforts
improved,
particularly with
regard to housing
prices and
gentrification.

San Francisco has
an Environmental
Justice program area
in the Department of
the Environment,
which is unique
among American
cities. Housing
prices and
gentrification are
still major
challenges.

The Green Vision
does not incorporate
much with regard to
equity. Also, the
city wants to attract
more white-collar
jobs to become a
center for the
Silicon Valley
region, heightening
tensions with blue-
collar workers.
The incredible
absence of planning
and planners
No names of
planners were
brought up as key
players in the
formation and
San Francisco’s
Plan does not even
directly affect the
General Plan,
although at least one
The Green Vision
was not created at
all by planners or
the planning
department,
16 
implementation of
the Plan. A number
of goal areas do
touch the Planning
Department, and the
process of
integrating the goals
into the General
Plan is under the
purview of the
Planning
Department.

of my San Francisco
interviewees was
working on
implementing
sustainability goals,
and housed in the
Department of
Urban Planning.
however
sustainability
language that was
adopted by the City
as far back as the
1980’s does run
through the most
recent General Plan
and one previous.

Overall, in all three cities, I found significant evidence that sustainability plans
do, indeed matter. In Santa Monica, a number of important tangible goals have been
accomplished in the last 17 years, including path-breaking progress in water self-
sufficiency and urban forest planning. Santa Monica’s Plan also inspired the development
of a robust Office of the Sustainability and the Environment, situated in the City
Manager’s Office, and committed to implementation of the Plan. In San Francisco,
enormous amounts have been accomplished within in the same time frame. San
Francisco’s Department of the Environment was created the same year as the
Sustainability Plan was adopted, its staff growing from 3 to currently over 100. The City
has nearly accomplished some aggressive and also path-breaking goals like citywide zero
waste. In San Jose, success is harder to measure all the way back to the time when the
initial sustainability language was first introduced, however significant progress had been
made since the adoption of the Green Vision in 2007. San Jose has made strides in
creating clean tech jobs, even in the face of a major nationwide economic downturn. The
City is also a leader in some environmental goals, such as smart streetlights and urban
trails, even though the indicator metrics do not yet reflect all progress made. In every
17 
case, other plans and policies are directly affected and changed by the presence of the
sustainability plans, while this manifests differently in each city. All of the cities also
engage in outreach and education that is difficult to quantify in terms of outcomes. While
not every casual linkage between the plans and quantifiable outcomes can be nailed
down, the case study approach reveals the depth and complexity behind the formation
and implementation of the plans. In all three cases, the human side of the plans’ stories
emerges, illuminating the cultural and institutional importance of each of the plans within
the municipal governments and throughout the cities. The following table describes some
of the key strengths and achievements in each city.
Table 3. Greatest strengths in each city

Santa Monica

San Francisco San Jose
Greatest Strength Water self-
sufficiency.
Zero Waste &
Equity.
Smart streetlights
innovations.

Description Nearing water
independence.
Only environmental
justice sub-
department in the
country.

Also a pioneer in
zero waste –
recycling and
compost.

Culture of
innovation creates
an environment of
experimentation and
risk taking in new
technologies and
approaches.
Why was the city
effective?
Funded by lawsuit
and settlement
around water
contamination.
Larger culture of
wanting to be a
forerunner as a city.

History of social
justice activism in
the city. Funded by
a settlement closing
down nuclear plants.
Innovation
incubation and
success with small
resources is larger
permeating culture
in the city.

18 
One thing is clear: these plans are not merely for show. While they may have their public
relations elements (which are legitimately important), all three of the plans have very real
effects that run deeply through the cities and affect behavior and outcomes on several
levels. While these plans do require major investments of time and money, the time and
money are well spent, as these plans serve their purpose, rather than sitting on the shelf.
Rather than being a Utopian ideal or a concept rendered useless by multiple
meanings, moving toward urban sustainability is actually a process of experimentation,
negotiation, and application that translates into concrete actions with some measurable
outcomes on the ground (Campbell 1996). Formulation, implementation and evaluation
are learning processes that require cooperation between cities and academia, as well as
between cities themselves. This study is designed to help close the gap between these
plans and outcomes, and this research is geared to go beyond questions of why some
cities adopt sustainability plans and policies, which cities are more likely to adopt such
plans and policies, and which have the most “green” outcomes according to indexes.
Current academic literature provides little to no evidence that sustainability plans matter
in affected outcomes, and I aim to illustrate that they do. In all three cases presented here,
they affect outcomes in measurable ways, both through directly moving indicators and
also through institutional governance effects.
I find that the core lessons I learned from the three case studies are certainly
transferrable to other cities. Indeed, my main finding, that sustainability plans do affect
real outcomes on the ground in cities, rather than rotting on a shelf, is relevant to any city
that is interested in creating a sustainability plan. While there is no one-size-fits all or
turnkey solution to sustainability planning, the critical elements of what makes a
19 
sustainability plan strong exist in some form in most every city. People, programs, and
purpose, may look different in each city, but can nonetheless drive a sustainability plan
unique to the city’s personality. Of course, if a city’s community and municipal
government are all against the idea of having a sustainability plan, one will most likely
not be created in that city. However, a city that is interested in creating a plan, but has
limited financial resources, or is worried about the utility of creating a plan, can certainly
draw from the lessons in these case studies to create a plan that suits that city.
The challenge of equity is also an important lesson that is relevant in every city.
The practical models that I provided can be utilized by cities with finite resources and
real political challenges on the ground to more successfully face and address equity
issues within the context of a sustainability plan. While the issue of equity is complex and
difficult to address, it is central to sustainability and is worth overcoming obstacles to lift
up, both at the local level, and ultimately at the global scale.
Finally, my observation that urban planners have not played a central or
leadership role in the three cities runs through the entire study. While collaborating with
people from different professions, sectors, and backgrounds is very important for
sustainability, I do believe that urban planners are uniquely situated to lead in the
multifaceted, complex, and unwieldy process of urban sustainability planning. Certainly
this is relevant to urban planners in all cities, regardless of size, wealth, personality,
political disposition, or anything else.
In all, my hope is that the lessons learned from these case studies can serve to
inform both the three cities themselves, as well as any other cities interested in
developing or strengthening an urban sustainability plan. Because I have found that these
20 
plans are indeed living documents that are very important to the cities and affect real
outcomes, my findings about why and how sustainability plans matter, and what makes a
sustainability plan strong, are relevant to any city interested in furthering urban
sustainability.

21 
Chapter 2: Literature Review

The sustainable planning literature is grappling with a series of critical issues that
serve as a background to my study. Among the crucial constructs that planners and others
are trying to formulate are a definition of a sustainable city, and the role that plans play in
achieving urban sustainability. Of course, central to this line of inquiry are the concerns
of how we achieve not only economic sustainability, but also equity and environmental
sustainability, to ensure the success of our aspirations.
Definition of Key Terms
Scholars have spent the last generation considering the key concepts that underlie
my study. Prior to moving to the core of the study, let me summarize how the key terms,
such as sustainability and sustainable cities, are currently being defined so I can use them
throughout in a manner understandable to my readers.
Sustainability: The most cited definition of sustainability comes from the Brundtland
Commission Report, which defines sustainable development as “seeking to meet the
needs and aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability to meet
those of the future” (Brundtland and others 1987). The Brundtland Commission was the
first to explicitly argue for the importance and interdependence of equity, environment,
and economy, which is now ubiquitous in definitions of sustainability, and is known
loosely as the sustainability triangle (Brundtland and others 1987).
22 
Figure 1. The sustainability triangle as imagined by Scott Campbell

Source: Campbell, S. (1996). Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities? Urban Planning and the
Contradictions of Sustainable Development. Journal of the American Planning Association, 62(3), 296-
312.

The sustainability triangle reflects core tensions inherent in planning between
economic development, community development and social justice, and
physical/environmental planning. Scott Campbell (1996) argues, “In short, the planner
must reconcile not two, but at least three conflicting interests: to “grow” the economy,
distribute this growth fairly, and in the process not degrade the ecosystem.” Campbell
(1996) argues, “If ‘crisis’ is defined as the inability of a system to reproduce itself, then
sustainability is the opposite: the long-term ability of a system to reproduce. This
criterion applies not only to natural ecosystems, but to economic and political systems as
well.” Vos (2007) argues that the definition of sustainability depends on context and
scale; the question lies in “what is being sustained for future generations.” At the urban
level this could include natural resources, as well as quality of life and values.
Agyeman’s definition, “the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the
future, in a just and equitable manner, while living within the limits of supporting
23 
ecosystems” (J. Agyeman and Evans 2003) includes equity and justice specifically. More
recently, Agyeman (2005) also developed a concept called “just sustainability,” which
“highlights the pivotal role that justice and equity could and should play within
sustainability discourses. In so doing, it fundamentally challenges the current, dominant,
stewardship-focused orientation of sustainability, which has its main concern the
conservation of the natural environment.” While there is no outright consensus on the
definition of sustainability, Vos (2007) argues that all definitions of sustainability share
three elements: 1) “systemic interconnections” that support and reinforce each other, 2)
intergenerational equity, 3) going beyond regulatory compliance.
3

Sustainable Cities: Various definitions of sustainable cities focus on different elements.
Some scholars concentrate on ecological factors: McGranahan and Satterthwaite (2003)
focus on the balance between human needs and ecological preservation, while others
focus on re-earthed cities with lower energy consumption (Beatley 2000), management of
production, consumption and waste impacts (Leach, Bauen, and Lucas 1997), and self-
sufficiency and minimization of the ecological footprint (Portney 2003). Other scholars
go beyond the ecological, envisioning sustainable cities to exemplify ecologically
sustainable development with increasing quality of life (McManus 2005), sustainable
urban form (Farr 2007) and meeting social, ecological, and economic needs of the city
(Campbell 1996; J. Agyeman and Evans 2003; Julian Agyeman 2005).
Precautionary Principle: The Precautionary Principle calls for prudence when in doubt
when the likelihood of harm is great; meaning that the burden of scientific proof that
something is not harmful lies with the potential harmer to justify acting, rather than the

3
For more on definitions and interpretation of sustainability, see Brown et al., 1987, Kidd 1992 and Vos,
2007
24 
potentially harmed needing to prove that something is harmful. The Precautionary
Principle is #15 of the Rio Declaration (a statement of principles that emerged from the
1992 Rio Earth Summit). It states, "In order to protect the environment, the precautionary
approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there
are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be
used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation" (Declaration 1992).
To address the central questions in the field, the sustainable cities literature
includes defining sustainability (described in previous section), identifying and
describing problems of urban sustainability, and developing approaches to increasing
urban sustainability. These definitions are very important in my three case studies, with
the origins of all the sustainability language stemming from the now widely accepted
definitions that were just being released at the international level in the late 1980’s and
early 1990’s.
Problems of urban sustainability
Core issues defining problems of sustainability include: urban consumption, land
development and politics, globalization and trade, climate change (mitigation and
adaptation), and environmental justice. These problems incorporate overlapping
environmental, social, and economic issues. These problems all prove to be quite relevant
on the ground in the three case study cities.
As noted previously, cities consume enormous amounts of energy and resources
from within and beyond their boundaries (McGranahan and Satterthwaite 2003; Sassen
2005; Wackernagel and Rees 1996). Internal urban politics and development dynamics
25 
(Logan and Molotch 2007), as well as global capital flows (Sassen 2005), contribute to
these equity problems, and greatly affect possibilities for urban change toward
sustainability. Uneven consumption patterns between the rich and the poor, both inside of
cities and between countries, create significant equity issues whereby the parties causing
the most ecological destruction are the least likely to be harmed by the consequences.
Internal urban politics and development dynamics, as well as global capital flows,
contribute to these equity problems, and greatly affect possibilities for urban change
toward sustainability.
The disproportionately negative effects of urban consumption and imbalances of
power on the poor are increasingly well documented and analyzed in the environmental
justice literature. The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that over-exposure to toxics
and underexposure to amenities adversely affects low-income people and people of color
(Pulido, Sidawi, and Vos 1996; Liu 2001; Bullard and Waters 2005; Wolch, Wilson, and
Fehrenbach 2005; Ash et al. 2009; Morello-Frosch et al. 2009). To make things worse,
the effects of climate change will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable
populations, mostly in cities in developing nations, but also the poor in developed nations
(Morello-Frosch et al. 2009). Agyeman (2005) argues for “just sustainability” that
incorporates the best of environmental justice and sustainability theory to move a more
robust understanding of sustainability forward on the ground in cities. The environmental
justice literature has been moving from identifying and describing the problems to
offering potential solutions, although a great deal more work remains to be done in this
direction. Environmental justice emerges as a major sub-category of equity-related issues
in the three cities. Discussions, programs, and funding did emerge in San Francisco
26 
specifically around power plants and affected neighborhoods, reflecting very significant
movement around this issue, but still with a long way to go.
Increasing urban sustainability
In order to address the problems of urban sustainability, the field of sustainable
cities has moved toward developing approaches to increasing urban sustainability.
Campbell (1996) notes, “It is one thing to locate sustainability in the abstract, but quite
another to reorganize society to get there.” Within planning, some of the major
approaches include: smart growth, and growth management, and industrial ecology.
Other approaches include and greening the economy, green design and building, and
tracking/assessing sustainability. These approaches all loom large in the goal and
program areas, as well as in the general planning approaches, of the three case study
cities.
One major planning approach to increasing urban sustainability through land use
is smart growth. Smart growth approaches assume and incorporate growth through more
compact urban form to increase sustainability, and evolved from growth management
policies, which are aimed at limiting or curtailing growth to protect existing resources.
Both smart growth and growth management approaches are intended to counteract sprawl
(Gillham and MacLean 2002; Burchell and Mukherji 2003; Byers 2003; Barnett,
Benfield, and Farmer 2007) and Tieboutian competition between cities (Calthorpe and
Fulton 2001; Pastor 2000; Wheeler 2002), however smart growth advocates argue that
incorporating growth through a mix of housing is a far more equitable solution to the
remedying the negative effects of growth than simply limiting housing development.
Both approaches are examined extensively in the academic literature, and debate about
27 
implementation continues, with regard to growth boundaries, regulating for greater or
less density, promoting infill, and other approaches. In my case study cities, smart growth
approaches are reflected more generally in the cities’ general plans than in their
sustainability plans, however certain elements, such as increasing walking and biking by
increasing trails and promoting public transit, certainly affect the urban form directly
through the sustainability plans.
Regional planning is another major planning approach to increasing urban
sustainability through land use. Like the smart growth approach, the regional planning
approach seeks to address the problems of sprawl. However, it focuses on the polarizing
socio-spatial effects of growth management (especially exclusionary zoning),
4
inner city
disinvestment, and Tieboutian competition between cities within a region. Proponents of
the regional planning approach advocate for the equitable distribution of affordable
housing throughout a region in order to deconcentrate poverty and increase access to jobs
(Calthorpe and Fulton 2001; Pastor 2000; Wheeler 2002). Regional planning does not
show up very clearly in the sustainability plans, but I do argue that regional planning
could greatly improve the way cities are able to approach and solve equity problems
through the context of sustainability planning.
Industrial ecology is yet another approach to increasing urban sustainability, one
that falls both in the realm of planning and outside of it. Industrial ecology incorporates
the design of life-cycle products to decrease waste and increase sustainability, as well as
the connection of factories that can use each other’s waste to the same end (Allenby,
Telephone, and Company 1999; McDonough and Braungart 2002; Gibbs and Deutz

4
Exclusionary zoning can be done in many ways, but is essentially tactic some communities use to ‘zone
out’ unwanted development, such as multifamily housing. Large lot zoning is a common approach.
28 
2005; Hendrickson, Lave, and Matthews 2006). Proponents of industrial ecology seek to
address consumption and waste problems, and to consider ways to deal with the realities
of contemporary society’s demands in a more ecologically sensitive way. Approaches
from other fields with significant support that inspire ongoing research and collaboration
with planning solutions include greening the economy (Jones 2008) and green
architecture and building (Yudelson 2007; Wells and Bardacke 2007; Roaf et al. 2009).
Relevant policies and projects are early in development, and not much is known about
intended outcomes and actual outcomes. Industrial ecology mostly appears through the
move toward zero waste, which is very strong in all three cities. It also appears in green
business elements of the cities’ plans.
Indicators, plans, assessment
One difficult question we face is: how do we assess urban sustainability? How do
we know if policy and planning efforts toward greater sustainability have been
successful? Tracking and assessing urban sustainability is a major topic in the literature.
Campbell (1996) argues that urban sustainability will ultimately be navigated and
negotiated on the ground in cities: “To spend years in the hermetic isolation of
universities and environmental groups, perfecting the theory of sustainable development,
before testing it in community development is backwards.” Certainly, the learning
relationship between cities and academia is reciprocal, and in the case of urban
sustainability, much is already happening in city governments and community
organizations. Well-known cases of working urban sustainability indicator projects
include Santa Monica (Bertone et al. 2006) and Seattle (Holden 2006). From academia,
more general indicator guidelines have also been developed (Shane and Graedel 2000),
29 
while Portney (2003, 2013) assesses cities’ seriousness about sustainability by the
presence of sustainability plans and indicators. Maclaren (1996) investigates and
describes the general process of urban sustainability reporting. Devuyst (2001) el al.,
examine assessing urban sustainability, not specifically to sustainability plans, but with
regard to the larger international conversation and Eco-City approaches. More recently,
Pastor and McMorrow (2010) presented an overview of sustainability efforts in the City
of Los Angeles and Lubell et al. (2009), compare cities in California’s Central Valley to
assess sustainability efforts and their capacity to move forward. And Shen et al. (2011)
present a survey of indicator projects with an internationally comparative perspective in
order to compare best practices across projects.
Baer (1997) and Berke and Conroy (2000) look at assessment at the municipal
general plan level. Baer (1997) addresses general plan assessment overall and provides
and list of suggested criteria. Berke and Conroy (2000) examine general plans in the
context of sustainable development specifically, and rank 30 cities with an index-scoring
method. Portney (2003) develops an indexing method for assessing a city’s overall level
of seriousness about sustainability, using existing sustainability policy as the key
measure, and then revisits the issue in a second edition (2013). Sawicki and Flynn (1996)
describe the literature around development of neighborhood indicators, and outline five
lessons for developing effective neighborhood indicators. Lubell et al. (2009) assess
capacity for sustainability in cities in California’s Central Valley according to the
presence of sustainability policies and compare levels of capacity relative to community
characteristics.
30 
None of the aforementioned authors measure progress toward stated goals with
indicators linked to data, nor do any of the authors take an in-depth look at the
institutional governance effects of sustainability plans within a city. Jepson (2004) takes
the literature a step further by surveying cities on actions taken to implement
sustainability polices and identifying impediments, but does not assess outcomes. Hansen
and Huang (1997) provide an example of a quantitative assessment of road supply and
traffic, based on lane-miles, quantity of traffic, and vehicle miles traveled. In all, several
scholars have approached sustainability assessment in a number of different ways,
however none have taken the in-depth case study approach with regard to urban
sustainability plan outcomes.
While not part of the academic literature, a number of city ranking systems exist.
Two of the most cited ones are SustainLane’s US City Sustainability Rankings and
Siemens’s US and Canada Green City Index. Some others include: Popular Science’s
America’s 50 Greenest Cities, and the Corporate Knights’ 2011 Most Sustainable Cities
in Canada. The organization ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, which works
to help cities carry out the Agenda 21 goals, utilizes the STAR city index to assess urban
sustainability.
Overall, the literature does offer some insight about how to measure language in
plans and how to develop assessment tools, but no clear model currently exists. In
general, the academic literature on implementation of sustainability is thin, and there
remains room for considerable research in terms of both implementation and assessment
of urban sustainability. Little is known about how (or even whether) sustainability plans
actually affect outcomes. Saha (2009) takes an important step toward assessing how
31 
sustainability initiatives affect goals, and investigating factors that affect policy
effectiveness, but utilizes the data from a large indexing effort by a non-profit
organization, a source with significant weaknesses, as the main data about outcomes.
This study looks more directly at implementation, at much greater depth, and assesses
outcomes by city rather than relying on a large-scale index.
How are plans made?
The formulation of sustainability plans is not this study’s primary concern,
however it does emerge as a major part of understanding each case, and can be informed
by classic planning literature. The communicative planning literature is the most helpful
to this study. It focuses on the process of communication and on democratic participation
within planning, a deconstructed worldview that allows for the realities of fragmented
power and multiple goals and interests (Brooks 2002; Innes 1996). Some major
theoretical threads of communicative planning include, attention shaping
5
(Forester
1989), rhetoric (Throgmorton 1999), collaboration and consensus building (Innes 1996;
Susskind, McKearnan, and Thomas-Larmer 1999), and negotiation (Fisher et al. 1991;
Susskind and Ozawa 1984). The consensus building literature focuses on problem solving
through participation by stakeholders and the public (J. E. Innes 1996; Innes and Booher,
1999; Booher and Innes 2000; Booher and Innes, 2002; Margerum, 2002).
In planning for sustainable development, stakeholder participation and consensus
building are essential. As Campbell notes:
“The triangle shows not only the conflicts, but also the potential complementarity
of interests. The former are unavoidable and require planners to act as mediators,
but the latter area is where planners can be especially creative in building
coalitions between once-separated interest groups, such as labor and
environmentalists, or community groups and business. To this end, planners need

5
Based on the work of Jurgen Habermas (Brooks 2002)
32 
to combine both their procedural and their substantive skills and thus become
central players in the battle over growth, the environment, and social justice
(Campbell 1996).”

Certainly the process of designing a sustainability plan and the role planners take is
relevant to the ultimate effectiveness of that plan. Still, the larger question is how does
change occur (if it does) with regard to sustainability plans, and a broader approach to the
academic literature is necessary to grapple with this question.
How does change occur?
Any plan that is endorsed and adopted by the municipality is essentially a policy.
Although policy implementation is also not the central focus of this study, some policy
implementation literature can help inform the understanding of sustainability plan
implementation. From a classic policy implementation perspective, Sabatier and
Mazmanian argue that, “a statute or other policy decision seeking a substantial departure
from the status quo is most likely to achieve its desired goals under the following set of
conditions:
a) The enabling legislation or other legal directive mandates policy objectives which
are clear and consistent (or at least provide substantive criteria for resolving goal
conflicts).
b) The enabling legislation incorporates a sound theory indentifying the principal
factors and causal linkages affecting policy objectives, as well as the changes in
the behavior of target groups (the regulated) and other conditions necessary to
attain the desired goals.
c) The enabling legislation not only gives implementing agencies sufficient
jurisdiction over the target groups and other critical areas of intervention but also
structures the implementation process so as to maximize the probability that target
groups will perform as desired.
d) The leaders of the implementing agency possess substantial managerial and
political skill and are committed to statutory goals.
e) The program is actively supported by organized constituency groups and by a few
key legislators (or a chief executive) throughout the implementation process, with
the courts being neutral or supportive.
f) The relative priority of statutory objectives is not undermined over time by the
emergence of conflicting public policies or by changes in relevant socio-economic
33 
conditions which undermine the statute’s causal theory or political support”
(Sabatier and Mazmanian 1980).

Certainly these findings are useful in understanding what might lead to successful
implementation of a plan, at least as a starting point. However, the policy implementation
literature has evolved and spilt into newer branches, and an even broader perspective is
needed to understand the relationship between sustainability plans and outcomes.
From another, more contemporary, perspective, Manuel Pastor, Chris Benner and
Martha Matsuoka (2009) argue that change occurs through projects, policies, and power.
“Projects demonstrate what’s possible, policy make the possible standard operating
procedure, and power makes the policy happen” (Pastor and McMorrow, 2010). Chris
Benner and Manuel Pastor (Benner and Pastor, 2010) argue that change occurs when it is
rooted in “community pressures and politics.” They note that these findings flow from the
communicative tradition and approach to planning, but are informed by current
circumstances on the ground in cities (Benner and Pastor, 2010). Their particular
argument is specifically regarding regional equity, however it is also relevant to
sustainability planning. Pastor, Benner, and Matsuoka’s (2009) findings open the
possibility that the actual process of development of projects and policies, in combination
with social pressures to implement are what actually create change on the ground. They
also note that sometimes practice can outrun the academic literature, which is the case
with the development and implementation of municipal sustainability plans (Pastor,
Benner, and Matsuoka, 2009).
With specific regard to sustainability plans, Pastor and McMorrow (2010) note
that Portney (2003) uses the presence or absence of a citywide sustainability plan as the
34 
core metric for gauging a city’s relative seriousness about sustainability, and argue that
the presence of a comprehensive citywide plan with indicators seems to relate strongly to
recognized success in sustainability efforts (through indexed rankings). They also note
that several cities that score well in indexed sustainability rankings also rank high in
Berke and Conroy’s (2000) ranking of integration between general plans and
sustainability plans. While these are admittedly eyeball observations and indexed
rankings have acknowledged flaws, it still makes sense that “what gets measured often
gets achieved; what goes unmeasured often goes ignored,” and that the community
participation as well as the government accountability around plans could relate to better
outcomes over time (Pastor and McMorrow, 2010). While classic policy implementation
theory can perhaps inform elements of a greater understanding of the relationship
between sustainability plans and outcomes, newer literature around change on the ground
can add greater perspective to the picture.
Conclusion
The sustainable cities literature offers key definitions, including the sustainability
triangle, which are relevant to each city case study. The Santa Monica and San Francisco
plans deal directly with the definition of sustainability and the Three E’s; San Jose’s
Green Vision does not, however the early sustainability language that was its predecessor
does. In all three cases, the environment tends to take precedence on the ground, and a
return to a more balanced triangle could help bring economy and equity more to the fore.
In each case study, I closely examine the role of the Three E’s and how they play out in
the cities.
The literature also provides insight into the problems and potential solutions
35 
regarding urban sustainability, which I do explore by investigating outcomes, however, a
full study of each problem and solution in each city would require considerably more
space than is available here. Nonetheless, the interplay between detailed studies and
practice on the ground emerges in program areas such as zero waste (which incorporates
industrial ecology), green building, and green business. In many such instances, cities
follow existing studies on implementation approaches to improve their outcomes, and
conversely, academia studies the behavior of cities to investigate outcomes.
Policy implementation theory offers some structures for understanding elements
of successful policy implementation, and a more contemporary mix of literature around
planning and community organizing addresses the multiple forces that may create change
on the ground. This study offers new insight into the institutional governance effects of
urban sustainability plans, as well as the importance of community participation,
feedback, and accountability in implementing these plans.
Most importantly, this study adds to the literature around urban sustainability plan
outcomes, contributing a much more detailed examination of specific cities than currently
exists. It further provides a number of key lessons learned and an analytical framework
highlighting what makes a sustainability plan strong, which can be utilized by both
scholars and practitioners.
36 
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology

In order to investigate how urban sustainability plans and policies affect
outcomes, I utilize a comparative multiple-case case study design with three comparative
cases. The purpose of this design is to understand, whether, how, and why sustainability
plans affect urban sustainability outcomes in three cities. The major strength of the case
study approach is, unlike a large-scale outcome indexing and city ranking approach,
6
a
scholar can delve far more deeply into the detail of a city. While the indexing approach
can cover many cities and many outcomes, it does not address the why and how questions
behind outcomes change (observed through indicator movement), or even plan and policy
goals at all. With a case study approach, I differentiate between city goals, municipal
plans and policies, other community goals, outcomes, and indicators. The linkages are
highly complex and different in every city, and a case study approach captures these
details. The case study approach can also go deeper into difficult-to-quantify indicators,
such as social inequity. A combination of interviews, in-depth public document review,
and collection of outcome data from departments and other sources, provides data for my
case study analysis.
Strengths and Limitations
The strengths of the case study method overall, include both comprehensiveness
and detail of each case. The investigator can test different theories of sustainability
relative to a given outcome, and has the flexibility to uncover possible explanations that
were not initially anticipated, as well as to consider the explanations that combine a
number of factors. This can assist policymakers and decision-makers in understanding

6
For examples see: SustainLane City Rankings (http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/) or NRDC
Smarter Cities (http://smartercities.nrdc.org/rankings/large)
37 
their own situations relative to those in the case study. The case study method also allows
the investigator to study cities and systems that cannot be controlled, and thus cannot be
investigated with an experimental or other controlled method. The strength of the specific
multiple-case approach is the ability to compare and test theories simultaneously and
across cases.
The limitations of the case study method include fiscal and time constraints that
keep the number of case studies relatively low. The case study method also does not have
the quantitative precision of other methods, the control of the experimental method, or
the potential to be statistically generalizable. However, I do include in my final
discussion an assessment of the generalizability of the three plans, and assess that the key
lessons learned are indeed quite generalizable.
Unit of Analysis
The unit of study in this analysis is the city. Each case study is an embedded case
study, with units including larger policy contexts and some regional effects. The temporal
boundary of the study cases is the year of plan adoption (1994, 1997, and 2007) to the
present. For each city, I analyze the city’s sustainability plan and its formulation and
implementation over the noted time frame. I then compare the three cities. Important
similarities between the cities are presence of plan, age of plan, presence of indicators,
wealth, political leaning, and environmental leadership. An important difference between
cities is population. Research followed the following overall structure:
Phase I: Comparison city selection
Phase II: Santa Monica analysis – plans and outcomes
Phase III: San Francisco analysis – plans and outcomes
38 
Phase II: San Jose analysis – plans and outcomes
Phase III: Comparison analysis – plans and outcomes
Phase IV: Conclusions
Each phase is described here.
Phase I: Comparison city selection process
As described in the introduction, I narrowed my search to cities in California in
order to keep state and federal policy contexts constant for comparison, and chose Santa
Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose.
Phases II-IV: Data collection, city and comparison analysis
After the selection of the case cities, I developed and finalized my interview
questions. After clearing the institutional review board (IRB), I began my process of
contacting interviewees. Through email and telephone, I set up in-person interviews, and
conducted them from January 2012 through February 2013, following the following
protocol. I also conducted secondary research, mainly through online sources, about each
plan’s history, implementation, and outcomes. I simultaneously transcribed each
interview and began preliminary analysis of the cases as they began to emerge from the
interviews. Analysis involved a combination of in-depth document analysis (most
documents provided online), as well as in-depth interview analysis. As the cases began to
take shape, I was able to analyze across cases by creating simple matrices based on my
research questions and the data available. Most of my writing was done between October
2012 and April 2012.
Field Procedures: I utilized the following field procedures to arrange for data
collection (see Yin, 2009) and for site visits.
39 
1. Request for participation and presentation of credentials: conducted via telephone,
and/or e-mail.
2. Administrative handling of protection of human subjects: all clearances were
handled before site visits are scheduled.
3. Administrative organization of site visit: plans were worked out with site visit
contacts, and details arranged for site visits via e-mail and telephone.
4. Securing of other sources of data: any other permission to secure other sources of
data during site visits were secured before scheduling the visit.
5. Procedural reminders: any procedural reminders were arranged for interviewees
and interviewer.
Prior to site visits, the following issues and information were reviewed:
1. Case was screened and chosen;
2. Arrival time and date for site visit was established;
3. Food and lodging information for researcher was established;
4. Document analysis times and dates were agreed upon;
5. Alternative plans for unexpected changes were prepared;
6. Permission to look at or take copies of relevant administrative documents was
established;
7. All background research about the organization was complete.
Evidence: The following types of sources of evidence were analyzed: (Yin, 2009)
1. Public documents: policies and plans, administrative documents.
2. Other documentation: online information, indicator projects, and media
coverage to examine outcomes.
40 
3. Information from interviews.
Because I include multiple cases, I applied the cross-case synthesis technique (Yin,
2009). This technique was chosen to increase internal validity of a case study. Cross-case
synthesis was selected as an appropriate analysis technique because it is the best way to
understand potentially explanatory patterns across multiple cases.
I examined different elements of each case, such as the relationship between plan
and policy evolution and outcomes, and compare them across cases to identify any cross-
case patterns. Where possible, I present the findings in a word-table that captures the
basic relationships for the reader (Yin 2009).
The strength of this technique is the ability to see if explanations and relationships
identified in one case can also be found in other cases. Similarities and differences in the
cases illuminate larger patterns and help to answer larger questions that are relevant to the
entire study.
Outcomes were assessed both in terms of indicator metrics provided by the cities,
some of which were more easily quantifiable than others, as well as in terms of
institutional governance and cultural effects that emerged from the in-depth interviews.
My findings were generally in line with my initial expectations, however I did
find outcomes beyond indicator metrics to be more important than I had expected. I also
found that the prevailing culture and mindsets within the cities, as well as the cities’
relative wealth seemed to have to most to do with outcomes, while population and land
area of the cities seemed to affect outcomes less. I also found that plans themselves had
significant governance and cultural effects on the cities themselves. Ultimately, the
differences between the cities, particularly with regard to San Jose relative to Santa
41 
Monica and San Francisco, did play a significant role in affecting outcomes on the
ground. Further details are presented in each case study, as well as the chapter on Lessons
Learned.

42 
Chapter 4: Santa Monica Case Study

Santa Monica has a robust Sustainable City Plan that is a living, growing
document, and affects outcomes on more than one level in an ongoing way. The weakest
area of the Plan, as with all of the plans presented here, is equity, which seems to be the
hardest of the Three E’s to implement, measure, and to talk about. Still, much can be
learned from Santa Monica’s efforts and growing process since adoption of the Plan in
1994. Santa Monica’s Sustainable Cities Plan was initially developed by a Task Force on
the Environment, created initially by the City Council in 1990 to look at how the City
was doing with environmental issues. The Plan was developed by the Task Force, City
staff, and the Public Works Department in the early 1990’s and was adopted in 1994. The
initial Plan’s stated goal was to address sustainability in entire community and city
operations, although it really focused on city operations and the environment over
economy and equity in the beginning.
The Plan was updated once, revised once, and is currently being updated with 2010
data. It was updated in 2000 through a substantial community process over 15 months
reflecting on the 1994 Plan, and was expanded to have eight goal areas and improved
indicators. The updated plan more adequately addressed the Three E’s and improved
measurement tools for indicator targets. The update was adopted 2003, and the City has been
producing Report Cards every two years since then. The update process was extremely
helpful in catalyzing input and communication from different sectors of community; there
was no real ownership by community before that (the Plan mostly lived in the Department of
Public Works in the beginning). Initially, the Plan was implemented in a top-down fashion,
and gains were slow at first, with early gains driven mostly by the Director of the
43 
Department. During the update process, the Environmental Programs Division of the
Department of Public Works office moved to the City Manager’s office, and now the Plan is
more central to everything the City does. The following is a chart that outlines my
interviewees, including key players:

Table 4. Santa Monica interviewees
7

Name Role Date Interviewed
Shannon Perry Sustainable City Coordinator January 30, 2012
Russell Ackerman Water Resources Specialist, City of Santa
Monica
February 8, 2012
James
Velez-Conway
Senior Environmental Analyst, Office of
Sustainability and the Environment, Hazardous
Materials Management Section

February 9, 2012
Josephine Miller Environmental Analyst (Sustainable Packaging),
Office of Sustainability and the Environment

February 9, 2012
Brenden McEaney Green Building Program Advisor, Office of
Sustainability and the Environment

February 9, 2012
William (Bill) Selby Environmental Task Force Member; Professor of
Geography and Earth Science, Santa Monica
College

March 14, 2012
Dean Kubani Director, Office of Sustainability and the
Environment

March 15, 2012

7
Note: Would like to have reached Mark Gold.

44 
Matt Peterson Environmental Task Force Member; President
and CEO, Global Green

March 28, 2012
Craig Perkins Former head of Santa Monica Department of
Public Works

April 10, 2012
Genevieve Bertone Director of Sustainability at Santa Monica
College, Former Executive Director of
Sustainable Works
December 17,
2012

Initially, only the City Council and the Task Force were involved with the program,
but over time, the community, other departments, and other important entities such as Santa
Monica Community College have become involved in both updates and implementation. The
2000 update included all sectors, including Santa Monica College, the school district, the
Chamber of Commerce, Neighborhood Organizations, representatives from every
department, Council Members, and Task Force members. Now the business community is
also very involved. Currently, the office has a robust staff and a sustainability advisory team
with representatives from every department. Most people in the City are working on
sustainability in some capacity (including the police, etc.). The City also works with a non-
profit, Sustainable Works to facilitate business greening and sustainable lifestyle programs.
The Plan is limited to the geographic boundaries of the City, but interviewees
acknowledge that many things affect sustainability in Santa Monica, reflecting regional
realities. Air and water quality, affordable housing, as well as traffic are major examples.
Also, building materials, etc. in green building are affected by regional forces.
Success is measured by the City by indicators for each goal area to specifically track,
but the indicators change over time to reflect on-the-ground experience. Evidence reveals
45 
significant positive outcomes with regard to indicator targets. Success is also noted by
interviewees in less quantifiable ways, and institutional governance effects are also notable.
The Office of Sustainability and the Environment oversees implementation, although
other departments and the community also have a role in implementation. The City’s General
Plan reflects the Sustainable City Plan, which is a Council adopted policy. Municipal codes
have changed to align with the Sustainable City Plan, mostly related to building codes, as
well as zoning ordinances, and other internal city policies and council adopted policies.
The City has been making adjustments to the indicators ever since the Plan was
originally adopted. Challenges in data collection and participation affected the usefulness of
some of the original indicators; now the City tends to run pilot programs to test ideas.
Santa Monica wants to be a sustainability leader among other cities, and a committed
City Council unanimously passes most sustainability-related proposals. Having specific
goals, indicators, and targets, and reporting on them are key to the Plan’s effectiveness.
Reporting on targets to City Council has catalyzed action, i.e. the existence of an urban forest
goal led to the creation of an urban forest program for public trees, a community forester
position, database, and Urban Forest Task Force and Master Plan.
Overall, the data from in-depth interviews and secondary research indicate that,
indeed, Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan does affect sustainability outcomes, in a
positive way. The Plan is a living document that affects everyday implementation at the
staff level. The Plan affects outcomes in terms of measurable movement of indicators, as
well as at the institutional governance level. Significant cultural and institutional changes
toward sustainability – both the idea and in behavior – are apparent from the evidence,
both throughout the City government and throughout the City itself.
46 

Table 5. Key findings in Santa Monica

Key Finding Santa Monica findings

What makes a sustainability plan strong is
“The Three P’s:” people, programs, and
purpose.

The Plan is carried out through the Office
of Sustainability and the Environment,
which is linked to specific policies, and by
the staff members implementing related
programming. The larger urban culture of
wanting to be an environmental leader
drove outcomes.

Operationalizing “The Three E’s” of
environment, equity, and economy is
crucial, and while all three take effort,
equity is the most difficult.

The equity indicator targets could further
be refined and strengthened, overall policy
and program efforts improved, particularly
with regard to housing prices and
gentrification.

The incredible absence of planning and
planners
No names of planners were brought up as
key players in the formation and
implementation of the Plan. A number of
goal areas do touch the Planning
Department, and the process of integrating
the goals into the general plan is under the
purview of the Planning Department.

The weakest part of Santa Monica’s Plan is social equity, which is included in the
Plan language, but has the least robust indicators and outcomes, and seems to be the most
difficult for interviewees to address. The City does make real efforts toward improving
equity, and the issues raised highlight the complications and tensions around equity that I
continue to explore in subsequent chapters.
In assessing outcomes of the City of Santa Monica Sustainable City Plan, it
becomes clear that indicator targets are difficult to design, and outcomes are difficult to
measure. Even for targets that are relatively easy to measure, designing and implementing
programs to move indicators in a positive direction over time is no small task. From the
47 
in-depth interviews, the depth of complexity and need for multiple staff people to move
even a single indicator, is significant. In analyzing the overall set of goal areas,
indicators, and targets, the difficulty in even designing meaningful indicators and targets
that have useful data attached also comes to light. For all goal areas, the underlying
question of what are the most representative indicators emerges as a major issue. For goal
areas such as housing and human dignity, the question of how and what to measure still
looms large. The outcomes presented by the City also illustrate both how much can be
accomplished over two decades, and at the same time just how much effort is required to
develop a fully-functioning set of indicators and targets. Older indicators that existed
before the 2006 update appear to be more fully developed than newer indicators, which
still need better programs and data. However, a significant amount of tangible,
measurable outcomes from the Sustainable City Plan are evident. Less quantifiable
outcomes also came up a great deal in the in-depth interviews, which are also extremely
important in terms of institutional and cultural effects. One challenge of measuring and
presenting outcomes is that not all targets can be traced directly 100% back to the
Sustainable City Plan. However, one can reasonably assess to a certain degree that in the
absence of the Sustainable City Plan, many of the changes that have occurred would not
have occurred, illustrating the foundational importance of the Plan affecting outcomes.
Overall, however, Santa Monica’s Plan is strong, and is brought to life by people,
programs, and purpose. The general culture and commitment to sustainability both
through the community and through City Council, the mayor, and city staff, drive the
progress that the City has made so far. And the progress on many fronts has been
significant in the relatively short time since its adoption. The commitment by the City
48 
shows up in the funded programs and ongoing efforts by City staff to implement and
move the Plan forward.
While the indicators themselves are limited and constantly evolving, success can
clearly be assessed at other levels beyond simple movement of indicators. Beyond the
movement of indicators targets, evidence further suggests that the existence of the Plan
itself, and the design of the Plan with clear goals, indicators, and targets, has increased
sustainability in a number of ways, including:
1. Existence of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment
2. Internal structure of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment
3. Increased awareness and promotion of the idea of sustainability in staff and
community
4. The studying and mimicking of Santa Monica’s Plan by cities worldwide

First, the existence of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment and its
place in the City Manager’s Office at the center of Santa Monica’s municipal workings,
is a direct result of the existence of the Plan, as well as the priority placed on
sustainability over simply environmental concerns by the City Council. Second, the
internal structure of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, particularly the job
titles and roles of staff members, directly reflects goals and indicators set forth in the
Plan; in other words, staff members are charged in their jobs with working toward the
Plan goals, and thus carrying out the Plan itself. Third, the existence of the Plan, along
with the outreach and education component, have directly affected in increased
awareness, acceptance, and promotion of the idea of sustainability in City staff and
members of the community. This acceptance and promotion of the idea of sustainability
directly affects behavior of individuals and overt actions that move toward increasing
sustainability in the City. Fourth, while difficult to measure, the role of Santa Monica as a
49 
leader and educator in urban sustainability has inspired the creation and design of
sustainable city plans in other cities around the world, and has increased awareness of the
role of urban sustainability in a state, national, and global context.
People, Programs, and Purpose

In Santa Monica’s case, the ongoing desire to be a leader in sustainability drives
outcomes through the behavior of the community, the staff, the City Council and the
Mayor. The founders created something with very little precedent in the country and
helped it evolve into what it is now; a living policy document that concretely affects
sustainability outcomes in Santa Monica in a number of ways on multiple levels.
The existence of specific indicators and targets, and tracking with accountability is
extremely powerful for movement toward sustainability, both in terms of behavior and
outcomes. Also, the backing of City Council for political and institutional legitimacy allows
for the effectiveness of indicators and targets. This strategy was embedded in the Santa
Monica Sustainable City Plan from the beginning, with the intention of stating clear goals
and opening the process of moving toward these goals with transparency in the municipal
government. The entire structure of implementation through the Office of Sustainability and
the Environment in Santa Monica flows from this original design and statement of municipal
intention.
Operationalizing the Three E’s: all three are hard, but equity is the hardest
Still, one major limitation of the Plan lies in addressing one leg of the stool: equity.
Although the Plan language does include equity, and although the Plan’s goal areas now
include Human Dignity and Housing, implementing work around equity has proven to be a
major challenge.
50 
Funding is an ongoing limitation, although Santa Monica has a relatively large budget
for a city its size. Municipal siloing also still poses a problem, but the move to the City
Managers Office and the support of the City Manager and Council helps in overall success.
Partnering with other departments like schools, libraries, allow for spreading the word on a
shoestring budget, and community outreach and education continues to be a key element to
success.
As a small city with high property values, Santa Monica faces the challenge of
gentrification, which affects the availability of affordable housing, a major equity issue at
the urban level. Unfavorable changes in state law as well as regional economic changes
out of the City’s immediate control also affect social inequity within the City’s borders.
While the City has a number of programs and policies, many of them quite progressive
when compared to other cities, it still struggles to address inequity effectively. The equity
indicator targets could further be refined and strengthened, overall policy and program
efforts improved to strengthen Santa Monica’s approach to increasing equity on the
ground. This challenge runs through all three case studies, and through my research I
further investigate what makes equity so hard to deal with through a sustainability plan.
Planners and planning
Finally, in Santa Monica, a more overarching observation is that urban planners,
and the Planning Department did not play a central role in the formation of the plan. A
number of goal areas touch the Planning Department, and the process of integrating the
goals into the general plan is obviously under the purview of the Planning Department.
Still, throughout the interviews, nobody recommended that I speak with anyone in the
Planning Department, and no names of planners were brought up as key players in the
51 
formation and implementation of the Plan. While planning certainly plays a role in the
life of the Sustainable City Plan, the Department of Sustainability and the Environment
really is the central force overseeing the Plan. While each city’s history is different, and
each city is organized differently, the opportunity for greater involvement by planners as
leaders and architects of such an important large-scale planning process seems clear. The
following is a list of interviewees, their title/role, and the date interviewed.
Overall, the evidence indicates that Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan has
affected and does affect sustainability outcomes in Santa Monica. To some degree, the
only notion of “success” laid out before data were collected, was the movement of
indicators in a positive direction. However, a richer notion of “success” developed over
the course of this research. Still, the evidence from this case study is quite clear that Santa
Monica’s Sustainability Plan does achieve measurably movement toward sustainability,
both with regard to the movement of indicators, as well as with regard to more qualitative
outcomes.
Although I find that the design and use of indicators, even for seemingly
straightforward and quantifiable goals, continues to be challenging for Santa Monica, the
evidence still is clear that significant quantifiable movement has been made toward
sustainability that can generally be attributed to the Plan and its effects. Although many
indicators have moved in a positive direction, and some goals have inspired almost
radical levels of problem solving and action, the existence of the Plan, and the process of
developing the plan in an iterative process with the community have without a doubt
affected sustainability outcomes in the City of Santa Monica. For example, the goal of
reaching water independence by 2020, which seemed unthinkable 20 years ago, now
52 
looks potentially attainable (Selby 2012; Ackerman 2012; Velez-Conway 2012).
Similarly, the urban forest indicator had no framework for implementation when it was
created, and now there is an Urban Forest Master Plan, database, and a staff person in
charge of the award-winning Urban Forest program (Perry 2012).
In short, one could ask, ‘in the absence of Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan,
would things be the same?’ And the answer indicated from the evidence uncovered in this
research, is ‘no.’ Some of the efforts that are carried out under the Plan would have been
carried out without the plan, but not all, and certainly not in the relatively organized and
coherent manner with purposeful overlap and communication between departments in the
City and sectors in the City. The idea of sustainability itself, the existence of a coherent
plan, and the intention behind the stated goals of the Plan, serve to affect behavior of
individuals both in the municipal government and throughout the community, in solving
problems and pushing toward greater sustainability within the City.

 
53 
How was the Plan Developed?
Plan history: what were the processes?
Interviewees provided a great deal more detail of the history of the Plan than is
currently provided by the City of Santa Monica online. Naturally, those closest to the
process of the original creation of the Plan, Dean Kubani, Shannon Perry, and Craig
Perkins remember the process in detail, while those working on implementation of
specific program areas generally have a limited knowledge of the process. They tend to
understand the general background story of the creation and evolution of the Plan, but not
the specifics.
The City of Santa Monica created a Task Force on the Environment in 1991,
8

which was “a group of seven citizens appointed by the City Council” (Perkins 2012)
charged by the Council with assessing “how the City was doing with respect to various
environmental issues” (Kubani 2012). The results they found were mixed; the Task Force
reported that the City was doing well in some areas and not in others (Kubani 2012). “A
part of what happened in the first couple years of the Task Force being formed was for
them to discuss and prepare a future vision for Santa Monica related to environmental
issues and programs and policies” (Perkins 2012). The City wanted to link the various
“green” practices into a “strategic, results-focused, sustainability plan” (Perry 2012).
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero inspired founders with the idea of a
comprehensive sustainability program; the Task Force recommended that the City “do a
comprehensive program based on sustainability,” and City Council recommended that
they move ahead with designing the program (Kubani 2012). Throughout 1993, members

8
For more information on the Task Force on the Environment see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Task_Force_on_the_Environment/Task_Force_on_the_Environm
ent.aspx
54 
of the Task Force on the Environment as well as staff in the Public Works Department,
“worked with City staff, they had public meetings, got input from the public, and
developed a draft, which was adopted in September ’94” (Kubani 2012). At that time,
Craig Perkins was the Environmental Programs manager in the Environmental Programs
Division, which was part of the City Manager’s office and served as a liaison to the
Environmental Task Force. As Perkins describes it,
“As a part of that discussion, the recommendation was arrived at that the City
needed an overarching plan vision, and that became the proposed Santa Monica
Sustainable City Plan. And that first document was drafted by myself and a
couple of my staff members on the Environmental Task Force. And there were
some public workshops and some discussions internally where they interacted
with other City departments, and ultimately that was presented to the City Council
for review, adoption, and they adopted that first Sustainable City Plan in the fall
of 1994” (Perkins 2012).

Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program was adopted September 20, 1994, from the
initial 1992 proposal made by the Task Force on the Environment (Ci. of Santa Monica
2006).
Who was involved?
The Task Force on the Environment, as well as City staff in the Department of
Public Works and other departments, worked with the public through a series of meetings
to put the 1994 Sustainable Cities Program together. Several interviewees identified
Craig Perkins, Environmental Programs Manager in the Department of Public Works,
and Mark Gold, Director of Heal the Bay and Chair of the Task Force on the
Environment at the time, as the main driving forces behind creation of the Plan (Perry
2012; Perkins 2012). According to Shannon Perry (2012), the key players were, “the
champions on the Task Force on the Environment, the Chair of which is Mark Gold, he
was the head of Heal the Bay at the time,” as well as Craig Perkins. Perkins lead the way
55 
with the notion that, “yeah a municipality can do this, we’re going to make this happen”
(Kubani 2012). Dean Kubani also identifies Perkins and Gold as, “the two driving forces
in the Sustainable City Plan,” and notes:
“I think that a lot of the initial success of the Sustainable Cities Plan of it being
established and building up to where it was so it could be expanded was largely
through their efforts. Because Craig was such – he was a highly placed City
representative, and had the influence and authority to make things happen within
the government – that helped to move things along very quickly. For instance, his
– he controlled the Public Works budget and with that started things like the
greening of the City’s fleet, very comprehensive storm water programs, solar
programs, electric vehicle programs, energy efficiency works, so within internal
operations, he was able to really start steering the ship of Santa Monica in a more
sustainable direction. And then, likewise, Mark Gold from outside was a voice in
the community that was really promoting sustainability, so I think those were
really the two kind of driving forces behind it” (Kubani 2012).

As the Plan was being developed throughout 1993, Perkins transitioned from the position
of Environmental Programs Manager to Director of Environmental and Public Works
Management, taking a department head role. The Environmental Programs Division was
moved into Department of Public Works, changing the name to the Department of
Environmental and Public Works Management (Perkins 2012). When the Plan was
adopted, the City concurrently created a position called Sustainable City Coordinator to
manage the Plan, which was originally occupied by Dean Kubani, and is currently
occupied by Shannon Perry.
Craig Perkins also identifies Mark Gold as being a key player in the creation of
the plan, as well as “the core City staff people – that were originally in the Environmental
Programs Division” of the Department of Public Works and the Environment. Perkins
also identifies Environmental Task Force member Robert Gottlieb who was a Santa
Monica resident and at that time was an adjunct professor at UCLA or somewhere, but
now he’s at Occidental College,” as well as other members who “had significant
56 
credibility and presence and were either leaders or were integrally involved in the various
environmental initiatives in our community and outside our community” (Perkins 2012).
The other individual members of the Task Force on the Environment, as well as some key
City Council members including Denny Zane and Judy Apto (Perry 2012; Kubani 2012),
and some community members including Robert Gottlieb (Perry 2012; Perkins 2012)
contributed a great deal to the creation of the program. Perkins also highlights the
importance role of the City Council in supporting the nascent program:
“In addition, there were very importantly a couple of very strong champions on
the City Council that really made sure that the Environmental Task Force was
created and gave a lot of support to the concept of the City needing a
sustainability plan and that was Denny Zane and Judy Apto. Those were the City
Council member/mayor since the mayor position rotates and they were key
champions in terms of making sure the City Council supported and gave the
appropriate direction to the City Manager and City staff. Because quite frankly,
Santa Monica wouldn’t have been able to accomplish what it’s been able to
accomplish without very strong support from City Council. You’ve got to have
both the pressure from above and push from below – so you need champions
within the organization but you also need that support and leadership both by the
City Council and the City Manager” (Perkins 2012).

Craig Perkins describes the overall process:
"It was the convergence of like minded individuals at the City staff level, at the
community activist level, the Environmental Task Force and at the City Council
level. All – there were champions in each of those areas – each of those buckets,
that believed that that approach was the right approach. And that they wanted to
make sure that what they did was significant, that it wasn’t business as usual, that
this was Santa Monica’s opportunity to differentiate itself and really to take a
stand – to draw a line in the sand. We’re going to believe in this, we’re going to
commit to it, and somebody’s got to start with what that proposition” (Perkins
2012).

Perry notes, “Our community was really and continues to be very active in the
sustainability discussion, as is our City Council. Our City Council has identified
sustainability as one of the top five priorities in the budget for years and years and years,
and that has been really valuable for us" (Perry 2012) Although the community was
57 
involved through public meetings in the creation of the initial program, Dean Kubani
describes the evolution of community involvement from the first program through the
update process in 2000:
“And we’ve been since that time, actually a few years after that update was
adopted, which was in 2000 – 2001, we’ve been producing a Report Card and the
Sustainable Cities Progress Report which is online for the indicators, and have
been tracking much more closely how we are doing in sustainability in all these
different areas. So that process was very helpful in catalyzing input and
participation from different sectors in the community. The first iteration of the
Sustainable Cities Plan was developed kind of in isolation, I mean there was
really this Task Force of City staff – we had public meetings – but there was no
real ownership of it by the community sector. So it was always like ‘that’s
something the City’s doing within the City,’ and within the City it was like,
‘that’s something the Public Works Department is doing.’ Now, by going through
this whole update process and having all different sectors of the community kind
of create this new plan, there was a lot more buy in” (Kubani, 2012).

Kubani continues to describe the effect of the update process on the larger sense of
community buy-in, including more participation from the business community:
“So now I think the adoption of that updated plan, I think has helped to catalyze a
lot of what is going on in Santa Monica right now with – you know the business
community is doing a ton of stuff on sustainability – the conventional Business
Bureau…The Santa Monica College has a sustainability office; the school district
doesn’t have a sustainability office, but they’re doing, you know, they’re
incorporating pieces into their plan as they can…And I think just in general the
awareness and participation by the businesses and members of the public in the
community is really ramped up. So that has been helpful and here we are today”
(Kubani, 2012).

Overall, the update process from 2000-2003 ramped up the plan from a smaller scale,
more internal program to a citywide plan with expanded goals and indicators.
How is the plan structured? What about the update process in 2000-2003?
The Plan evolved a great deal from its initial 1994 form, through an update
process in 2000 to 2006 and into its current form. The major update with new indicators
was adopted February 11, 2003, and the Plan was revised October 24, 2006 (Ci. of Santa
58 
Monica 2006). The initial Plan included the goal for the City of Santa Monica “to meet
its current needs – environmental, economic and social – without compromising the
ability of future generations to do the same” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006). While the focus
of practical work stemming from the Plan in the first several years was primarily
environmental, the initial Plan language highlighted economic and social concerns, and in
time, especially with the 2000 update, that language was expanded and translated into
tangible action on the ground. Shannon Perry notes, “When our Plan first started, we
focused primarily on the municipal operations and primarily the green leg of the
sustainability stool, now we focus on both municipal operations and the community as a
whole, and we focus on economic vitality and social equity as well" (Perry 2012). As
Dean Kubani explains, practical limitations affected the scope, reach, and focus of the
initial Plan:
“So the original Sustainable City Plan was adopted in 1994, it focused – the stated
goal of it was to address sustainability throughout the entire community and
within the city operations – in reality it was much more heavily focused on city
operations, and it was – although it talked about environmental, social, and
economic sustainability, it was primarily focused on environmental sustainability
at that point. The reasons for that was the City couldn’t really do it all at once, and
so the Task Force on the Environment being the Task Force on the Environment,
said let’s focus on environmental issues first, and let’s focus on the City as a
leadership - taking a leadership role for the rest of the community” (Kubani
2012).

The initial four goal areas were “1) Resource Conservation, 2) Transportation, 3)
Pollution Protection and Public Health Protection, 4) Community and Economic
Development” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).
After six years of the Plan’s existence, the update process reflected the need to
update the initial indicators and assess the effectiveness of the initial Plan overall.
According to the history included in the Plan itself, the 2000 update process started with
59 
the formation of the Sustainable City Working Group, “a large group of community
stakeholders that included elected and appointed officials, City staff, and representatives
of neighborhood organizations, schools, the business community and other community
groups,” which met over 15 months (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006). Through the update
process of 2000-2003, the parties involved with the development and implementation of
the Plan evolved to include more parties, including members of the community. Dean
Kubani describes the basics of the update process:
"The original Sustainable Cities Plan had four main goal areas…And there were
some indicators and targets, the base line was 1990, the target date was 2000. So
when we got to 2000 we had to update the targets. We undertook a big
community process to update the whole Plan, and we invited in community
leaders from all sectors – so Santa Monica College, the school district, Chamber
of Commerce, neighborhood organizations, representatives from every
department in the City, Council members, Board and Commission members. This
big group of kind of thought leaders in the community; and worked with them
over 15 months to – number one look at – here’s the plan we adopted in ’94 –
what do we like, what don’t we like, what’s working, what’s missing – that type
of stuff. So out of that process, we expanded the plan to have eight goal areas”
(Kubani 2012).

Craig Perkins describes in general terms the expansion and evolution of the goals
and scope of the Plan overall:
"Yeah, well, the original Plan looks very different from what it does now. It was a
smaller footprint if you will. I mean the concept, sort of the guiding principles and
all that – those are very similar – they’ve been expanded a little bit, but the actual
scope of the Plan was much narrower. The current plan has a much broader scope,
which has even been broadened since I’ve been gone, but all consistent. It’s not
like there’s been anything contradictory, it’s just been an evolution, a maturation
and evolution as, not only as Santa Monica has learned from doing and as the
community has – the interests of the community have evolved but also as the
external environment. Meaning the political environment the economic
environment, just the whole sort of consciousness-raising in terms of
environmental issues, concerns about quality of life and you know resource
protection. That has changed around us and so what’s really satisfying about
what’s happened in Santa Monica is as we – early on came up with these areas of
emphasis and goals and targets and what the right course of action that the City
should be taking because it was the right thing to do – has created a lot of places
60 
that have caught up with us and those radical or stretch goals and policies and
codes have subsequently been adopted broadly. And Santa Monica then has had
to make – strengthen them or go in different directions to stay in the leading edge,
and there’s just a number of areas where that’s been the case" (Perkins 2012).

The initial four goal areas were revised and expanded to “1) Resource Conservation, 2)
Environmental and Public Health, 3) Transportation, 4) Economic Development, 5) Open
Space and Land Use, 6) Housing, 7) Community Education and Civic Participation, 8)
Human Dignity” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).
The Plan’s Statement of Purpose reads: “Created to enhance our resources,
prevent harm to the natural environment and human health, and benefit the social and
economic well-being of the community for the sake of future generations” (Ci. of Santa
Monica 2006). The Plan has specific indicators for each goal area, broken into System
Level Indicators and Program Level Indicators, with 2000 as the baseline (Ci. of Santa
Monica 2006). The following Guiding Principles are outlined in the Sustainable City
Plan:
1) “The Concept of Sustainability Guides City Policy
2) Protection, Preservation, and Restoration, of the Natural Environment is a High
Priority of the City
3) Environmental Quality, Economic Health and Social Equity are Mutually
Dependent
4) All Decisions Have Implications to the Long Term Sustainability of Santa Monica
5) Community Awareness, Responsibility, Participation an Education are Key
Elements of a Sustainable Community
6) Santa Monica Recognizes Its Linkage With the Regional, National, and Global
Community
7) Those Sustainability Issues Most Important to the Community Will be Addressed
First, and the Most Cost Effective Programs and Policies Will be Selected
8) The City is Committed to Procurement Decisions which Minimize Negative
Environmental and Social Impacts
9) Cross-Sector Partnerships are Necessary to Achieve Sustainable Goals
10) The Precautionary Principle Provides a Complimentary Framework to Help Guide
City Decision-Makers in the Pursuit of Sustainability” (Ci. of Santa Monica
2006).
61 

To measure success, the Plan has specific indicators for each goal area, broken
into system level indicators and program level indicators, with 2000 as the baseline (Ci.
of Santa Monica 2006). “System level indicators measure the state, condition or
pressures on a community-wide basis for each respective goal area. Program level
indicators measure the performance or effectiveness of specific programs, policies or
actions taken by the City government or other stakeholders in the community” (Ci. of
Santa Monica 2006). The Plan has two supplementary documents to assess progress: the
Sustainable City Progress Report, and the Sustainable City Report Card. The former is
online and breaks down the individual indicators, and the latter summarizes progress in
general terms (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006). Dean Kubani discusses the role of needing
better indicators to more accurately assess progress toward sustainability as being central
to the update process:
“And there were a number of indicators for each of those goal areas that were
developed. That was part of that process to really specifically track how well we
were doing towards sustainability. One of the things we found from the
implementation of the initial Plan was that the indicators that we had were not that
specific or they didn’t really tell us how we were doing in a good way – so we
tried to revise those and develop ones that, number one we could measure, and
number two that told us something specific about the goals that we set. So out of
that process we developed I think a more robust Plan that more adequately
addressed environmental, economic, and social sustainability. And gave us some
better tools to measure how well we were doing” (Kubani 2012).

Along with the change and expansion of goal areas and indicators, the name of the Plan
itself changed during this update process, reflecting increased engagement and an
expansion of community concerns over time. According to the history included in the
Plan, “the change in name from Sustainable City Program to Sustainable City Plan was
made to better reflect the long-term comprehensive nature of Santa Monica’s vision and
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the community’s effort to become a sustainable city” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).
At the same time, the program’s office was moved from the Environmental
Programs division into the General Manager’s Office, situating implementation of the
Sustainable Cities Plan at the center of city government rather than the periphery.
Shannon Perry explains,
"It’s really unique. The Office of Sustainability (our office) started off in Public
Works, now we’re in the City Manager’s Office, and we are both in charge of
managing the Sustainable City Plan and doing all of the reporting, and so our
sustainability section really focuses on that, and then we have developed these
specialty sections, so we have a sustainable procurement expert and we have a
household hazardous waste specialist, and we have a watershed management
specialist who really sort of work as consultants to the other City divisions and
departments to help them do the implementation” (Perry, 2012).

Dean Kubani describes the process of the move and its important implications:
“One other change that helped with the evolution of our Sustainable City Plan
was that our office, the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, we used to
be called the Environmental Programs Division, and we were in the Public Works
Department. Now we’re in the City Manager’s Office, which is central to the
organization, I report directly to the City Manager and what that’s done is that
allows us to make sustainability much more integral to everything the City does.
It’s not just the Public Works Department doing it, it’s this is what the City does.
And I have access to all the department heads with the City Manager’s stamp over
my shoulder so they listen more. So I think that’s been very helpful in really
integrating what we do, and we’ve been fortunate that the City Manager’s Office
has been very supportive of sustainability, because our City Council is pretty
much every time we’ve gone to Council with sustainability stuff they are voting
unanimously to move ahead with you whatever we’re supporting. So Council has
been very supportive, too" (Kubani, 2012).

This change was a fundamental shift in the format of implementing the plan, and created
a system where each department liaises with the Department of Sustainability and the
Environment and answers to the authority of the General Manager’s Office. This
practical change reflected a philosophical shift from just getting things rolling with
whatever could be done, focused primarily on the environmental goals, to embracing the
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holistic concept of sustainability, reaching from the heart of the municipal government
throughout all departments and spreading implementation to economic and social goals.
James Velez describes the change from the ground level as experienced by staff
members:
“I mean it’s going to be tough, within, you know, the actual infrastructure within
the organization, to sell it to everybody, but I think most departments are sold,
and then we were restructured and reorganized, as we used to be the
Environmental Programs Division, and then we became the Office of
Sustainability, and we were part of Public Works and then we were moved into
the City Manager’s Office. There’s a shift definitely, of the Plan becoming more
like a policy document” (Velez, 2012).

These major changes in the Plan have held and developed further since the update of
2000-2003, presumably reflecting the success and effectiveness of the revision and
reorientation of implementation of the Plan.
Do other plans and policies change? What is the interaction with other plans and
policies?

In all, the General Plan reflects Sustainable City Plan, which is a Council adopted
policy, and the General Plan is updated every time an element is updated. The Office of
Sustainability and the Environment works closely with Planning Department, and the
General Plan Elements mirror or go further in more detail than Sustainable Cities Plan.
Municipal codes have indeed changed because of the Sustainable City Plan, mostly
related to building codes, as well as the zoning ordinance, internal city policies and
council adopted policies. There is a good deal of overlap between plans, although there is
minimal conflict and, according to the interviewees, departments work together well.
Goals are actually achieved by council approving things in pieces, i.e. purchasing
biodiesel or approving an energy efficiency plan.
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In Santa Monica, the Plan is Council adopted policy, separate from the General
Plan and other plans. Shannon Perry explains the strategy behind the City’s approach to
creating the Plan as a policy that is officially separate but practically linked to the
General Plan.
“A lot of people put their Sustainability Plan into their General Plan or as an
optional element of their general plan here in CA, and the benefit to that is that
it’s legally binding. The downside to it is – it might be 20 years before you can go
and update it because it is legally binding. So what we decided to do here is, our
Sustainable City Plan is a Council adopted policy, totally independent from our
General Plan. And the reason for that being, we can update it when we need to.
We can change the indicators when we have to, we can, it’s a little bit more
nimble and flexible. That being said, because we understand the value and utility
of having legally binding environmental goals and requirements, what we do is
we’ve integrated the targets in the Sustainable Cities Plan into our Land Use Plan,
our Circulation Element, our Housing Element, and our Conservation Element. So
that’s how we kind of do both” (Perry, 2012).

The heart of the strategy lies in the tradeoffs between legal authority and flexibility. The
founders of the Plan chose to prioritize flexibility, while incorporating legal authority
over time by integrating parts of the Sustainable Cities Plan into the General Plan. This
approach also allows the Plan to stand as a separate and individual document that can be
referred to specifically, rather than being absorbed by other documents and policies.
Perry also explains how the Sustainable Cities Plan is separate from the City’s Climate
Action Plan but linked within certain elements of the General Plan, allowing autonomy
for each plan as well as flexibility, while still linking them to the legal authority of the
General Plan:
“The other thing is a lot of people look at their – a lot of sustainable cities plans
and green city action plans are also used in communities as their Climate Action
Plan – and one of the things you’ll see there is whether the Climate Action Plan is
tierable. And what that means is can you tier off it for a CEQA analysis, and for
us we didn’t want to run our entire Sustainable City Plan through CEQA. We
integrated our Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target into our Land Use – we did a
whole chapter on greenhouse gas emissions in our Land Use and Circulation
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Element, and then we ran that through CEQA. So now you can tier off our Land
Use and Circulation Element for greenhouse gas emissions for CEQA. That’s just
an example of kind of how we tie our council adopted policy to these legally
binding tools" (Perry, 2012).

Dean Kubani echos Shannon Perry’s description with added detail:
"They are separate plans, but they are – we’ve been linking them sort of all along.
So the Sustainable City Plan is a City Council adopted policy. So theoretically,
the City Council, you know, next month could decide, “we don't want to do this
anymore” and vote to get rid of it. There’s nothing in the Sustainable City Plan
that’s legally binding or requirement or anything like that, it’s just Council said
we want to do this and we want to make these goals. However, our General Plan,
which is, as you probably know, there – legally mandated by the state, every city
has to have a general plan with certain elements in it – land use, circulation,
conservation, housing, blah blah blah. We – some cities update those all together,
all the different elements in the one go and they update them every 10 or 12 years.
We tend to update the elements in the individually. And so as we’ve updated our
elements, the Open Space Element was the last updated in 2002-2003 – Housing
Element gets updated every five years. The Council last year just adopted the
Land Use and Circulation element, which is kind of a big, general plan-type piece
of development that’s going to go on the City. As those have been updated, we’ve
worked closely with the Planning Department and through the community process
to incorporate sustainability. So if you look at the Land Use & Circulation
Element you’ll see – similar sustainability goals and metrics – that mirror and in
some cases even go beyond what’s in the Sustainable City Plan, in a kind of more
fine-grained level of detail. And so basically that’s how we’ve linked it. Council
adopted the policy and then as we’ve updated our General Plan we’re
incorporating this policy into it and making sure we’re consistent" (Kubani,
2012).

Bill Selby (2012), of the Environmental Task Force, takes a much bigger-picture stance
with regard to the relationship between the Sustainable City Plan and the General Plan:
“If it’s not – the most important part of the General Plan then we’ve failed. If you’re not
sustainable then what’s the point of – what’s the point? It goes for our lives, too doesn’t
it? If we don’t try to be sustainable, which means, I think, living a long, healthy life, then
you’re not going to live a long healthy life, you’re going to die. Cities are the same way.”
With regard to other ordinances, Shannon Perry notes the “umbrella” nature of the
Sustainable Cities Plan:
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“Well, the Sustainable City Plan is sort of the, it’s more the umbrella – because
yeah we have a sustainable procurement policy and we have a landscaping
ordinance and we have an irrigation policy and we have a housing policy and we
have all kinds. We have Bike Master Plan, we have an Urban Forest Master Plan
– so the Sustainable Cities Plan doesn’t try and be all of those things. What it does
is set a vision for the community that those things illuminate in more detail”
(Perry, 2012).

Craig Perkins illuminates the process and strategy behind the way the plan is designed to
interact with related ordinances:
“That was always how we thought about both creating and implementing the Plan
was, how do all these dots connect? How do all these pieces fit together? And so
their – one of the – the first generation of the Plan was to pull together the
programs and policies that were happening in a siloed manner, bring it under one
umbrella, and have a unified vision and start thinking about how the whole is
greater than the sum of parts. How to have better coordination, better
collaboration, more effective and cost effective implementation approaches. And
so as we went forward, there were various initiatives which occurred under the
umbrella of the Sustainable City Program, and I’ve given a few of those
examples. In 1997, the Council adopted an Alternative Fuels Policy, and the way
that that was characterized then, was that this is an element of the Sustainable
City Plan. They adopted the Santa Monica Energy Independence Plan and here
again that was framed as being an element of the Sustainable City Plan, in that it
would help – both those things would help achieve the goals and targets of the
Sustainable City Plan. Green building policy guidelines – I think the green
building guidelines we call them – that also was characterized as a component of
the Sustainable City Plan and this is how it was going to help us achieve those
goals and targets” (Perkins, 2012).

He describes the importance of the existence of the Plan in providing a rationale for
related ordinances to be adopted by Council in the future:
“And a lot of other examples similar to that, that had occurred over time and so
when staff goes forward to the City Council and proposes a lot of times a new
code and new initiative. Another great example is our storm water – we adopted a
model storm water management pollution control ordinance and a fee – a user fee
for the storm water system in our water quality initiatives. And here again that
was one of the goals and targets of the Sustainable City Plan and that’s the way
that it was presented and justified to the Council – and so as those things come
forward, you know it’s been very helpful to be able to say that this code that -
this proposed code this proposed program – this proposed policy is consistent and
in keeping with the direction that you the council have given us in the Sustainable
City Plan. So you go to the council and get them to adopt what sometimes is an
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undefined – general set of goals and targets because they weren’t all defined – and
when you come back you say – this is consistent with what you already adopted
and so you know you should do this because you want to achieve - you want to be
able to accomplish what you adopted in the Sustainable City Plan. So that really
has been the master strategy to be able to describe all those initiatives as being
consistent and being within the vision of the Sustainable City Plan. There’s
nothing more persuasive than to be able to stand in front of the City Council and
be able to say, ‘you know here’s this thing and you need to adopt it because this is
what you said you’d do.’ And so a part of that may sound a little simplistic, but
you know, the world actually operates pretty simply most of the time. City staff
can be very consistent when they need to be” (Perkins, 2012).

In short, the existence of a more general council adopted policy greatly facilitates the
process of adopting ordinances that further the goals of the Sustainable Cities Plan. This
dynamic is ongoing, continually permeating new legislation.
Shannon Perry also notes that ordinances have not only been inspired and
facilitated by the existence of the Sustainable City Plan, but that ordinances have also
changed because of the plan: “Our Urban Forest Master Plan, has changed significantly,
our Land Use and Circulation Element – all of them are really done with an eye toward
achieving the goals of the Sustainable Cities Plan" (Perry, 2012). Dean Kubani also notes
that ordinances have changed and describes a number of examples:
"I think – yeah – the municipal codes changed. And that’s been primarily through
– a lot of it related to building codes. As we’ve – originally before LEED was
developed, we were actually working on our own green building rating system –
so developing our own thing, and then LEED came along and so we stopped. But
we started modifying the building code to promote sustainable construction, so.
And we’ve been updating that every few years and adding more and more
requirements for that – you know requirements for solar, for energy efficiency, for
water efficiency, those types of things. The zoning ordinance, which is really the
implementation piece of the General Plan of land use type stuff, has been
modified to address sustainability. And over the years we’ve adopted various
policies; either administrative policies which our City Manager says, “thou shalt
not buy bottled water – all paper has to be 100 post-consumer recycled – those
types of things, and other Council adopted polices. So I mean, really the way that
the Sustainable City Plan goals are achieved is that staff in my office and in other
departments go to Council and say we want to buy X: we want to do this, and then
Council approves it in pieces. So it might be purchasing biodiesel for the next
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three years, or approving some sort of energy efficiency plan, so I mean you can
kind of get the picture" (Kubani, 2012).

When implementation staff members were asked whether their work interacts
with the General Plan, or other plans or policies, they all note some overlap with other
plans, policies, and departments. They all, however, see their jobs as stemming directly
and specifically from the goals of the Sustainable City Plan. Task Force member Matt
Peterson (2012) says, “Yeah…we do but more on an ad hoc basis. You know we say, we
want, you know, development agreements to come our way, and look at them through the
lens of the Sustainability Plan and our focal points. Certainly the Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Plan is more of a direct outcome of the Sustainable Cities Plan. It’s more
directly related, so we’ll get regular reports and try to make sure we’re on target with
green building policies and ordinances,” Josephine Miller (2012) says, “I think if we’re
doing our job well it has to have a great effect on other departments and the community,"
and also notes that she considers the greenhouse emissions of the work she does and the
way it relates to the GHG plan.
James Velez says that he does not deal directly with the General Plan, but that his
work interacts with different departments at times on specific overlapping issues:
"Not so much – I mean lately – the other area that I work on which is not directly
related to hazardous materials is the zero waste program. So we’ve been working
with R3, which is Resource Recovery and Recycling – a lot of people know it as
solid waste, but they changed their name to R3. And they’re the one, really, that’s
not necessarily spearheading but they’re the point department for the strategic
plan, the Zero Waste Strategic Plan, and the – that is one other specific little plan.
The Zero Waste Strategic Plan that we’re directly involved with making sure that
they don’t greenwash, making sure they’re moving in the right direction, toward
zero waste by a certain year. And they’ve kind of helped to steer the discussion
and they help to report back and forth to the Task Force on the Environment. But
the General Plan, not so much. I don’t get involved with the General Plan”
(Velez, 2012).

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Velez continues to describe a specific plan around the Bergamot Area Plan, as well
as other sub-plans that function under the umbrella of the Sustainable City Plan:
“One other plan that’s out there is the Bergamot Area Plan, and that’s to make
way for the new light rail system that’s coming in. And we have a project out of
the city yards, at Bergamot Station, where we’ve had groundwater contamination,
and so we have a whole string of wells out there that’s removing MTBE and TCE
so we’ve recently had to remove a few wells to make way for the light rail. But
besides that, just providing the information and making decisions. But I guess,
you know that’s part of the overall Plan, you have to be flexible there. The other
Downtown Area Plan not so much, and then the Strategy for a Local Economy –
not really involved with that, although I’m sure at some point Shannon might
want some information from us. The Climate Action Plan is something that I’m
not sure if it’s still on the table. It’s something that Shannon’s been working on.
And especially when it comes down to the zero waste and what’s ending up in
landfills. That a lot of organic material that generates methane is of concern, so
eventually those two plans will have to communicate somehow” (Velez, 2012).

With regard to his work interacting with other departments, Brenden McEneany says,
"You know, it’s interesting because the – you know we sort of geeked out about
this a lot and ways to think about it. But you know, you can think about these
plans in some ways about environmental issues and so is it climate change, is it
lack of water, is it air quality, but then on the other hand there’s really more of a
dimension of what is the market sector – so is it buildings, is it transportation you
know, is it operations, and you know. So I’m in this – I’m running this program
that’s green buildings which ends up touching a lot of different environmental
issues, but other folks work on just say water resources that then touches a lot of
different sectors so they kind of map over different ways, but in terms of what, the
green building policies directly relate to the land use and circulation element of
the general plan, um, they relate to building codes, so yeah, we overlap with
several areas, not only within the Office of Sustainability but other city
departments quite a bit” (McEneany, 2012).

When asked if there are conflicts or gaps between existing policies and plans, Brenden
McEneany answers,
"Sometimes, there are. We try to resolve those, I mean those are always good to
find out, but I would say one of the more - it’s not even frequent, it’s just one of
the more visible examples that we’ve seen is things – maybe like some things in
the zoning code that conflicts with solar panels for example. So there’s a
requirement in our zoning code that any mechanical equipment on the rooftop has
to be screened. So – it’s intent of that is so you’re not driving around the city and
seeing like air conditioning units and whatever just cluttering the rooftops, but
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you obviously don’t want to shade solar panels. So, you know, when things like
that come up we’d go in a figure out how do we tame the intent of whatever the
policy, code or requirement was, but then we kind of make it friendly for green
practices. So there are some places where they’re in conflict, but I think
everybody’s – so far everybody’s been on board with trying to resolve those"
(McEneany, 2012).

Task Force Member Bill Selby sums up the larger picture by noting the importance of
crossover and integration of the sustainability idea and the City’s sustainability goal with
all of the departments and individuals throughout the municipal government:
“I think that’s one of the most important things that’s happened I mean it’s one
thing to have an Environmental Task Force advising the City, that’s fine, but the
question is now – how do our efforts get incorporated into other offices? And not
even – just take the big city out of it – the big seat – how about the people who
live here? How about the businesses who do business in Santa Monica, are they
being sustainable? And so I think that that’s – I do think that that’s one of the –
we’ve got a long way to go there but I think it’s one of the biggest successes that
we’ve had and probably the hardest by the way. Because you take someone in
planning who might by chance, like from the old school maybe, and they don't
know much about – they might question some of these efforts that we’re making.
But once they understand what sustainability is and what we’re really trying to do
I think they’ll realize, oh yeah, this is what we’ve been trying to do for years. It’s
not different from what my job was – it’s just – it better articulates what I’ve
been trying to do all along. Anyway I think that most people in the City get it and
I think most people who don’t even work in the City get it now. It’s a big deal”
(Selby, 2012).

Indeed, while the Plan is large and robust in itself, it does overlap with other plans and
policies in a strategic way. It gets integrated directly into the General Plan in an ongoing
manner, and spurred some smaller plans, such as the Urban Forest Master Plan. It also
touches a number of relevant policies and reaches across departments. Santa Monica,
does not, however strategically collect its relevant polices in an ‘Environment Code’ the
way San Francisco does, and desired outcomes are imbedded in the Plan itself, rather
than in the policies, as I find in San Francisco. Ultimately, integrating a sustainability
plan into a larger municipal framework is complex and each city finds a unique way to
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solve this problem. Santa Monica focuses on keeping the Plan centralized in the City
Manager’s Office, as well as integrated into the larger General Plan.
How does the Plan define sustainability? Does the Plan affect all three E’s?

Santa Monica’s Sustainable Cities Plan refers indirectly to the Brundtland
Commission definition of sustainability and environmental, economic, and social needs in its
introduction, purpose statement, and first guiding principle. The first guiding principle reads,
“The Concept of Sustainability Guides City Policy: Santa Monica is committed to meeting its
existing needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. The long-term impacts of policy choices will be considered to ensure a sustainable
legacy” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006). It does not include a specific section where it grapples
with the definition of sustainability, however the word sustainability and the concept run
throughout the Plan’s ten guiding principles.
Equity grew as a concept within the language and goals of the Plan during its 2000-
2003 update process, however moving the equity goals forward has proven to be the most
challenging of the Three E’s in Santa Monica. The third guiding principle reads:
“Environmental Quality, Economic Health and Social Equity are Mutually Dependent:
Sustainability requires that our collective decisions as a city allow our economy and
community members to continue to thrive without destroying the natural environment upon
which we all depend. A healthy environment is integral to the City’s long-term economic and
societal interests. In achieving a healthy environment, we must ensure that inequitable
burdens are not placed on any one geographic or socioeconomic sector of the population and
that the benefits of a sustainable community are accessible to all members of the community”
(Santa Monica, 1996). The following is a table of Santa Monica’s eight goal areas, organized
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by the Three E’s. Several goals certainly reach beyond one category, such as Transportation
and Environmental and Public Health, however I organized them according to what seems to
be the primary focus of the goal area. The Community Education and Civic Participation
goal area is more general, and so I left it outside of the chart.

Table 6. Santa Monica Three E’s
Equity Economy Environment

Housing

Economic Development

Resource Conservation
Human Dignity Transportation

Environmental and Public Health

Open Space and Land Use

General: Community Education and Civic Participation

Clearly, the goal areas, when organized by primary focus area, skew heavily toward the
environment. Of course, some goal areas are more robust than others, so this chart is only
intended to be a simple eyeball assessment to help think about the Three E’s and the
organization of the Plan. However, a closer look at the goal areas does reveal that the goal
areas with the most clear, well-developed, and reported on indicators do fall under the
environment category. The outcomes also indicate the progress has been faster and more
positive moving in the environmentally focused goal areas as well.
From the in-depth interviews, those involved with the Plan clearly do care about
the issue of equity, and a few are able to talk about equity efforts by the City, but equity
does emerge as the most difficult of the Three E’s to address. Those at higher
administrative levels were able to talk more about the evolution of the Three E’s in the
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Plan, while those at the staff implementation level mostly talked about their individual
jobs, which generally dealt with the environment, and in some way with the economy,
but not equity. Shannon Perry notes,
“Concurrently, the City created a position that manages the Sustainable City Plan.
So that’s my role, the Sustainable City Coordinator. When our plan first started,
we focused primarily on the municipal operations and primarily the green leg of
the sustainability stool, now we focus on both municipal operations and the
community as a whole, and we focus on economic vitality and social equity as
well” (Perry, 2012).

Perry describes the inclination of the community to continue to expand to reach areas
beyond just the environment in Santa Monica:
“Yeah so our Plan, it probably could have been simpler if we had just stuck to the
Three E’s. And then for a while people were like, ‘Oh no in Santa Monica it’s five
E’s, it’s environment, it’s economics, it’s equity, it’s community engagement and
education.’ You know, but really our Sustainable Cities Plan is broken out into
eight areas, and the reason the Three E’s are broken out into the eight areas is
because they are sort of the operational areas that the municipal government and
the community operates. You know people don’t wake up and say I’m going to
engage in the environment today, or I’m going to engage in the economy today, or
I’m going to do something for equity. Right so we started to look at it and we
thought, ok, there’s resource conservation, there’s environmental and public
health, there’s housing, there’s transportation, there’s open space and land use,
there’s community education, civic participation, and there’s human dignity. And
of course those are sort of artificial delineations. And you can see in our Plan we
created this matrix that shows how one indicator actually affects more than one of
those goal areas, but in terms of operational efficiency, those kind of work for us.
We’re actually going to Council in a few months to have a ninth goal area, which
will be the community and cultural arts. Because more than half the people who
live in Santa Monica report earning their income in the cultural arts, we decided
that it would be useful to develop a goal area that really looked at those from the
environmental and economic end, and equity perspective. So we’re working on
that” (Perry, 2012).

Dean Kubani discusses the practical reach of the Plan to social and economic areas through
implementation that involves parties beyond just the Office of Sustainability and the
Environment:
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“If you look at our goal areas, you know there are things like you can’t be a
sustainable community if people don’t feel safe. So the public safety, the police
and the fire department are that. And you know, human dignity is a part. You
know, if people need – people are homeless and people don’t have jobs, and
people don’t have education, you can’t have a sustainable community. So there
are a number of staff that are working to provide, and job train, working with non-
profits around housing and homeless services and those things. So, basically,
there’s a lot of stuff that happens outside of my office that is promoting overall
sustainability goals and we just kind of coordinate it all. And then we are the ones
who are collecting data and then reporting on it and kind of telling the story of it "
(Kubani, 2012)

Kubani continues to describe some of the partnerships with organizations and businesses
to balance out the government role in promoting the Three E’s:
“And then, we also work with a non-profit called Sustainable Works; they work
as a contractor for us to do business greening program and a residential program,
student program. So these are, you know, how can you operate your business
more sustainably – and then sustainable lifestyle programs for the people who live
in the community. They do a lot of outreach events, and those types of things with
us. We work very closely with the Chamber of Commerce. We have a lot of
stainable quality awards program for businesses every year. We’ve developed a
Green Business Certification Program in conjunction with the Chamber, in
connection with the Visitors Bureau and Sustainable Works. So that’s were we
put – we evaluate businesses on how green they are, if they meet the standard,
they get a sticker and promotion and all that kind of stuff. We’ve also tied in with
the Chamber of Commerce on buy local campaigns and basically anything to
promote sustainable local economy. So keeping money here, reinvesting in
businesses in the community, and trying to attract businesses that operate
sustainably. So there’s a lot of people involved" (Kubani, 2012).

Kubani further describes the way in which focus of the Three E’s stretches beyond the scope
of the Plan into other departments, and that earlier efforts have been incorporated into the
work of the Plan:
"We have – I think the – with respect to the various goal areas and the goals that we
have, we’ve stayed pretty true to those throughout the program. I think we do have a
strong focus on all three of the E’s. We have a very good alliance with the business
community and the Chamber of Commerce – as well as business districts. My office
works very closely with our Housing and Economic Development Department on
promoting sustainability. We’re linked in with the farmer’s markets that promote
sustainable food – and, you know, keeping the community and all of that. So on the
economic side it’s very strong. On the equity side, Santa Monica was – has been
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strong even before the Sustainable City Plan was adopted. Santa Monica’s Council
was very socially and environmentally responsible for the last 40 years. They have
been very strong at promoting affordable housing, homeless programs, and then
services for the underserved. The City gives out lots of grants to all sorts of different
organizations that are, rehabilitation of drug and alcohol, job training, senior services,
child services; the City’s had a robust program for years with that kind of stuff. We
just, as part of the Sustainable Cities’ Plan, that’s been incorporated into just the
narrative of what we do. And that’s been ongoing and strongly supported by the
community" (Kubani, 2012).

On the ground, Brenden McEneaney notes that he focuses on environment and economy, and
considers equity to be addressed by other departments in the city:
"They definitely all touch the programs that I work on – but it would be more
environment and economy – are the focus – and part of that is because the equity
portion of buildings is addressed by other City departments. So if you look at
things like affordable housing, or housing for seniors or transitional housing or
homeless housing or things like that – we have City departments that kind of
consider those issues for the most part – so more of my focus in the economy and
the environment" (McEaney 2012).

Also on the ground in implementation, Josephine Miller also focuses on the environment and
the economy, “I just think we – this notion in order to be stewards of the environment, there
is a prejudice that you can’t do it in an economically viable way, and I think it’s part of our
job to make sure we can. That it’s doable. Right now” (Miller 2012).
In all, the Plan does have some language around and focus on the Three E’s, and they
are certainly reflected in the goals, indicators, and targets. Most of the focus of the Office of
Sustainability and the Environment is on the environment, secondarily the economy, and
issues of equity are mostly the focus of other departments. Certainly, the Department of
Housing and Economic Development, and Human Services Division (in the Department of
Community and Cultural Services), and the City in general do have a number of more
general policies and programs in place to promote equity. Still, the goal areas and indicators
in the Plan that focus on environmental resource conservation are the strongest, with
76 
economic goals areas the next strongest, and equity indicators and targets lagging behind. My
investigation of outcomes reveals real challenges with both measuring equity and moving
equity indicator targets forward. For example, the indicators in the Human Dignity and
Housing goal area are all either and upward or downward trend, or the target isn’t developed
yet, rather than having hard targets as some of the other goal areas do. In the Housing goal
area, no Report Card grades are yet provided. The City does, however, note the challenges
outside of its control, such as changes in state policy, as well as what it is trying to do to
improve the situation:
“Since 1999, the city has lost the affordability of more than half of its rent
controlled housing units due to state-mandated vacancy decontrol. The controlled
housing stock affordable to low and very-low income residents continues to
decrease from 86% before state-mandated vacancy decontrol in 1999 to 40% in
2006. This factor, combined with sustained upward pressure on real estate prices,
has severely reduced the availability of affordable housing. However, the city’s
progressive legal protections, such as the just-cause eviction protections in rent
controlled units, have contributed to keeping 40% of the controlled units
affordable to low and very-low income tenants. In addition to preserving the
existing stock of affordable rental units, the city is investing in the development of
new affordable housing. The Housing and Redevelopment Division financed
almost $16 million for the production of more than 60 units of affordable housing
in three projects. Design development for the Civic Center Village is underway
and will include at least 160 affordable housing units. The consistent grade
reflects the continued loss of housing affordability while recognizing the
significant accomplishments being made in both retaining existing and providing
additional housing units affordable to low income residents”
9
(Ci. of Santa
Monica 2012).

Unfortunately, the reality on the ground in Santa Monica does certainly reflect a great deal of
inequity, and increasingly in the years since the Plan was first adopted. With positive
economic development in some areas of the City, gentrification has become a major
challenge to equity in Santa Monica. The City has notably been criticized for a lack of

9
For Availability of Affordable Housing source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Housing/H2_HousingDistribution.xls
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affordable housing, and the presence and its handling of a chronically homeless population.
In 1996, the City was even sued for alleged illegal arrest and harassment of chronically
homeless individuals (“City of Santa Monica Is Sued for Its Throwback Policy of Treating
Disabled Homeless People as Criminals” 2013). At the same time, the City does have
committed programs, policies, partnerships and resources directly committed to addressing
homelessness,
10
which is unfortunately a great deal more than most cities even attempt. The
City also does work closely and very supportively with a number of non-profit affordable
housing developers. This issue highlights some of the major tensions around equity: social
inequality is difficult to handle and talk about politically, particularly with regard to race and
class, and can be extremely difficult to affect on the ground, which makes it politically risky
to commit to measuring and improving. A city can make significant efforts toward equity and
still struggle to talk about and improve the situation. A city can also have conflicting policies,
such as progressive affordable housing policies and police force polices that serve as
harassment tactics to move homeless people away. Also, forces beyond the political
boundaries of a city, such as the larger economic situation, and state and federal policies, add
to the complexity of uprooting social inequality in a city.
In general, when asked about the Three E’s, the interviewees focused mostly on
environmental links to the economy and touched some on equity. The ones who did talk
about equity, stated that the City is strong equity in general, but mostly did not pin down
progress in the equity-oriented goals of the Plan. The interviewees do note that the Plan
continues to evolve with a greater focus on issues beyond simply environmental resource
conservation, and indicators are improving to better capture progress in these areas.
Ultimately, acknowledging that equity is the weak leg of the sustainability stool begs the

10
See: http://www.smgov.net/portals/homelessness/
78 
larger question: sustainability for who? Throughout this study, I continue to probe this
question and try to develop some insight and possibly solutions around this issue.
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How is the Plan Implemented?
The Office of Sustainability and the Environment oversees implementation of
programs to work toward reaching the goals, with the major focus of most of the office
staff on environmental goals and indicators rather than economic and equity goals, which
are handled more by Shannon Perry, Dean Kubani, and other departments (Kubani 2012;
Velez-Conway 2012). The implementation staff roles include: Hazardous Materials,
Energy, Green Building, Communications & Environmental Education, Integrated Pest
Management & Sustainable Purchasing, Watershed Management/Urban Runoff,
Underground Storage Tanks, Water Efficiency & Landscape, Landscape & Irrigation,
and Sustainable Packaging (C. of Santa Monica 2013). Craig Perkins describes the
structure of implementation with the initial Plan before the update:
“In that original Plan, the key implementers were particular City departments that
had responsibility over those in those program areas that were related to the goals
and targets. And I think that there were five major program areas and most of the
goals and targets were in the resource conservation area. So that would have been
water, solid waste, and energy. And then there was a transportation element so the
Big Blue Bus line in the Planning Department in terms of zoning and land use
transportation policies. And then there was key participation by the Open Space
Management Department, because you know some of the goals and targets related
to available public open space…and habitat and all those other sorts of things. So
really, not every department, there were I would say three or four key
departments. A department I was in charge of was the most important because my
department had responsibility for the water system, wastewater system, solid
waste collection, the City’s vehicle fleet other than the bus lines, and all the
facilities and maintenance and the engineering and construction of new buildings
and infrastructure. So those four – three or four departments were the key
implementers, but the overall coordination and direction was out of the
Environmental Programs Division which was in my department, with obviously
the support of the City Manager who is the executive of the City” (Perkins 2012).

Through the process of expanding the goals and indicators of the Plan, the structure of
implementation also expanded.
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Dean Kubani describes the updated structure of implementation of the Plan, as it
stands in 2012 after the most recent update in 2000-2003:
"Ok, so implementation is primarily my office. We have – and we oversee or take
the lead on the majority of the environmental things. We have an energy and
green building section that works on those areas – both within the City
organization, so whenever we’re building a new building we’re working with the
architects and the engineers to make sure they’re as green as possible. We have an
energy section that’s working internally on energy efficiency, but also in the
community on various promotions of those types of things. We have a Solar Santa
Monica program, we have a water office that promotes water efficiency, and
works very closely with our Public Works Department on storm water, keeping
the Bay clean; all of those kinds of things. We do have some regulatory functions
in there…so most of what I’ve talked about are sort of traditional, environmental
functions of a City” (Kubani 2012).

According to the City’s website,

“The Office of Sustainability and the Environment is responsible for developing
and implementing policy initiatives that promote local environmental, economic,
and social sustainability and integrating resource management, conservation, and
sustainability practices with ongoing City operations. Regulatory activities are
related to hazardous materials and waste site cleanup, consumer awareness,
ozone-depleting compounds, water conserving plumbing fixtures, urban runoff
management, leaf blowers, plastic bags and non-recyclable food service
containers.

Additionally, the Office oversees the implementation of the Solar Santa Monica
program that seeks to achieve energy self-sufficiency by integrating energy
efficiency and solar in most of Santa Monica’s buildings, offers water efficiency
programs to residents and businesses, provides assistance to the public with all
aspects of green building, and provides sustainability training to residents,
students and businesses. The Office also manages the Household and Small
Business Hazardous Waste program for the safe recycling and disposal of
hazardous wastes” (C. of Santa Monica 2013).

The following is a table illustrating the roles of various departments relative to the Plan
goal areas:
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Table 7. Santa Monica goal areas and departments
Goal Area

Department/Agency/Office
Resource Conservation

Office of Sustainability and the Environment (in City
Manager’s Office); Department of Public Works

Environmental and Public
Health

Office of Sustainability and the Environment (in City
Manager’s Office)

Transportation

Planning and Community Development Department

Economic Development

Housing and Economic Development Department

Open Space and Land Use

Planning and Community Development Department
Housing

Housing and Economic Development Department

Community Education and
Civic Participation

Community and Cultural Services Department
Human Dignity

Housing and Economic Development Department;
Human Services Division (in Department of Community
and Cultural Development)

Kubani further describes the reach of the Office of Sustainability and the
Environment beyond the Office itself, through collaboration with other departments:
“Santa Monica’s fortunate for being a small city to have a pretty robust staff. We
also have staff that work on – kind of like consultants to other departments – so we
set up a sustainability advisory team, which is internal to the City organization.
And there are representatives from every department on that team, and they are the
main liasons for the department on how do they promote sustainability. And my
staff here, work with those reps to help them green their department. So basically,
the City Manager said, ‘what are you doing to promote sustainability, within your
department or through your operations, you know through your interactions with
the public,’ and we work to help them do that. It really varies depending on what
the department is. For instance, you know the Transportation Department, or the
Big Blue Bus, is working on alternative fuels for their buses, using green cleaning
products, making their new facilities LEED certified, those kinds of things. Other
departments, that are, like Human Resources for instance, that are essentially
dealing with paper and computers and stuff, they’re – they work on energy
efficiency around all their computers – buying recycled paper – you know those
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kinds of things. So it varies depending on what the department is, we work with
the library and they are in contact with the public, so they’ve done a lot of public
outreach with the presentations on various aspects of sustainability. They have a
sustainable book section of the library and a whole resource list, they do films,
they do you know, whatever, and host workshops and those sorts of things. So
there’s every department’s doing different things, but my office is a liaison to each
of those and help to promote those things. So I mean, in effect most people in the
City are working on implementation in one way or another” (Kubani 2012).

Perry continues to describe implementation beyond the Office of Sustainability and
the Environment:
I think a really interesting thing about the Plan and its mechanics in terms of its
implementing is our office exists sort of as a consultancy to the different divisions
and departments in the city, but we don’t see implementation of the Plan as our
job – because it’s a council adopted policy, implementation of the Plan is
everyone’s job. All the divisions and departments in the City are responsible for
owning and internalizing and actualizing the elements of the plan the they’re
responsible for – as are our community members, because they were very active
in the process, we have a lot of indicators that the municipal government cannot
affect exclusively, so we work with our neighborhood groups, we work with the
school districts, we work very closely with the college, and then we work with the
other divisions and departments collectively. So my office isn’t going out there
and trying to determine what trees to plant in the city, but we are working with the
folks in the parks department, and with the folks in the urban forest task force to
make sure that the trees we’re planting are meeting our sustainability criteria, and
are looking at both age and diversity of tree species and all kinds of things like
that” (Perry 2012).

The success of these efforts is measured primarily through indicators with relevant targets
that reflect each of the stated goal areas in the plan.
At what political and geographic level?
The Sustainable City Plan of Santa Monica is limited to the geographic
boundaries of the City of Santa Monica, 8.3 square miles, although several interviewees
noted that many things affect sustainability in Santa Monica that are outside the political
boundaries of the City (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006; Perry 2012; Kubani 2012; Selby 2012;
Velez-Conway 2012; Miller 2012). Regional issues, such as air and water quality,
83 
affordable housing as well as traffic are major examples, as well as building materials,
etc. in green building.
Shannon Perry notes:
“Our area of emphasis is the 8.3 square miles that is the City but a number of our
goals and our indicators and indicator targets are directed at regional issues. So,
homelessness and congestion are regional issues, so we have these indicator
targets that are really what we call “aggressive but achievable,” that the City
itself, we could never achieve the indicator target on our own. So if you look at
congestion, in some ways water quality, air quality, affordable housing, the jobs-
housing balance, all of these…even though our sphere of influence is only 8.3
square miles, when you start to look at these kind of larger social and economic
indicators, it’s hard to keep them isolated to the geographic region" (Perry 2012).

Staff leads, implementation staff, and members of the Task Force on the Environment,
generally had similar takes on the issue of the boundaries of the Plan. Craig Perkins
discusses the scope and scale of the plan and its indicators:
"The plan just covers the 8.3 square miles of Santa Monica, so it covers the
boundaries that are under the control of the City. And one of the key factors or
key values that we tried to incorporate into the Plan was – it doesn’t make any
sense to set goals and targets for those factors that you don’t have control over.
And so that original Plan had 16 numeric indicators and those indicators all
pertained to policies or issues that could be influenced by city-adopted policies
and programs. And that was what we could control within our boundaries. But
very importantly, the plan acknowledged that Santa Monica is not an island, and
it’s a pretty small footprint – 90,00 people – a pretty small drop in the bucket in
terms of the metropolitan Los Angeles Southern California population. And so
there was a very strong focus on the need for Santa Monica to understand what
was happening outside of the boundaries of the City and to become a positive
influence or an influential player in terms of regional and state and broader
policies dealing with the environment or environmental issues. And so that has
always been a key element of Santa Monica’s efforts - and to reach out and to try
to influence what’s happening regionally and statewide and even nationally. And
even sort of the global component – sort of an acknowledgement that we need to
share and learn from what’s happening outside of the US boundaries which is
oftentimes much more significant than what’s happening within the boundaries"
(Perkins 2012).

James Velez also discusses the layers of reach and influence of the Plan, including
regional, state, national, and even global levels:
84 
"It’s supposed to govern the City of Santa Monica but, having a sustainability
background, I understand that it goes well beyond our borders – it spills into the
City of Los Angeles and it spills into the whole region. Also the state, fortunately
for us in Santa Monica because we were one of the first I guess to adopt a
sustainability plan, we get a lot of visitors from overseas who are looking to adopt
plans and so you know it has a very international kind of effect as well. But you
know, we think of sustainability in terms of our ecological footprint and so we
understand that sustainability goes beyond our borders – it’s the whole world.
And the US in general – the resources that we consume and we’re part of - not
only in the US and in California, we’re one of the 10 largest economies in the
world, so we have a huge impact on resources around the entire planet. So yeah, I
mean, so it goes well, well beyond Santa Monica and we’re very aware of that"
(Velez-Conway 2012).

Josephine Miller, staff in charge of sustainable packaging, notes the importance of the
regional context and the coastline, as well as the reach of being a model plan: “I just think
again, with the Plan, we really have to take into account the responsibility of good
stewardship and modeling. And obviously, being on the coastline, you know it’s not just
eight square miles and that responsibility, which is affected by all of LA County, forces
us to look past the 8 square miles” (Miller 2012). And Brenden McEneaney, who works
in green building, notes the regional nature of building materials and real estate markets
inherent in his work: "It’s the city limits of Santa Monica, but it kind of changes
depending on – geographically it doesn’t change that much. I was thinking there was
some focus on LEED, when you think about what can we actually directly control, what
can we influence via public policy, and it’s like these or other tools, so municipal
construction is one thing, and then there’s all the private sector construction that goes on.
You could argue though, that some of what I work on in green building extends beyond
the City boundaries because of where materials are coming from, where there’s
construction demolition waste going to from the job site – so those are things within the
City boundaries, but they’re affected by kind of a regional market" (McEaney 2012).
85 
Task Force member Bill Selby takes a more bird’s-eye philosophical view on the
reach of the plan, but also notes several specific examples of the limitations of political
boundaries, including borders between cities and the unbounded nature of the natural
environment such as with watersheds and airsheds:
"We don’t have any jurisdiction outside the City boundaries, and all we are, we’re
a Task Force. We’re an advisory group; I mean we have no power. We just advise
the City Council on what we think they should do. Having said that, every City
Council person knows that we’re surrounded by Los Angeles. We’ve got Venice
on this side West LA on that side, and the Pacific Palisades. That’s Los Angeles
so, our efforts and our actions have to take into account that there’s a larger entity
that has an enormous impact on us. So kind of getting to your question, we don’t
have jurisdiction outside our City boundaries, and you know that, but we also
have to be working with like the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los
Angeles and Culver City and other entities nearby, because, how can you clean up
the Bay if we just clean up our act in Santa Monica. SMURRF, which you may
know about, Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility, that’s accepting
water that’s coming down Pico, it’s not just coming off of Santa Monica streets,
it’s coming from the surrounding area and beyond Santa Monica, so, you know
it’s an interesting question. Where does our juris – where is our boundaries?
Wow. How do you answer that? We know what our political boundaries, what our
legal boundaries are, but the efforts that we’re making go far beyond that. You
know it’s the watershed of Ballona Creek, the watershed, you know the water
flowing on Pico, we have the airshed, you know, we’re pumping water out of our
aquifer and drinking it again. But that aquifer doesn’t just come from Santa
Monica. If somebody in West LA has a leaking gas tank that gets into our water
supply, that’s our water supply. But we only have jurisdiction within – you know
to change things within our border. It’s an interesting question. It’s more complex
than it seems…You know the tragedy of the commons, right – shared air, water so
in nature there aren’t any boundaries" (Selby 2012).

In all, the Plan only directly reaches the municipal boundaries of Santa Monica, however
most interviewees noted that the reach of the Plan goes beyond the City’s boundaries.
How do we measure sustainability?
The founders of the Plan viewed indicators as essential for progress to be made in
concrete ways toward sustainability, and as necessary for credibility of the Plan. Craig
86 
Perkins describes the philosophy surrounding the development of the initial indicators
and the rationale behind having indicators at all:
"Very, very, important fundamental element of the whole discussion in Santa
Monica and the creation of the plan and the subsequent evolution and
modification of the Plan, was a strong position that there had to be measurable
outcomes as a part of the Plan. That, if you didn’t have outcomes that could be
tracked and measured, that it was nothing more than a PR document. And so, that
has always been a core principle of the Plan and so therefore over time, initially
and over time we’ve come up with pretty aggressive goals and targets. And – but
here again it’s much easier to come up with those specific goals and targets in the
more traditional areas – and we have also come up with specific goals and targets
for open space, and some of the community engagement and participation areas
but those are always more difficult – but that has been – without that, I would say
that everything that we would have done would not have been real meaningful. I
mean, basically then, it’s just a lot of policy discussion without any roadmap or
any mileage signs as to – where are you getting? Where is this getting you? And
other communities – this has always been my critique of other Sustainable City
Plans which have been adopted by other communities – that if you don’t put your
reputation on the line that it’s not just that this is a good thing to do – but here’s
what we’re committing to – as a target to achieve. And that’s a politically risky
proposition for elected officials and for City staff people particularly” (Perkins
2012).

Perkins describes an example of how central these aggressive indicator goals are in
implementation of the Plan, in assuring progress toward sustainability, and in the central
nature and purpose of the Plan to be a living document that is a practical tool for moving
toward concrete sustainability outcomes:
“I remember distinctly in the first Plan, there was really strong opposition from
the person who was in charge of the Big Blue Bus. Because we put in that original
Plan, a numeric target for increasing bus ridership. I think it was in the initial Plan
I think it was a 5-year and a 10-year target. And he was just adamantly opposed to
that. Because well what if we don't achieve it. And I said, well, you’re going to do
the best you can, and if you don’t achieve it, then you don’t achieve it and you’ll
say what needs - you’ll understand or you’ll propose what needs to happen to
change that. And the City Manager basically had to make the call and he said
we’ll leave it in. And as it turned out they got twice as much as the target at the
end of the day, but that’s the political dynamic because you’ve got to ask yourself,
and this is in any bureaucratic organization: what’s in it for a staff member, for an
appointed staff member, or an elected official to commit to a specific target which
somebody from the outside is going to be able to see whether they achieved and
87 
hammer them if they didn’t achieve it. You know, that’s a risk. And too many
organizations just punt on that, because you know you’re not going to do anything
where they can tie you to having not accomplished something – well, that’s sort
of a definition for how you’re going to plan to fail. And so, that was a very
fundamental principle within the Sustainable City Plan that has remained there,
and it has not at all ever been a problem. Because as we have moved forward –
it’s not just waiting for five years and seeing where you are. Every six months,
every year, there’s an assessment, that’s done and there’s a report card that’s
issued and there’s an examination of sort of why didn’t we do as well as we
thought we wanted to do and what can we do differently to get to the – and that’s
all been very transparent and a very public process and openly communicated
with the City Council. We don’t want to hide anything; it’s much better to aim
high and fail then to aim low and succeed. I mean that’s really been the principle.
And I would say that that’s what differentiates the Santa Monica approach to a lot
of the other plans out there" (Perkins 2012).

Shannon Perry describes the type and strategy behind being a plan with attached
indicators:
“There are basically two usual differentiations in the sustainable city plan. You
have 1) green city plans and you have 2) sustainable city plans (so ours is a
sustainable city plan), and then you have plans that track performance and plans
that have performance indicators, and ours has performance based indicators as at
the framework, and so at this kind of foundational framework of the performance
based indicators is the idea that we’re setting more aggressive targets than we’re
really every gonna reach. We have about 80 indicators, and there’s only about six
or eight examples where we’ve achieved that what we call aggressive by
achieveable target. So average vehicle ridership, waste diversion, a couple of
those, you know, we’ve actually achieved the target” (Perry 2012).

Certainly, the direct relationship between the Plan goals, measurable outcome indicators,
as well as staff and funding, are what make Santa Monica’s Plan a living document. The
architects of the Plan made this a priority from the beginning, and the exact goals and
structure of implementation grew from there. These elements, along with the backing of
the community and City Council, infuse the Plan with a great deal of institutional
legitimacy that keep it from being a document that sits on the self.
Another crucial element in the design of the indicators has been the Task Force on
the Environment. The role of Task Force on the Environment members is to assess the
88 
indicators and make recommendations to Council with regard to strategies to meet the
indicators and possible changes to them over time to better reflect actual progress. The
Task Force meets once a month for two to three hours to discuss strategy around the plan
and indicators (Peterson 2012). Matt Petersen notes, “We’ve basically updated the
primary focus on the Plan has been how to develop indicators that can be measured and
point it the direction we want it to go. So our primary focus as a body has been to focus
on those set of indicators that we feel we have some authority to tackle, resource
conservation and I’m forgetting the other one. But there’s two or three key areas of the
indicators that we focus on. So, and then the last time we passed this to try to create more
integration with the city, we created a Sustainable City Plan Task Force that had a life of
three or four years – it’s expired” (Peterson 2012). Bill Selby discusses the process and
strategy about maintaining good indicators and working to reach them, citing the example
of the goal of water independence in the City:
"Yeah we talk about that. The staff has long discussions about deadlines, dates,
specifics, you know, and what is, I mean you’ve heard this before that if it can’t
be measured it shouldn’t be studied. Or if it can’t be measured it shouldn’t be
attempted. And so that’s part of what we try to do, an example would be, well, we
want to be independent when it comes to water supplies. Well one way that we’ve
done that now, is that we now have the Charnock
11
facility…we had the MTBE
problem in the groundwater, where the gas leaked in the groundwater, the oil
companies that were responsible were identified. They paid for the water we had
to buy for Metropolitan Water District. They’ve also built this new Charnock
facility, which is filtering the MTBE out of the water now and cleaning it for us.
And now we’re back to over 70%, I’m pretty sure it is now, over 70% of our
water supply comes from groundwater…the point is, is that we’ve been able to
solve a problem, with a goal of being water independent. And so you can – it’s
easy to say we want to be water independent, but now, how do we make that
happen? And that’s one of the ways we’ve made it happen, we’re back to our
groundwater use. Now, we have this problem that the groundwater is not quite
enough when you look at the supply of groundwater versus the demand in Santa
Monica. So how are we going to bridge that little gap that’s left? Cut down on

11
For more information on the Charnock facility see:
http://www.smgov.net/santamonicawatertreatmentplant.aspx
89 
demand, see. So with more conservation measures, we think we can get to that
point, where we don't have to import water in Santa Monica, so again, that would
have been our ultimate goal, and now how do we implement policies that get us
there, right?” (Selby 2012).

According to Selby, the existence of goals and indicators is fulfilling its initial charge to
provide meaningful, measureable markers for the work being done toward sustainability.
Indeed, the (once seemingly outrageous) stretch goal of water independence for the City
has led to significant problem solving that might not have been done without the
existence of the goal itself. Now the goal is within reach, as mechanisms have been put in
place to reach 70-80% of the goal and problems are being solved to close the gap
between current capacity and eventual independence. The interview evidence indicates
that the strategy of the founders of the program, as described by Craig Perkins, is
working insofar as stretch goals with ongoing accountability do serve to motivate staff
members and the community to solve problems and work concretely toward meeting
those goals.
In addition to the design of the indicators during the formation and update
processes, as well as the input from the Task Force on the Environment, implementation
staff continually collect information about the usefulness and feasibility of the indicators
and targets in their day-to-day work. With this practical information, they provide
feedback to Shannon Perry and Dean Kubani in administrative roles, who then use the
information to inform updates and improvements to the plan over time. The City puts out
a Sustainable City Report card every two years, with one recently released for 2012.
James Velez explains, "And then it’s updated on a regular basis…well I know it is, I
think it’s every two years. Yeah we have a Sustainable City Report Card where we
report, you know on the state of the city and the state of departments - how everybody’s
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meeting the indicators. We’ve assigned a grade to departments in various goal areas to
see how we’re progressing. Which is – that came a little bit later. The Report Card. And
then we’ve added some goal areas as well" (Velez-Conway 2012).
In the in-depth interviews, implementation staff mostly discussed the indicators
that are directly linked to their tasks in the office of Sustainability and the Environment
and the details about their progress and challenges thus far. In some cases, the
measurements were relatively straightforward. Josephine Miller describes the way
progress on sustainable packaging is measured:
"Well you look at the amount of retailers that are affected by these bans, and the
reduction of these single use products. So you look at the increase in the use of
reusable products and you look manufactures when we started off for the example
with the food container ban in 2007, there were only 17 distributors,
manufacturers of compostable, recyclable products; now there are over 100. So
that’s a tangible indicator. You look at fast food joints have gone back to 1920’s
paper products versus Styrofoam. So these are some indicators that – you know, I
just got off the phone with LA County 94% decrease in single use bags, that it’s
pretty dramatic you walk around Santa Monica and you don't see plastic bags”
(Miller 2012).

However, other indicators and targets have proven to be more complex, difficult
to measure, and sometimes in need of revision over time. Brenden McEneaney, who
works on Green Building, describes how the lessons learned on the ground from working
to implement part of the plan inform the evolution of the indicators themselves:
"I mean I run the Green Building Program so most directly, the goal area that is
involved with the work that I do is resource conservation. And there are specific
indicators and targets in the existing Sustainable City Plan about green buildings,
that that’s one of the things we’re looking at revising. Partially because there’s not
really outcome–based, so the target in there that I was looking at the number of
LEED certified buildings in the City and LEED has presently become kind of the
predominant rating system for commercial buildings for non-residential buildings,
not so much for residential. But I think the thing we realized – although that is an
outcome you could measure the number of LEED certified buildings. It’s a
voluntary program; it was never really meant to be a mandatory program, and it
doesn’t address the environmental outcomes that we’re looking at. So one LEED
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certified building might be very energy efficient, whereas another one might be –
you know use different materials but they’re not apples to apples. So we’re trying
to revise that to look – to really get more at what the departmental outcomes we
want from the green building program" (McEneaney 2012).

McEneaney goes on to discuss the benefits and the challenges of working on something
as complex as measuring the ‘greenness’ of buildings. Myriad elements involved in
building construction, operation, and maintenance come into consideration with regard to
sustainability, and some are considerably easier to measure than others, challenging the
ability of staff members to measure progress and report for the City.
"So, I love working on buildings because, even though it’s somewhat of a specific
focus, it’s big and broad and I get to work with all different kinds of people, not
only within the Sustainability Office but across the City as well. So the things that
we measure more easily and that we have our heads around better are things like
energy and water. So, you know, we can set up goals for reduction of energy use
for cleaner energy provision and reducing water use, maximizing rainwater
capture. But the other areas of what we think about the green building are less
easily measured. And so, even maybe something like indoor air quality, which is
important, you could talk about pollutant levels, so there’s some metrics you can
put around it, but it’s a difficult kind of measurement about how comfortable a
space is. So you could survey the occupants maybe and find out how they are but
citywide it’s difficult to figure out how to implement that into a measurable
policy” (McEneaney 2012).

McKeaney describes the complexities of understanding the sustainability of different
building materials and the challenges of measuring and reporting on relative
sustainability:
Even more so than that, I would say that materials – research on materials and
policies around green materials has been lacking in the industry – and we just
don’t know enough about what goes into the things that we build buildings with
and we don’t have a great way to track the environmental impacts of those things.
So even just trying to figure out what’s a greener product to build with wood or to
build with steel, for example. It’s actually really, really, incredibly detailed and
complicated analysis. Just now there are some software tools starting to emerge
that will look at those impacts, but a lot of that information is only as good as the
data you have to give to the software. So, you know where’s the wood coming
from, will the steel be recycled or not at the end of its life, issues like that. And
that’s just with a very simple comparison, never mind if you get into something
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like should we build – should we put in marble floors or should we put in you
know cork flooring or even more complicated decisions about the building itself.
So that’s were you can kind of promote best practices because there’s not a lot of
ways to measure outcomes so much. And we’re not even so confident in a lot of
these things about what the outcome might be. So for a long time for example
bamboo flooring was sort of like, oh got to do bamboo it’s rapidly renewable,
that’s true, it also comes from very far away, and some of the manufacturing
practices aren’t the greatest, so what’s the tradeoff, you know. So I would say
there’s some areas where it’s easier to focus on things like reducing energy use,
reducing water use, in some areas where, it’s more difficult to kind of put a
measurement on it. But in all cases, I think we realize that the LEED certification
was not really the appropriate metric that we should have been using. It’s great to
see, that we have more LEED certified buildings, and they mean different things
you know LEED for existing buildings is different from LEED for construction,
different from LEED for homes, or commercial interiors, so yeah we wanted to
shift our focus away from that" (McEneaney 2012).

While indicators may seem relatively straightforward, the development of measuring
sustainability over time is a learning process.
Do indicators change?
In, short, yes, the indicators have changed over time, sometimes significantly. The
major update of goals and indicators occurred during the 2000 update, although adjustments
to approaches to the indicators have been made along the way throughout the existence of the
Plan (Perry, 2012). Those that have been working with the plan for the longest, including
Craig Perkins, Dean Kubani, Shannon Perry, and Task Force Member Bill Selby, all
discussed the evolution of the indicators over time. One staff member, Brenden McEneaney,
also talked about the way the indicators related to his work have changed over time, although
other implementation staff members did not know whether indicators had changed. Dean
Kubani explains the process of learning and adjustment over time:
"We have been making adjustments ever since it was originally adopted. And a
lot of – initially when the plan was developed – there weren’t many sustainability
plans underway anywhere, so we were kind of feeling our way, still figuring out
how this would work. So, you know we’ve had a lot of misthought, you know,
starts and stops and missteps – some things didn’t work. I mentioned some of our
early indicators we couldn't collect data from – some of our programs, people
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didn’t want to participate in. All those types of things, so we’ve been learning as
we’ve gone. We’ve gotten a lot better about how we do things. We’ve found that
the way to proceed is – an effective way, if you’re really starting something new –
that is completely different and people don’t understand it or may not embrace it
is - particularly within our city organizations – we just do a pilot program – a
small little program – see how the program works – if it’s effective, then we
expand. Rather than launching some big effort that falls flat – and then get gun
shy. So we’re biting off small things and kind of growing them as we go" (Kubani
2012).

Shannon Perry describes the specific challenges of dealing with evolving targets, describing
an example about the target for arterial bike lanes:
"I would say our biggest challenge hasn’t been in achieving our goals, it’s been
seeing our goals change. Because we update the plan every 10 years, sometimes
what was leading and cutting edge thought or was an appropriate leadership target
10 years ago, is not now. So I’ll give you an example: years ago there was a
Federal Highway Administration study that said, to get bicycling to go from a
recreational activity to a transit activity, you need to have 30 percent of your
arterial streets striped with designated bike lanes. Ok so we put that in our
Sustainable Cities Plan. Well as thought and practice evolved in the transportation
planning world, people started to say ‘well you know what, our arterial streets
have articulated buses. A lot of them now have light rail. And then they have on-
street parking. So do we really want people on bikes without gas masks and body
armor in between car doors – parked cars that are going to open – articulated
buses that need to park and the curb and around mass transit?’ No. We really want
our bikers to be one road off our arterials. Paralleling them but not on them. So,
even though are target was to have 30 percent of our arterials striped, in reality, 5
or 6 years ago, we started focusing on the roads next to them. You know, so
we’ve added miles and miles and miles of new bike lanes. They don’t show up in
the indicator as it was formulated. In some situations, we have to look at the spirit
of the indicator when we framed it, and then change it. We don’t – some cities
like Minneapolis – they update their indicators every one or two years, to really
kind of respond to those kind of things. For us, we don’t do that because – even if
we figure out that we’re tracking – you know, there’s some unintended
consequence of our tracking or our data doesn’t show what we thought it might –
we think it’s really better able to keep the targets established because that way
we’re not going like this. We’re not chasing a moving target, we’re really saying,
‘that was our target.’ You know, sometimes we have to say that was the spirit of
our target - but I think there’s great utility in not allowing ourselves to wander"
(Perry 2012).

Craig Perkins and Bill Selby discussed in more general terms the changes and evolution, not
just of individual indicators, but of the plan itself as the community concerns have changed
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over time. Bill Selby also notes the importance of stretch goals in the evolution of growing
the plan, and also discusses the micro-level evolution of individual indicators as practical
information about reaching a given goal is learned:
“One, and the general answer here one is that we’ve learned how to measure more
precisely so some of the old measurements you could argue weren’t very good
because there were difficult ways of measuring them or it was hard to – here’s an
example you could say well the per capita energy use in Santa Monica is – but it’s
not fair, because we only have a little under 90,000 people and our population
more than double every day because of the people coming in to work on
weekends it more than doubles because of people going to the promenade. So you
can’t say that our per capita energy consumption equals this – until you add all
those other people that flow in every day. To use energy. Same thing goes for the
waste production. So we’ve learned from that, you know that we have to consider
these other factors when we’re thinking about per capita resource use and
pollution and all that. So that’s one thing, we’ve learned to measure better and
improved our measurement techniques. And I think we’ve increased our standards
in several categories as well. We didn't start out by saying we could be water
independent or energy independent. But we’re saying we can do that now. That’s
a great step forward to have that goal" (Selby 2012).

At the implementaton level, Brenden McEneaney offers a specific example of how the green
building indicator utilizing the LEED rating system changed over time because of realities
and limitations on the ground:
"I would say that’s something that we’re kind of changing how we focus that
because previously – it’s our Office of Sustainability that we’re charged with
implementing the plan, but because a lot of goals were not easily measureable or
weren’t actually being measured – so you’d see parts of the plan where the goal
was to show a general increase in whatever it is – say it’s open space – so that’s
great, but then it doesn’t actually allow us to push things more aggressively You
know if we need a faster rate of change – so I’d say there was a bit of a disconnect
between the goals laid out in the plan and the actual policies on the ground –
programs that we’ve done – they’ve been kind of converging since the plan came
about. So specifically for me when I came on board with the city they had a
program to give grants to LEED certified buildings so there’s one way to
incentivize people to go above and beyond but by the time I came on board the
grants had been around for three almost four years and only one person had even
gotten a grant. So clearly that wasn’t driving the market to do LEED – so we’ve
kind of stopped doing that program and trying to change priorities" (McEneaney
2012).

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In all, a clear pattern emerged from the data that indicators have, indeed, changed over time
in Santa Monica. Those handling the plan at the birds-eye administrative level discussed the
balance between keeping goals relatively steady while also being flexible and responsive to
practical data about the indicators’ limitations. When enough information was known about
an indicator’s limitations, such as the problems with bike lanes in arterial streets and the use
of the LEED green building rating system, the indicators were adjusted to allow for more
effective progress toward sustainability.
As challenging and evolving as the indicators themselves can be, assessing
success – or progress toward sustainability – reaches beyond the bounds of the indicators
and into less immediately quantifiable understandings of success in the minds of several
interviewees. Just as the scope, scale, and boundaries of the Plan may seem
straightforward at first blush, and even through a reading of the Plan and the progress
reports associated with it, through the process of in-depth interviews, a more robust
picture of how sustainability is measured emerges.
While the indicators associated with the Plan are clearly delineated, the interviews
indicate that progress toward sustainability is assessed and measured in an evolving
manner, and that success itself is understood in a number of less tangible ways. Shannon
Perry discusses the more expansive way that progress toward sustainability is considered
beyond the indicators:
"I do think the Plan has been successful, because our community and our Council
are talking about sustainability. For instance, I went to this event – this was like a
key thing for me – I went to this even last week it was the Santa Monica State of
the City – it’s where the city, the college, and the business community get
together and they have an annual “this is the state of the economy,” this is the
state of the City. The entire event – presentation – was built around sustainability
in Santa Monica, and my office didn’t write any of it. So to me, that’s a huge
success. Have we achieved the target for every single indicator in our plan? No.
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But are we at a place where our business community, our education community,
our tourism community, or residents of the school district, the college, all
embrace sustainability in their own way in their own spheres of influence? Yes.
So to me that’s way more of a success. And there’s also you know hard successes,
like I said, our diversion rate exceeds the Sustainability Plan target, our average
vehicle ridership and you know if you look in southern California those are two
major issues – trash, waste generation and carpooling. So I think we have had
some very big tangible wins as well as just kind of an intellectual, emotional,
financial, culture shift" (Perry 2012).

Essentially, the way the Plan was first conceived, and the processes for its evolution
through feedback and organized updates, ensures that it is a living document that is used
and improved on a daily basis through the process of implementation. Sustainability is
measured in a number of ways, but clear goals were delineated at the outset of the Plan,
and while those goals and they progress toward them changes over time, the ongoing
direction of the work being done is a direct reflection of the existence of those goals. The
reporting process allows for strategic direction as well as accountability.
Indeed, one success of the Plan appears to be a cultural change itself toward
sustainability within the city government as well as within the City as a whole. Because
of the feedback and accountability mechanisms built into the Plan, the mindset,
intentions, and beliefs of those implementing the plan at every level affect both concrete
outcomes as well as the structure of the plan itself over time. The mindsets and beliefs of
the founders of the Plan, as well as the updaters of the Plan, also had a great deal to do
with the structure of the Plan and the way that it is implemented. The initial ideals,
particularly with regard to what can and should be done and how to get it done, that were
built into the original Plan live on in the spirit and implementation over time. The lack of
initial resources in some ways seems to have inspired creative solutions and fed the
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instinct to reach further as more resources are available to do so. From there, as the Plan
has matured, so has the human knowledge and institutional expertise around it.
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What are the Outcomes?
The following is my assessment of how well the City is doing in each goal area of
the current Sustainability Plan. According to the City’s website, “The goals comprise the
core of the community vision and represent what Santa Monica must achieve in order
become a sustainable city” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).
Table 8. Santa Monica goal areas and outcomes
Goal Area How well is the City Doing?
Resource Conservation Significant progress has been made since the 1990
baseline, as well as since the beginning of 2005 Report
Card. Resource Conservation is the most robust goal area
with the most programs and data attached.

Environmental and Public
Health

Environmental and Public Health is the second most
robust goal area with regard to programs and data
available. However, the grades assigned by the City have
been getting worse since 2005.

Transportation

The City’s is incrementally improving in transportation,
with a mix of specific and less specific targets. Things are
moving in a generally improving direction. All of the
transportation indicators do have data.

Economic Development

The Economic Development goal area has several
undeveloped targets still. However, for the targets that are
developed, positive progress is being made. From the
Report Card grades, it appears that the City’s efforts are
continually increasing, while outcomes have remained
relatively stable, possibly reflecting the difficulty of
improving outcomes in this category.

Open Space and Land Use

The City is doing well with the Open Space and Land Use
goal area. The targets are mostly unspecific, but that
seems to reflect the difficult to measure nature of the
indicators. Progress is being made on all targets, with
significant progress on some, such as Urban Forest, since
the creation of the Plan.

Housing

Housing is a very undeveloped goal area. State legislation
that has overridden local ordinances have changed the
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dynamic and set back the ability to measure targets. In
general, forces outside the City’s control seem to have a
large affect on the amount of affordable housing available,
which makes this a challenging goal area.

Community Education and
Civic Participation

The City grades itself well in this category, and Santa
Monica does have high rates of Community Education
and Civic Participation. Still, several of the indicators are
not represented at all in the Progress Report, leaving this
goal area with significant room for improvement.

Human Dignity This category is presented most differently in the Progress
Report from the original Plan. The City grades itself
highly and improving, although supportive information in
the Progress Report is lacking. This goal area could be
significantly further developed and improved.

As described on the City’s website, the City developed two reporting tools for the Plan:

“Following the City Council adoption of the Sustainable City Plan, the SCTF,
SAT and city staff presented Council with a baseline indicators report. Subsequently,
the city developed two reporting tools. The tools are intended to provide useful
information to City Council, City staff, and community members on progress being
made toward meeting goals and targets of the Plan, and will provide a basis for
decision-making about policies and actions that influence the City’s ability to meet
the goals and targets. The first tool is the Sustainable City Progress Report. The
second tool is the Sustainable City Report Card.

• The Sustainable City Progress Report is a web-based tool that provides
current, detailed analysis of the data for each indicator in the Santa
Monica Sustainable City Plan. Visit www.sustainablesm.org/scpr

• The Sustainable City Report Card is a summary document that
provides an overview of our progress towards, and challenges to,
becoming a sustainable community. The Report Card presents goal
area summaries and grades based on the specific indicator data.
Together, these two tools are the definitive resource for community
decision makers. In order to become a sustainable community all
community members must be educated and empowered to achieve
our sustainability goals” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Within the Goal Areas, there are indicators and targets:

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“Indicators: For each goal, specific Indicators have been developed to measure
progress. Indicators are tools that help to determine the condition of a system, or
the impact of a program, policy or action. When tracked over time indicators tell
us if we are moving toward sustainability and provide us with useful information
to assist with decision-making. Two types of indicators are tracked as part of the
Sustainable City Plan. System level indicators measure the state, condition or
pressures on a community-wide basis for each respective goal area. Program level
indicators measure the performance or effectiveness of specific programs, policies
or actions taken by the City government or other stakeholders in the community.

Many of the goals and indicators measure more than one area of sustainability.
The amount of overlap shown by the matrix demonstrates the interconnectedness
of our community and the far ranging impact of our decisions across
environmental, economic and social boundaries.

Targets: Specific Targets have been created for many of the indicators. The
targets represent aggressive yet achievable milestones for the community. Unless
otherwise noted, the targets are for the year 2010 using 2000 as a baseline. For
some indicators no specific numerical targets have been assigned. This was done
where development of a numerical target was determined to be not feasible or
where limits on data type and availability made it difficult to set a numerical
target. In many of these cases a trend direction was substituted for a numerical
target” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012).

The Sustainable City Progress Report is the more detailed reporting mechanism, for those
interested in looking that the underlying data by indicator, which inform the more general
Report Card Grades. According to the City,
“The SCP [Sustainable City Plan] includes a number of indicators that have been
developed to measure progress toward meeting community sustainability goals.
This indicator data is easily available on the Sustainable City Progress Report
website at www.sustainablesm.org/scpr. The indicator data presents a
comprehensive picture of our progress toward, and challenges to, becoming a
sustainable community. The Sustainable City Progress Report website is the
definitive resource for community decision makers and residents” (Ci. of Santa
Monica 2010).

Within the Sustainable City Report Card, outcomes are reported by grade to get a general
eyeball-level sense of progress in a given goal over time. Grades are reported for progress
and for effort. According to the City,
“The primary grade given for each goal area reflects the progress on the part of
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the community to reach the adopted SCP goals. The grade is based on analysis of
indicator data and evaluation of progress toward meeting the targets for each of
the goal areas. To better understand this grade, it is important to consider the
aggressive vision of sustainability adopted by the community and the extent to
which regional conditions and factors are influential. The effort grade for each
goal area reflects the level of effort and commitment in the community that is
currently focused on achieving the goals” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2010).

The following is a detailed breakdown of each goal area, by indicator targets and Report
Card grades. Each goal area also includes written descriptions of progress presented by
the City, and some include information from my in-depth interviews on some of the
indicator targets. Most of the work of the interviewees from the Office of Sustainability
and the Environment falls under the Goal of Resource Conservation, and Environmental
and Public Health, while responsibility for the other goal areas is spread around other
departments and offices within the City. Detailed information for each indicator can be
found by clicking through the Sustainable City Progress Report online (Ci. of Santa
Monica 2012). All indicator data are collected and analyzed by a third-party consultant
(Perry 2012). Links to more complete descriptions as well as source data can be found in
the footnotes.
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Goal Area 1: Resource Conservation
Goals:
“Across all segments of the community:

1. Significantly decrease overall community consumption, specifically the consumption
of non-local, non-renewable, non-recyclable and non-recycled materials, water, and
energy and fuels. The City should take a leadership role in encouraging sustainable
procurement, extended producer responsibility and should explore innovative strategies
to become a zero waste city.

2. Within renewable limits, encourage the use of local, non-polluting, renewable and
recycled resources (water, energy – wind, solar and geothermal – and material
resources)” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“Resource use is down and sustainable practices are increasing. The citywide recycling
rate exceeds the Sustainable City Plan target of 70%. The city’s food waste composting
program kept more than ••• million pounds of food waste from Santa Monica restaurants
out of the landfill last year; spurring expansion to a residential pilot program this
summer. Water demand has dropped from prior year levels in every month but one for
the past three years! Santa Monica’s water imports decreased to their lowest levels since
2001. Energy use declined 3%, and 19% of citywide energy now comes from renewable
sources. Solar Santa Monica continues to deploy energy efficiency, solar power and clean
distributed generation in the community, generating over 1.4 megawatts of solar
electricity from 183 grid connected solar projects. The grade improvement reflects the
reduction of waste, water and energy use in the past year. If the community can sustain
this lower level of resource use as the economy recovers, this decrease will represent a
significant accomplishment” (Santa Monica, 2010).

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Table 9. Santa Monica Resource Conservation outcomes

Indicators –
System Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Solid Waste
Generation
12

(System)
• Total
citywide
generation
(also report per
capita and by
sector)
• Amount
landfilled
• Amount
diverted
(recycled,
composted,
etc) from
landfill

Generation:
Do not exceed
year 2000
levels by 2010
Diversion:
Increase
amount
diverted to
70% of total
by 2010

Per Capita Disposal/Diversion
- Under the SB 1016 reporting,
Santa Monica’s Sustainable City
Plan target diversion rate is 70%
computes to 6.6 lbs/resident/day
of disposed trash exclusive of
transformation and 5.3
lbs/resident/day after
transformation. In 2010, the
daily rates were 3.6
lbs/resident/day. The city is, by
this measure, exceeding its SCPR
diversion requirements by a large
margin.
City-wide Generation Volume -
Prior performance reported in
total estimated generation and
diversion is summarized as
follows: after a few years in
which waste generation stabilized
at levels below the 2000 baseline,
between 2003 and 2006
generation volume grew,
increasing over 63 thousand tons,
a 20% increase. The 2006 derived
generation amount is 384,000
tons, 51,000 tons higher than the
2000 333,000 ton target.
Citywide Diversion Percentage
- Excluding 2005, the community
had been steadily increasing its
waste diversion percentage,
ending up at 68%. The 2006
results put the community back
on track to attain its target 70%
diversion rate.
13

The targets established
by the SB 1016 per
capita method of
reporting essentially
assign all responsibility
for generation, diversion
and disposal on
residents. However,
Santa Monica
businesses and non-
resident workers and
tourists bear some
responsibility in this
equation. While per
capita disposal was low
in 2009, probably due to
the economic downturn,
as the economy has
begun to turn around in
2010 the per capital
disposal rate has not
reached pre-2009
disposal levels.
It is also important to
note that per capita
disposal excludes waste
disposed of using waste-
to-energy
transformation. If not
for transformation, the
per capita disposal
would have been
approximately 5.7
lbs./person/day.
Further, it is important
to note that
transformation should at
a minimum be of the

12
For complete Solid Waste description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Solid_Waste.aspx
13
Source data for Solid Waste can be found here:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC1_SolidWaste.xls
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“waste-to-energy”
variety, not destructive
transformation which
increases greenhouse
emissions.

Water Use
14

(System)
• Total
citywide use
(also report per
capita and by
sector)
• Percent local
vs. imported
• Potable vs.
non-potable

Reduce
overall water
use by 20%
by 2010. Of
the total water
used, non-
potable water
use should be
maximized
Increase
percentage of
locally-
obtained
potable water
to 70% of
total by 2010
Citywide Water Consumption
In 2010-11, the city has continued
with relatively low levels of
water use, despite the resurgence
in the economy. The drop during
that time was from 11.9 to 11.7
million gallons per day. It’s still a
remarkable decrease from the
2006 high point of 13.8 Million
gallons per day, a 15% drop.
Meeting the Indicator goal to
reduce overall water use by to
20% of the 2000 baseline (to 10.5
MGD) proved unattainable, given
continued development and
increasing daytime population.
As indicators and targets are
updated, these factors will be
taken into consideration. Still
this consistent drop during all
seasons of the year shows that the
city’s water conservation efforts
are paying off.
Local vs. Imported Water
The percentage of local vs.
imported water rose between
2009 and 2011 from 20% to 51%
of total water supply. See
Analysis below for an
explanation of this change.
Potable Water Use
Santa Monica Urban Runoff &
Recycling Facility (SMURRF)
produces non-potable water for
use in landscape irrigation, at city
parks and cemeteries, toilet
flushing and in some city
fountains. Sales of recycled water
Citywide
Water Use
Numerous
conservation
messages and
programs
initiated in 2009
are helping to
keep customers
informed of
water
conservation
efforts and the
need to continue
water saving
practices. In
addition,
enforcement of
the Water
Conservation
Ordinance has
increased, with
first time
offenders being
provided
information
about the
advisory and
compliance tips
in both English
and Spanish.
For more
information
visit
www.smgov.net
/water.
Local vs. Imported
Water

14
Compete description for Water Use can be found here:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Water_Use.aspx
15
Source data for Water Use can be found here:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC2_WaterUse.xls
105 
from the SMURRF remained
relatively steady at 25 million
gallons for all of 2011, nearly 1%
of water use. For residents and
businesses to take further
advantage of this reclaimed water
requires more infrastructure than
is currently in place.
15

In 1995, Santa Monica’s
local groundwater wells
supplied most of the
water used in the city. In
the mid-1990’s, the
combination of leaking
underground gasoline
storage tanks and the
addition of MTBE as an
oxygenate in gasoline
led to massive
contamination of Santa
Monica’s Charnock well
field . The groundwater
pollution left Santa
Monica almost
completely reliant on
high priced MWD water
imported from the
Sacramento Delta and
the Colorado River.
After the contamination
1996 incident, the city
of Santa Monica settled
agreements with the oil
companies accountable
for the leaks. The
proceeds from that
settlement have been
used to remove any
future threats of MtBE
pollution by restoring
the Charnock Wells
which were re-opened
following remediation
during 2010.
The city now produces
roughly 50% of its
water supply from
groundwater wells and
imports the remaining
50% from MWD. This
new plant allows the
substitution of more cost
effective locally
produced water, thereby
reduces the expense and
energy use associated
with imported water.
106 

Energy Use
16

(System)
• Total
citywide use
(also report per
capita and by
sector)

(Target
pending
completion of
Greenhouse
Gas Emission
Reduction
Strategy in
2003)
Energy Consumption: Energy
conservation measures have been
successful and energy use in the
city remains stable, despite
expected increases in resource
usage associated with Santa
Monica’s strong economy and
growth in construction activity.

Specifically, overall electricity
and natural gas consumption in
2006 was 6.1 Gigajoules (GJ),
1% higher than 2005, but still
11% lower than 1990, the highest
year for which we have data. An
increase natural gas accounted for
the change, rising to 3.1 GJ for
3.0 in 2005. Electricity usage has
remained level, staying at 3.0 GJ
in 2006 after a gradual rise from
2000’s 2.6 GJ mark.

Sector Analysis: The
commercial sector, comprised of
smaller businesses, dominated
energy consumption by sector in
2006 at 49%. The residential
sector accounted for 43% and
large industrial consumption is
responsible for the remaining
8%. This year a shift from
commercial to industrial energy
consumption occurred, possible
due the commencement of
operations of some larger
companies into the city.
17

Although the detailed
data does not exist to
establish definitively, it
seems safe to assume
that some combination
of energy efficiency,
higher natural gas prices
and a relatively slow
growing economy are
keeping energy use
down.

Although electricity use
has remained constant,
Santa Monicans exceed
California’s low 7,000
kW annual per capita
electricity use by 35%,
at just under 9,000 kW
per capita per year.
Still, Santa Monica’s
per capita electricity use
ranks relatively low
compared to the national
average of over 12,000
kW per year.

Beyond simply
encouraging energy
efficiency wherever
possible, the city has
also manifested its
commitment to
sustainable energy
production and use in its
support of the
Community Energy
Independence Initiative
pilot program, approved
by City Council in June
2006. The initiative
proposes to more
reliably reduce the

16
For a complete Energy Use description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Energy_Use.aspx
17
For Energy Use source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC3_EnergyUse.xls
107 
community’s
dependence on fossil
fuels and increase its
long-term energy
security by facilitating
installation of energy
efficiency measures and
on-site solar systems in
residential and
commercial buildings.
Renewable
Energy use
18

(System)
Percent of
citywide
energy use
from renewable
and more
efficient
sources
• Total
renewable
energy use
(also report
by sector)
• Total energy
use from clean
distributed
generation
sources in SM
(also report by
sector)

By 2010 25%
of all
electricity use
in Santa
Monica
should come
from
renewable
sources
By 2010 1%
of all
electricity use
should come
from clean
distributed
generation
sources in
Santa Monica
The combined amount of
renewable energy from SCE and
Commerce Energy in 2006 was
531 Gigajoules, or 18% of total
electricity usage, representing a
1% drop from 2005 levels. This
drop was caused by the decline in
SCE renewable power mix for
2006 to 16% over its service area,
down from 17% in 2005.
Commerce Energy, contributes
2% of total electricity usage.
Clean distributed energy is
currently .10% of all electricity
usage.

Much of the world’s
current energy use and
production is
unsustainable.
Pollutants generated
during energy
production and use take
a dramatic toll on our
environment. In
contrast, most
renewable energy
technologies produce
little or no pollution.
Renewable energy
technologies have a low
(<25%) reliance on
fossil fuels to support
their operations, and are
therefore less polluting.
Increased reliance on
renewable energy is also
a critical component of
California’s plan to
reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.

The state has a
Renewable Portfolio
Standard (RPS) for
electricity generation
which targets a 20%
total renewable portfolio
in California by 2010,
and 33% by 2020.
Southern California
Edison (SCE), Santa
Monica’s electrical

18
For a complete description of Renewable Energy Use see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Renewable_Energy.aspx
108 
utility, boasts a
renewable portfolio
which well exceeds that
of the state of California
as a whole: 16% in
2006. This compares
favorably with other
Investor Owned
Utilities, which measure
between 5% and 11% .

However, SCE started
farther along in meeting
2010 goals and has only
increased renewable
generation .2% from
2002-2005 despite the
proximity of the
Tehachapi Wind
Resource Area in its
service area. SCE is
projected to maintain its
16% renewable
portfolio in 2007.

In its analysis of the
reasons for this slow
progress as a whole , the
California Energy
Commission cited
inadequacy of
transmission capacity
and in financing
renewables generation
as stumbling blocks.
The next year or so will
show whether these
barriers can possibly be
overcome by SCE and
its fellow electricity
providers in time to
meet state targets.

Greenhouse
Gas
Emissions
19

(System)
At least 30%
below 1990
levels by 2015
for City
The City of Santa Monica has
reduced its emission of
greenhouse gasses. Overall,
greenhouse gas emissions in 2000
Santa Monica GHG
Emission Reduction
Policy
The city’s approach to

19
For a complete description of Greenhouse Gas Emissions see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Greenhouse_Gas_Emissions.aspx
109 
• Total
citywide
emissions (also
report per
capita, by
source and by
sector)
Operations
At least 15%
below 1990
levels by 2015
citywide

have declined by less than 1%
over 1990 levels. Greenhouse gas
emissions decreased from 1990 to
1995, then increased slightly
from 1995 to 2000. In this period,
industrial energy use and GHG
emissions decreased while
residential and commercial
sectors increased slightly.

The per capita GHG emissions
rose in that time in that time from
10.3 to 10.6 tons per person.

The majority of the reduction in
GHG emissions occurred in the
waste sector in which emissions
fell 36%. As of this writing,
2005 GHG emissions hadn’t been
computed, however, an increase
is expected in 2005.
20

reducing emissions is
through energy
efficiency and reducing
fossil fuel consumption
for transportation by
encouraging public
transportation use,
ridesharing. The city
also promotes onsite
renewable energy
generation, and has
begun implementation
of its Community
Energy Independence
Initiative. This initiative
will serve the dual
objectives of reducing
GHG Emissions and
reducing Santa
Monica’s reliance on a
private utility for its
energy needs. As a part
of the Initiative, this
year Solar Santa Monica
was launched, deploying
energy efficiency, solar
energy and clean
distributed generation
into the community.
Twenty solar projects
were installed last year!

Santa Monica is a
charter member of the
California Climate
Action Registry, a non-
profit organization
which provides tools for
measurement of GHG
emissions and forum in
which municipalities,
corporations and other
entities can document
emissions reductions
over time. The city of
Santa Monica has set
aside funds for another

20
For Greenhouse Gas Emissions source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC5_GHG_Emissions.xls
110 
emissions inventory and
for certification of the
results. Once those steps
are taken, the city will
be in a position to
comply with state
regulations governing
emissions as they take
shape.
Ecological
Footprint for
Santa
Monica
21

(System)
“The
Ecological
Footprint is a
tool designed
to assist in
measuring
humanity’s use
of nature and
natural
resources. The
city’s
Ecological
Footprint was
measured
looking at the
following
factors: land
use, electricity
use by source,
natural gas use,
gasoline and
diesel use,
transportation
and vehicles,
roads, housing,
food, products,
waste and
recycling.
These factors
were converted
Downward
trend: “The
city does not
have a target
set for the
Ecological
Footprint, but
a downward
trend in the
size of our
Footprint is
desirable” (Ci.
of Santa
Monica
2011).
The City of Santa Monica is 8.3
square miles around, but our
Ecological Footprint was 2,747
square miles in 2000. That is a
dramatic difference of almost 2,
739 square miles. Santa Monica’s
Footprint is shrinking. In 1990,
the city’s Footprint was 2,914
square miles. In the ten years
between 1990 and 2000, the
city’s footprint shrank by 5.7 %
or 167 square miles.
22

In 1990, the city’s per
resident Footprint was
21.4 acres. In the ten
years between 1990 and
2000, the city’s per
resident Footprint
shrank by ½ acre to 20.9
acres. This is almost
three acres less than the
American footprint, but
it is still much larger
than the 4.6 acres that
has been established as
a sustainable footprint.
Reductions in the use of
natural gas and diesel,
increased recycling
rates, and the city’s
procurement of
geothermal energy
explain much of the
Footprint reductions
over the decade. But,
increases in electricity
and gasoline use and
built space offset many
of the gains made in the
1990s. Although our
Footprint has been
reduced, the city’s
Footprint still cannot be
considered ecologically
sustainable and is, on
average, 16 acres above
the Fair Earth share.

21
For a complete description of Ecological Footprint see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Ecological_Footprint.aspx
22
For Ecological Footprint source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC6_EcoFootprint.xls
111 
into
productive-
land-area
equivalents.
This represents
the footprint of
the city. The
footprint of the
city was then
divided by the
number of
residents to
determine each
individual’s
footprint” (Ci.
of Santa
Monica 2011).

Indicator of
Sustainable
Procurement
23

(System)

Indicator and
target
developed
As the detailed description below
indicates, to date, 7 out of 20 of
product categories have been
made more sustainable.

Food packaging – the city has
eliminated the use of non-
recyclable, disposable food
service containers used in city
facilities and operations, city
managed concessions, and city
sponsored and permitted events.

Computers – the city has
partnered with a company that
will provide desktop computers
that are EPEAT Gold rated.
EPEAT stands for EPA’s
Electronic Products
Environmental Assessment Tool
rating program and a gold rating
represents the most
environmentally preferable
computers produced.

Copy and printing paper – the
city purchases copy paper that
No analysis available.

23
For a complete description of Sustainable Procurement see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Sustainable_Procurement.aspx
112 
contains 100% post-consumer
recycled content and is processed
chlorine free. Additionally the
manufacturer is Green-E certified
and the paper supply is FSC
certified.

Janitorial paper supplies –
100% of paper towels and toilet
tissue purchased by the city meets
California EPA’s minimum
requirements for post-consumer
content. Furthermore the city
uses Green Seal certified paper
towels and toilet tissue for its
heavily used public facilities,
including City Hall, the 3rd Street
Promenade and Beach restrooms.

Office Electronics – since 1998
the city has only purchased or
leased office electronics, such as
copiers, printers, and multi-
function devices, which meet the
energy efficiency standards
established by the U.S. EPA’s
Energy Star program.

Rubberized Asphalt Concrete –
in 2007/08 the city used 30,000
tons of rubberized asphalt
concrete to surface city streets.
By doing so the city recycled
60,000 tires all of which came
from California.

Letterhead, business cards
stock, and City labeled
envelopes – the City’s
Warehouse and Print Shop
purchase only 100% post-
consumer recycled content
letterhead, business card stock
and city labeled envelopes.
24

24
For Sustainable Procurement source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC7_SustainableProcurement.xls
113 
“Green”
Construction
25

(Program)
Total number
of LEED™
certified
buildings in
Santa Monica
as a percent of
new
construction
100% of all
buildings*
greater than
10,000 square
feet eligible
for LEEDTM
certification
constructed in
Santa Monica
in the year
2010 shall
achieve
LEEDTM
certification
or its
equivalent. Of
these, 20%
should attain
LEEDTM
Silver, 10%
LEEDTM
Gold and 2%
LEEDTM
Platinum
certification
or equivalent.
In addition,
50% of all
new, eligible
buildings*
less than
10,000 square
feet
constructed in
2010 shall
achieve
LEEDTM
certification
or its
equivalent.
*including all
municipal
construction

The target is 100% of buildings
greater than 10,000 square feet
attaining LEED certification. Of
the fifteen buildings greater than
10,000 square feet of new
construction completed this year,
one was a LEED project, the
Santa Monica Civic Center
Parking Structure. This project is
a mixed-use project,
featuring 882 parking spaces and
9,000 square feet of commercial
retail space.
26

With the completion of the
Parking Structure, the cumulative
percentage of buildings greater
than 10,000 square feet
constructed since 2003 which
have been LEED certified is
8.4%, far short of the target
100%.

The number of LEED
registered buildings in
the City of Santa
Monica is growing, and
has expanded into the
private sector. Though
there were no LEED NC
projects certified this
year, the city did see
progress in LEED
projects outside the
scope of this indicator.
For example, this year
one home > 10,000
square feet was certified
LEED. There are
currently 7 homes and
13 condominiums in the
LEED Homes Project.
There was also one
certified LEED “CI” or
Commercial Interiors
project last year, and
two are registered. The
Ambrose Hotel is
registered as a LEED
“EB” or Existing
Building project.

25
For a complete description of Green Construction see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Res
ource_Conservation/Green_Construction.aspx
26
For Green Construction source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Resource_Conservation/RC8_GreenBuilding.xls
114 
Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

Table 10. Santa Monica Resource Conservation Report Card grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade C C+ C C+ B- B
Effort A A A- A- A- A-
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)

The grades reflect an average of the progress toward indicator targets in the goal
area, as well as the effort put forth by the City through policies and programs. While the
goal areas, indicators, and targets tell a broad-brush version of the story, in-depth
interviews reveal a far more detailed version of how the plan goals are actually
implemented on the ground. Russell Ackerman, Water Resources Specialist, gives an in-
depth description of his work, which is mostly focused on the water usage indicator, but
that also affects other indicators. He begins my discussing his outreach duties:
“Yeah that’s – really what we’re talking about – how do we implement it? How
do we take what’s written and implement it? For Resource Conservation in Santa
Monica we have a number of different implementation tools. The first one is
obviously raising awareness about water efficiency – and that’s done through
outreach and teaching. I teach numerous workshops at the SM college; I teach to
professionals and I teach at he SM library to homeowners” (Ackerman, 2012).

He continues to describe the ways that he works to decrease water usage by increasing
efficiency in the City, and by regulating those uses that are identified to be inefficient,
including through fines and incentives.
“We’re OSE [Office of Sustainability and the Environment] inspectors – that’s
our official title, but we’re basically like code enforcement, so we enforce it
through a number of different ways. The first is the initial contact – if we see
115 
something going on and the property owner or gardener’s there we stop and talk
to them. We say, ‘hey you know leaf blowers are illegal, there’s a fine for this,’ or
‘the sprinklers are over spraying in the street, you can be fined for this.’ If the
home owner’s not home, which is very common, gardener’s not around,
sprinklers are running, something like that, we’ll take a photo and send them a
warning letter with a photo, saying, ‘hey did you know while you’re a work
you’re dumping millions of gallons down the street, it’s causing erosion of the
street, it’s polluting the ocean, and it’s violating our ordinances and you can be
fined $250.’ And typically we’ll get two warning letters and then we’ll begin
fining them, and the fines can range $250 to $500 per violation, so we actually
have patrols; we have a patrol schedule and we go out and check for leaf blower
violations. And we have residents – we have a very active community – we have
like an iPhone go system which is basically like take a photo, send it in to the City
to let them know something that’s going on. And then we have a hotline set up for
reporting violations and that man over there is manning that hotline right now and
he’s also responding. There’s myself and Kim, Patrick, Neal…and we respond to
warning letters, questions, calls. We spend a lot of time in contact with the
residents and with the gardeners so there’s – we have training classes for
sustainable landscaping” (Ackerman, 2012).

An interesting element is the design of incentive systems to get citizens to change their
irrigation systems to use water more efficiently:
“But for the homeowners who are getting a violation – and maybe they had no
idea – they don't want to do – nobody wants to pollute the environment, so we
have incentive programs. So we have a very successful sustainable landscape
grant program that we’ve been running for a number of years, where SM residents
can get up to $5K to retrofit their landscape. We have cash for grass programs; we
have a parkway cash for grass program where that little strip of land where we
have the street trees – that’s where we have most of our runoff coming from
because the sprinklers are right there on the street. We have a program where
we’ll pay $2000 to remove the grass, cap the sprinklers, and replace with
something like mulch or ground covers that don't require much water and that sort
of thing. And then we have other rebate programs – we have a rain harvest
program where you’ll get money to install cisterns and capture water and store it
on the property and reuse it some way. We also have grey water rebate, where we
encourage people to – like we have a workshop coming up and it’s getting people
used to this idea that we can reuse so much of the water that we just send down
the drain into the sewer” (Ackerman, 2012).

And on the larger scale, the regional water district plays a major role in the overall water
usage picture:
116 
“And then we participate in regional rebate programs so there’s So Cal
Metropolitan Water District, not going to get into all of that. But there’s a water
purveyor for this entire region and we get some of our water from them, so we
participate in a program where we co-fund rebates for things like water-based
irrigation controllers, which I have here, or rotary nozzles which are water
efficient spray nozzles for things like lawns and ground covers. So we’re
enforcing the laws but we also are providing financial incentives for people to
make a change that A) yeah gets them into compliance with the law, but B) is just
overall better for the environment and their landscapes end up looking better”
(Ackerman, 2012).

Outcomes are measured a few ways, including through measuring runoff amounts:
“Our point of view from the watershed management…there’s a water recycling
facility that captures runoff from one of our major throughways – the streets – and
it cleans it and recycles it and sends it back. The volume of that water when we
first put it in versus were it is now has dropped. So that says that something we’re
doing is helping to mitigate the amount of urban runoff that’s generated”
(Ackerman, 2012).

Water demand, however, can be challenging to measure because of the various forces
affecting it, such as weather and public perception:
“The other thing is we can look at water demand within the city and the first three
years that I worked here there was a drop every month in the water demand. And
then the governor demand declared the drought was over and almost immediately
we saw water demand go up. So we’re now in a relatively dry winter and so
there’s going to be – we’re going to see the repercussions of that and that demand
that. It’s hard to say what exactly that’s attributed to, because weather is another
factor, and it’s also a lot of people’s perception of how much water’s available.
And so we think that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of creating the
awareness that water is a finite resource that we kind of take for granted because
there’s no price structure that creates a real awareness of what’s the real value of
water. You know, paying pennies on the gallon – it’s not as valuable as say, when
gas prices go up and everybody suddenly notices how much they’re paying per
gallon for gas. So keeping that awareness alive and going is one of the challenges
of implementing it, but we can look at numbers and say ok well, we’ve been over
the last 10 or so years, we’ve been dropping water demand by between 10 and
13% so if that’s the case, then apparently something we’re doing is working.
Because population numbers – we have 250K people visiting here every day and
our resident population tends to stay the same – many of them are renters. So we
can get a sense of water demand, and should it be going up based on certain
indicators within the community. And if that’s the case, than I would say we have
some sort of measured results” (Ackerman, 2012).

117 
Ackerman also notes the City’s aggressive goal to be water independent by 2020, and
describes the City’s history of contaminated groundwater:
“But our City Council has set a goal for us that by 2020 we are water self-
sufficient. There’s another piece of this puzzle that I need to explain about water.
Years and years ago, we discovered that MTBE – which is an additive in gasoline
– was leaking out of underground storage tanks into our groundwater and
contaminating our groundwater. So Santa Monica used to get most of its water
from the aquifers that are in and around Santa Monica, but we had to stop
pumping out of our wells and then we started buying like 70% of our water from
the Metropolitan Water District. Well, after years of litigation, we built a state of
the art water treatment facility that just opened last year, and we’re now beginning
to pump out of the groundwater again. And so right now (today) we’re about 50%
groundwater and 50% MWD but we’re trying to push it so that we’re closer to
80% groundwater, and maybe upwards of relying on our own supply” (Ackerman,
2012).

He continues about the challenge of reaching water self-sufficiency by 2020, and the
importance of conservation to that goal. The waste from spray irrigation, for example,
which may seem like a small thing to the layperson, makes a major difference in closing
the conservation gap that could potentially bring the City to water self-sufficiency.
“We’ve got that – isn’t just getting to self-sufficiency within the City and getting
to our goal of – we have set target goals of how many gallons per day per capita
that people are using. And in order to get to that goal, it also takes some sort of
conservation. Because to close the gap – you know just because we might be able
to pump more out of our wells – doesn’t necessarily mean that that water is
abundant and available. And again that’s another factor that we are trying to make
people more aware that, you know just because we have groundwater doesn’t
mean that water is endlessly abundant in Santa Monica. In fact, we still need to
conserve and to reach our goal in 2020. Which would be a 20% reduction, which
is something that Arnold Schwarzenegger brought up before he left. He set that as
a target for all cities in CA 20% by 2020. That’s a very challenging goal – so our
Council of course took that challenge on and has tasked us with now finding ways
that we can still conserve water, and really conservation of water and water
efficiency. When we say conservation it seems to imply like you’re giving up
something, but in Santa Monica we look at it as, how can we use water as
efficiently as possible? So a lot of our programs are about ending the most
inefficient forms of water use, which are typically spray irrigation because spray
irrigation is in terms of efficiency is delivering water about 55% efficiency
whereas drip irrigation is closer to 95%. So you know, most of our water use is
for landscape outside and we know that most of that is – there was a study done
118 
that showed us that anywhere between 40 and 70% of that water was being used
outside being applied at 2-3 times the rate that was necessary. So that’s why
landscape water efficiency is a big deal in southern California. Bay Area the
climate’s a bit different, but down here even though we live in a Mediterranean
climate, we still have an awful lot of water consuming plant material, particularly
turf grass so that’s why our programs are cash for grass, removing the grass
because that’s – you’re removing the plant that’s using the most water and you’re
replacing it with an irrigation system that’s the most efficient form of irrigation.
So that’s why we’re keying in on how to use water more efficiently and that is
what’s going to help us reach our goal by 2020” (Ackerman, 2012).

What I find most fascinating is how much work at such fine detail it takes to try to meet a
single target. Ackerman describes several staff people working on one issue area. While
work for one indicator category does, in fact, affect other goal areas and indicators, this
can confuse things like reporting. An inherent difficulty in creating a Sustainability Plan,
is that it aims for a coherent, unified goal, but needs to be broken down into specific tasks
to carry out. The tension between an inherently interconnected system and the need to
quantify pieces within it is clear from the interviewees. Still, the work of these
individuals carrying out specific tasks and quantifiably moving closer to stated goals is
clear evidence that the existence of the Plan, its goals, and the staff and funding to carry it
out does positively affect a number of real outcomes in Santa Monica.

119 
Goal Area 2: Environmental and Public Health
Goals:

“1. Protect and enhance environmental health and public health by minimizing and
where possible eliminating:
• The use of hazardous or toxic materials, in particular POPs (persistent organic
pollutants) and PBTs (persistent bioaccumulative & toxic chemicals), by
residents, businesses and City operations;
• The levels of pollutants entering the air, soil and water; and
• The risks that environmental problems pose to human and ecological health.

2. Ensure that no one geographic or socioeconomic group in the City is being unfairly
impacted by environmental pollution.

3. Increase consumption of fresh, locally produced, organic produce to promote public
health and to minimize resource consumption and negative environmental impacts”
(Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).
Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“Implementation of the Watershed Management Plan is resulting in improved water
quality. Days with poor water quality at the Pier during the dry season have dropped 84%
so far in 2010. The amount of urban runoff captured and treated at the Santa Monica
Urban Runoff and Recycling Facility increased more than 5% to 35 million gallons
annually. In an effort to reduce marine" debris, the city implemented a ban on the use of
all non-recyclable plastic take-out containers. Ninety percent compliance with the ban has
resulted in a dramatic reduction in polystyrene on local beaches. Efforts are underway to
pass a ban on plastic bags citywide. Sales are up nearly 4% at four thriving farmers
markets that provide access to fresh, locally grown and organic produce to nearly 1
million visitors annually. Santa Monica became the first city in the United States to sign
the Cool Foods Pledge and committed to emphasize the purchase of local, organic, less
processed foods that avoid excess packaging. The grade improvement reflects the
positive changes in Santa Monica Bay health and a demonstrated commitment to reduce
toxic chemicals and pollutants communitywide” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2010).
120 
Table 11. Santa Monica Environmental and Public Health outcomes

Indicators
– System
and
Program
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Santa
Monica
Bay
27

(System)
Number of
days Santa
Monica
beaches are
posted with
health
warnings or
closed.
Measure for
both:
• Dry
weather
months
(April -
October)
• Wet
weather
months
(November-
March)
0 warnings
and closures
at any Santa
Monica
beach
location
during dry
weather
months
No more than
3 days with
warnings or
closures at
any Santa
Monica
beach
location on
non-rainy
days during
wet weather
months (a
target for
rainy days
during these
months will
be
determined in
2003)
Wet Weather
From 2002 to 2004, there were
between 12 and 14 wet weather
initial warnings each year. By 2007,
it reached 26 days. However, in
2008, it declined to 16 days. One
beach closure lasting 3 days
occurred in 2003 as a result of a
sewage spill.

Dry Weather
Between 2002 and 2004, dry
weather initial warnings hovered
between 16 and 20 per year. In
2005, warnings rose to 28, and in
2008 stood at 41. In 2004, there was
one dry weather beach closure that
lasted 8 days.
28

Though the beach at
Santa Monica Municipal
Pier, is consistently rated
among Heal the Bay's
Beach Bummers, there
are some bright spots.
The high bacteria
readings at that location
result from a huge
nesting bird population
and resultant bird waste
combined with beach
geography which
concentrates that waste.
To address this problem,
funds from the Clean
Beaches and Ocean
Parcel Tax, Measure
“V”, were used during
2009. The first project
funded by this tax, Pier
Storm Drain
Improvement Project
was completed in 2009.
It eliminated the output
from the Pier storm
drain as a source of
beach water
contamination during the
dry season.
The second Measure V
completed project was
the Bicknell Avenue
Street green project.
This demonstration

27
For a complete description of Santa Monica Bay see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Santa_Monica_Bay_Health.aspx
28
For Santa Monica Bay source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH1_SMBayHealth.xls
121 
project showcases
innovations in
stormwater best
practices, collecting and
storing urban runoff
during a storm event and
allowing it to return to
the groundwater table,
rather than run into the
Santa Monica Bay.
Although beach
monitoring took a major
budgetary hit in
California’s September
2008 budget crisis,
beaches in Los Angeles
County were not as
affected. This occurred
because the burden of
monitoring had already
been spread among the
four agencies directly
involved and as such
were not as reliant on
state funding. Though
the data from 2009 are
not yet complete as of
this writing, according to
Heal the Bay, Santa
Monica Bay beaches
showed a significant
improvement from last
summer with far more
beaches receiving A or
B grades, perhaps due to
the installation of the
Pier Storm Drain.

Wastewater
(Sewage)
Generation
29

(System)
• Total
citywide
Reduce
wastewater
flows 15%
below 2000
levels by
2010
This indicator had a dramatic drop
in the early 1990's from 10.0 MGD
to just 8.2 MGD in 1992. The flows
stayed reasonably low until 1998,
after which they rose steadily
through 2006, topping off at 12.0
MGD in 2006, then dropping to a
Over the past few years,
the integrity of Santa
Monica’s wastewater
collection system has
been secured by
retrofitting the sewer
lines and relining the

29
For a complete Wastewater description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Waste_Water.aspx
122 
generation
(also report
per
capita, and
by sector)
low of 9.2 MGD in 2008. The 2009
flows were up to 10.6 MGD.
30

system. This retrofit
keeps any infiltration
from groundwater or via
manhole covers to a
negligible level and may
be helping lower the
city’s wastewater
generation.
The city has mandated
the installation of more
permeable surfaces in
new construction,
helping divert
wastewater from the
sewage system by
allowing it to drain to
groundwater.
On average, since 2002,
wastewater flows are
80% of water demand.
In 2009, this level was
90% of water demand,
back up from 73% in
2008. Further analysis
is necessary to
determine if rainfall, and
consequent reduction in
water demand for
irrigation versus indoor
water influences this
percentage. Learning
more about this
relationship could help
with reduction of
wastewater generation.

Vehicle
Miles
Traveled
31

(System)
• Total
• Local vs.
drive-
through
Downward
trend
(no target for
local vs.
drive
through)
The amount of travel in the city is
generally measured in terms of
vehicle miles traveled (VMT). This
is the total number of miles of
travel by all vehicles on all Santa
Monica roadways in an average
day. The per capita VMT is the
total VMT divided by the
Overall, vehicle miles
traveled in the City of
Santa Monica have
dropped 1% since 1992,
the first year of
gathering data for the
Sustainable City Plan,
but there has been some

30
For Wastewater source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH2_Wastewater_Generation_new.xlsx
31
For a complete Vehicle Miles Traveled description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Vehicle_Miles_Traveled.aspx
123 
population. Eventually the
indicator will track local versus
drive-through vehicle miles.
32

variation. According to
the California Public
Road Data, there were
1,118,000 miles traveled
in 1992. There was a
spike to 1,306,190 in
2002. Since then, VMT
levels have dropped to
1,062,700 in 2005 where
they remained until 2006
and 2007. In 2008, the
number went back up to
1,130,450 miles
traveled, a curious thing
given that the recession
began in 2008. Since
1992, VMT per capita
has dropped 3.5%, from
12.9 to 12.5 miles per
day per person.

Air
Quality
33

(System)
Percent and
demographi
c profile of
Santa
Monica
residents
who live
within a 1/2
mile radius
of
significant
emissions
sources

All
significant
emissions
sources in
Santa Monica
should be
identified
This indicator looks at the percent
and demographic profile of Santa
Monica residents who live within a
1/2 mile radius of significant
emissions sources. City staff are in
the process of identifying all
significant emission sources and
when this is complete the analysis
will expand to identify the members
of the community most directly
affected by these sources.
No analysis available.
Residential
Household
50%
cumulative
Volume: Total volume of HHW
collected from Santa Monica
Household Hazardous
Waste: Household

32
For Vehicle Miles Traveled source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH3_VehicleTraveled.xls
33
For a complete Air Quality description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Air_Quality.aspx
124 
Hazardous
Waste
34

(Program)
• Total
volume of
household
hazardous
waste
(HHW)
collected
from Santa
Monica
residents
• Number
and Percent
of Santa
Monica
house
holds using
the City’s
HHW
collection
facility
•
Cumulative
number and
percent of
Santa
Monica
households
using the
City’s HHW
collection
facility since
2000
participation
rate at the
City’s HHW
collection
facility by
S.M.
households
by 2010 (i.e.
by 2010 50%
of all
households in
the city will
have
delivered
HHW to the
facility since
2000)
residents at the Household
Hazardous Waste Center is
increasing. In 2001 there were
54,808 pounds collected; by 2008,
the volume was 135,445 pounds,
maintaining a high level of disposal.
In 2009, it dropped to 99,953
pounds.

HHW Center Use: The number of
households which use the Center
has in general been increasing.
Some of the same households may
have visited the center in more than
one calendar year. In 2000, 1,014
households visited. That number
steadily increased through 2006,
when 3,012 visitors used the
center. In 2009, 4,414 residents
visited the facility, exceeding the
indicator’s target 50% cumulative
participation rate of Santa Monica
households at the HHW Center by
2010.
35

hazardous waste is the
waste generated by
residents through the use
of hazardous or
potentially hazardous
products in the home.
Household hazardous
wastes pose a substantial
hazard to human and
environmental health
when handled
improperly. Among the
different materials
disposed of at the HHW
Center during 2007,
54% was either oil-
based or latex paint.
Household and auto
batteries were next most
common at 14%, a jump
from 11% for the
previous few years;
flammable solids were
8%.

The City of Santa
Monica employs a two-
fold strategy for
hazardous waste use
reduction. The first is
reduction of household
hazardous waste
purchased by residents.
The second is to increase
the number and amount
of existing household
hazardous wastes that
are disposed of properly
at the HHW center.
Raising awareness of the
dangers of improper
disposal of HHW and
the existence and
convenience of the

34
For a complete description of Household Hazardous Waste see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Household_Hazardous_Waste.aspx
35
For Household Hazardous Waste source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH5_ResHazWaste.xls
125 
HHW Center has
boosted community
performance in this
indicator.

City
Purchases
of
Hazardous
Materials
36

(Program)
Volume and
toxicity of
hazardous
material
(including
POP & PBT
containing
materials)
purchased
by the City
(Target to be
developed by
City staff)
To date, 8 out of 20 of product
categories have been made more
sustainable: Diesel, Cleaning
Products, Herbicides, Graffiti
Removers, Stainless Steel Cleaner
and Polish, Cleaner/Degreasers,
Fluorescent Lamps, Paint, Hand
Soap, Insecticides.
37

For analysis of each
category see
http://www.smgov.net/D
epartments/OSE/Categor
ies/Sustainability/Sustai
nable_City_Progress_Re
port/Environmental_and
_Public_Health/City_Pu
rchase_of_Hazardous_M
aterials.aspx

Toxic Air
Contamina
nt (TAC)
Releases
(Program)
• Number of
facilities in
SM
permitted to
release
TACs
• Total
volume of
TACs
emitted in
SM annually

Complete
feasibility
study for data
availability
and
collection
developed.
In progress: This indicator looks at
the total number of facilities in
Santa Monica permitted to release
TACs as well as the total volume of
TACs emitted by these facilities
annually. City staff will complete a
feasibility study for the availability
of reliable data for this indicator.

Urban
Runoff
Reduction
(Program)
Percent of
permeable
Upward trend Of Santa Monica's total
234,026,886 square feet, permeable
land is 43,021,138 square foot, or
about 18% permeable. The
permeable surfaces in the city
include open space, tree wells and
In November 2006,
Santa Monica voters
passed Measure V: The
Clean Beaches and
Ocean Ballot Measure,
by a margin of 67%. The

36
For a City Purchases of Hazardous Materials complete description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/City_Purchase_of_Hazardous_Materials.aspx
37
For City Purchases of Hazardous Materials source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH6_CityPurchaseHaz.xls
126 
land area in
the City
other surface areas. The target is to
have an increasing trend in the
permeable surfaces in the city.

measure will fund over
$40 million in projects
that improve water
quality, clean up our
beaches, recharge
groundwater, collect and
reuse water, restore the
natural hydrological
cycle, and control
flooding. It provides
funding to implement
the City’s Watershed
Management Plan,
which aims to reduce
urban runoff pollution;
reduce urban flooding;
increase water reuse and
conservation; increase
recreational
opportunities and open
space; and increase
wildlife and marine
habitat.

Fresh,
Local,
Organic
Produce
(Program)
Percent of
fresh,
locally-
produced,
organic
produce that
is served at
City
facilities and
other Santa
Monica
institutions
(including
hospitals,
schools,
Santa
Monica
College, and
City-spon-
sored food
programs)
Annual
increase over
baseline
Though no mechanisms have been
established to track this data to date,
City Council has elevated food
sustainability as a priority area of
implementation in the Sustainable
City Plan. In November 2009, the
Santa Monica Task Force on the
Environment has proposed the
allocation of staff resources to:
• Creating a Sustainable
Food Policy for municipal
operations
• Auditing and addressing
municipal food purchases
• Enhancing existing
sustainable food programs
• Coordinating education and
outreach campaigns.

No analysis available.
127 
Organic
Produce –
Farmers
Markets
38

(Program)
Total annual
produce
sales at
Santa
Monica
farmers’
markets
• Percent
organically
grown
• Percent
grown using
low-
chemical
methods
• Percent
conventiona
lly grown
Annual
increase in
percent of
organically
grown and
low-chemical
produce sales
over baseline
Total Annual Sales The total annual
sales at the four local markets are
increasing. Total sales between
2001 and 2008 rose from $7.2M to
$12.8 M, an increase of 78%! All
years except 2003 have experienced
an increase from the previous year.

Percent of Sales: Organic & Low
Chemical The percent of sales at
Santa Monica markets that is
organic and low-chemical is
increasing, however, there is a
definite shift from Organic produce
sales to Low Chemical sales. From
2001 to 2008, organic sales dropped
considerably from 44% to 30%.
Conversely, the percentage
of produce grown using low-
chemical methods has increased
from 37% to 61% in those years.

Percent of Sales: Conventional -
The percentage of sales coming
from conventionally grown produce
has dropped to its lowest level since
2002, $1.2M per year as Organic
and Low Conventional - sales have
grown dramatically. In 2001 20% of
sales came from conventionally
grown produce. In 2008, that
number dropped to 9 percent.
39

Farmers’ Market
resumed the strong
growth it had
experienced prior to
2007, growing over 11%
from 2007 to 2008. This
year saw the continued
drop in Conventional
produce sales compared
with 2007, falling 13%.
Organic Produce
recovered to year 2005
levels after a two-year
dip. Low Chemical
Sales grew in 2008 but
not at its prior pace.
Overall, Low Chemical
Sales have grown almost
200% since the
commencement of
tracking the information
in 2002.

The nationwide shift
from organic to low-
chemical sales
referenced above may be
the result of the onerous
cost of becoming and
remaining certified
organic to small farmers
who sell at the Farmers’
Markets. Some believe
the word “organic” and
its processes have been
co-opted by the federal
government and giant
agricultural producers,
and that it no longer
represent their farming
methods and philosophy.
The concern is that as
these stalwarts eschew
the organic standard,

38
For a complete Farmer’s Market description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Farmers__Market.aspx
39
For Farmer’s Market source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH10_FarmersMkts.xls
128 
however flawed it may
be, the availability of
sustainably farmed food
will decline because the
entirely unregulated
term, low-chemical is a
less dependable
indicator of sustainable
farming practices.
Restaurant
Produce
Purchases
(Program)
Percent of
Santa
Monica
restaurants
that
purchase
ingredients
at Santa
Monica
farmers’
markets
Annual
increase over
baseline
This indicator looks at the percent
of Santa Monica restaurants that
purchase ingredients at Santa
Monica farmers’ markets. The
target is to have an annual increase
over the baseline. This data is
currently difficult to obtain because
no reporting mechanism has been
developed to link restaurant
purchasing patterns to municipal
reporting.
No analysis data
available.
Food
Choices
40

(Program)
Percent of
Santa
Monica
residents
who report
that
vegetable-
based
protein is
the primary
protein
source for at
least half of
their meals
Annual
increase over
baseline
According to a survey of Santa
Monica residents conducted in
December 2003, about 8% of the
population is vegetarian and 92% of
the population is not. Of those who
are not vegetarian, about 16% eat
an animal based product such as
beef, pork, chicken, fish or seafood
less than 4 times per week. 19% eat
an animal based product 5 – 9 times
a week and 28% eat an animal
based product 10 – 14 times a week.
37% eat an animal based product
15-20 times a week.

In 2003, 16% of residents reported
vegetable protein as their primary
source of protein. Since no new
survey data exist trend data is
unavailable.
41

The percent of Santa
Monica residents who
report that vegetable-
based protein is the
primary protein source
for at least half of their
meals is an indicator of
sustainability because of
the environmental
impacts associated with
meat production. These
include intensive water
use, water pollution
from food waste and
fecal matter, and
intensive chemical and
hormone use.

Cool Foods
The Cool Foods

40
For a complete Food Choices description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Env
ironmental_and_Public_Health/Food_Choices.aspx
41
For Food Choices source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Environmental_and_Public_Health2/EPH12_FoodChoices.xls
129 
Campaign educates the
public about how food
choices can affect global
warming and empowers
them with the resources
to reduce this impact. In
October 2008, Santa
Monica city council
signed on to the “Cool
Foods” Campaign to
elevate this linkage and
provide specific
suggestions to members
of the public who want
to reduce the
environmental impact of
their food choices.
Since that commitment,
City Council has
promoted food
sustainability as a
priority area of
implementation in the
Sustainable City Plan.
In November 2009, the
Santa Monica Task
Force on the
Environment has
proposed the allocation
of staff resources to:
• Creating a
Sustainable
Food Policy for
municipal
operations
• Auditing and
addressing
municipal food
purchases
• Enhancing
existing
sustainable food
programs
• Coordinating
education and
outreach
campaigns.

Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
130 
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2012)

Table 12. Santa Monica Environmental and Public Health Report Card grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade B B- C C C+ C+
Effort A A A- A- A- A-
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)

Interestingly, like water usage specialist Russell Ackerman, James Velez-
Conway, Senior Environmental Analyst in the Hazardous Materials Management Section
of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, also discusses the importance of the
MTBE leak in the groundwater. This issue also affects his area of expertise with regard to
the Hazardous Materials indicators in the Environmental and Public Health goal area.

“Specifically me, though, I – you know again, going back to protection of our
natural resources, I oversee the groundwater and soils remediation project for the
City, where we’ve had contaminated – groundwater contaminated by used
underground storage tanks which leak too fast and MTBE and various solvents
got into the groundwater and so it’s been a long process. Probably 10 plus years
for some projects of actually cleaning up that water and ultimately we’re trying to
get back to becoming water independent so we don’t have to input a lot of our
drinking water. And that’s kind of one of the long-term goals that I’ve been
thinking about is – and that’s going to save the City tremendous resources down
the road not having to import water. We need to be able to extract the water from
local wells” (Velez-Conway 2012).

He continues to describe the importance of the Households Hazardous Wastes Center in
keeping toxics out of the environment. He describes how many areas of the environments
(affecting other goal areas and indicators) that hazardous materials alone affect.
131 
“Another aspect of the hazardous materials section – actually a big aspect of it is
the permanent HHW facility that we have – Households Hazardous Wastes
Center where residents come to us. And we’re always trying to remove toxics
from the environment and trying to encourage people to use environmentally
preferable products – whether it’s cleaning products, whether it’s avoiding using
any types of pesticides or herbicides. No, it’s an avenue for residents to actually
bring their paints, oil, anything that’s toxic and hazardous and get it out the
environment, make sure it’s not getting into the solid waste stream and ending up
in the landfills. Or, being thrown into the streets and ending up in the oceans, or
you know being buried in the ground and contaminating the soils. So we measure
directly, how many people come into our facility – the volume, the weight, the
types of materials that people bring, and that's and indicator for us on the level of
awareness over time. We’ve had the facility for 20 years and so we can measure
from the very beginning, you know, how many people have used the facility”
(Velez-Conway 2012).

Velez-Conway then notes that his team has surpassed the indicator target set in the Plan:

“I think we’ve surpassed the goal of the Sustainable City Plan – we’re trying to –
our target was 50% saturation, and if you do the math I think we’ve reached about
half the population over 20 years. But, you know, the population’s constantly
changing, the overall population I think of Santa Monica is pretty stable, it’s not
fluctuating that much because it’s a small place, but there’s a lot of transients that
come through Santa Monica, so - or a lot of people don’t necessarily live here
and work here. And so the daytime population is really growing” (Velez-Conway
2012).

And he discusses the ongoing abatement and measurement of specific hazardous
materials:
“So – the specific number – we measure the number of projects that we work on
throughout the year, outside of groundwater and soils, remediation and cleanup –
I also receive asbestos, lead, mold, and other hazardous materials cleanup and in
construction. Area, I get to work with architects and the Planning Department – so
every project, wherever there’s any redevelopment or demolishing a building –
we do a survey to make sure the buildings don’t contain asbestos, mold, lead. So
we’re directly removing those materials from the environment. We have policies
for sand blasting
42
– if anybody’s trying to pull a sandblasting permit – a lot of

42
“Sandblasting is an abrasive process where you actually remove paint from a surface –
so they use I guess sand, it would be, and then they spray the walls, and it just pulverizes
the surface, so they use it a lot when you want to strip a surface. So if you have an old
garage and they strip it down to the studs or down to the wood, it’s got like layers and
layers and layers and layers of paint, then sandblasting’s pretty much with only way to
strip it down to the natural wood. The problem is, the older layers that contain lead, going
132 
the old buildings have lead containing paint, so they have to test for that lead -
especially with sandblasting, because it’s such an abrasive process and it turns the
paint into such small particulate that blow all over the place. The most susceptible
population obviously is children, so we really try to protect kids when it comes to
lead, heavy metals, and stuff, so” (Velez-Conway 2012).

Again, a major takeaway is how interdependent the various staff jobs are with regard to
goal areas and indicators. Another is the level of specificity required in the
implementation work on the ground to really move indicators in a positive direction. The
importance of having a tangible goal that is measurable and implementable becomes clear
from the interviewees. For indicators listed without set targets, little is being done
because the institutional staff support needs to follow a measurable target to lead to real
action that moves indicators.

back to like the 1940’s and 50’s all paint contained lead, and not so much the surface
paint” (Velez-Conway, 2012).

133 
Goal Area 3: Transportation
Goals:
“1. Create a multi-modal transportation system that minimizes and, where possible,
eliminates pollution and motor vehicle congestion while ensuring safe mobility and
access for all without compromising our ability to protect public health and safety.

2. Facilitate a reduction in automobile dependency in favor of affordable alternative,
sustainable modes of travel” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“The city’s ridesharing programs are getting more people out of their cars. Average
Vehicle Ridership (AVR) locally increased from 1.59 last year to 1.64 this year and
exceeds the Sustainable City Plan target of 1.5. Last year 13% more people rode their
bikes to work, spurred by an 11% increase in bike lanes on local streets. The bike valet
program parked more than 25,000 bikes for free at community events around the city.
However, the annual level of vehicle vs. bike accidents has risen 78% since 2007
indicating the need for additional educational and bike safety investments. Currently,
73% of the city’s municipal fleet is fueled by alternative fuels. BBB ridership is steady at
about 22 million trips per year. A bus transit program partnership between Big Blue Bus
and Santa Monica College reduced 2.2 million car trips. Santa Monica is a leading
advocate for regional transportation planning to enhance mobility and relieve congestion.
However, traffic congestion remains a significant issue in the community. The consistent
grade reflects a strong commitment to local and regional transportation solutions and
continued improvement in average vehicle ridership and bicycling while recognizing the
city is far from reaching its transportation related goals” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2010).

Table 13. Santa Monica Transportation outcomes
Indicators
– System
and
Program
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Modal Split
(System)
• Number of
trips by
type,
citywide
• Average
An upward
trend in the
use of
sustainable
(bus, bike,
pedestrian,
rail) modes
No performance summary
available.
No analysis available.
134 
vehicle
ridership
(AVR) of
Santa
Monica
businesses
with more
than
50
employees)
of
transportatio
n
AVR of 1.5
by 2010 for
Santa
Monica
businesses
with more
than 50
employees
Residential
Use of
Sustainable
Transporta
tion
Options
43

(System)
Percent of
residents
who have
intentionally
not used
their car but
have instead
used a
sustainable
mode of
transportatio
n in the past
month

Upward
trend
Use of Sustainable
Transportation
The percent of residents who
have intentionally not used their
car but have instead used a
sustainable mode of
transportation comes from data
collected in an annual citywide
residents survey. In 2002, 72%
of Santa Monica residents
reported that they had
intentionally not used their car in
the past month. In 2005, that
number had dropped to 71%, and
to 63% by 2007.

The City of Santa Monica
provides a variety of
resources for residents to
choose sustainable modes of
travel. This includes bus,
rail, bicycles, walking and
alternative fuelled vehicles.
These transportation options
are considered more
sustainable because they can
reduce congestion and
vehicle emissions.

Sufficiency
of
Transporta
tion
Options
(System)
Percent of
residents
who
perceive
that the
available
sustainable
modes of
transportatio
Upward
trend
Sufficiency of Sustainable
Transportation
"The percent of residents who
feel that the public transportation
need is met in the city was
generated from data collected in
the City of Santa Monica
Sustainable City Plan Survey.
The survey conducted asked
people if they thought the public
transportation need was met in
the City of Santa Monica. About
44 percent of respondents
thought that the public
transportation need in the city
The city has identified the
need for sufficient services
to support residents in
choosing sustainable
transportation options. The
Big Blue Bus is an award
winning bus service which
serves residents and non-
residents. In addition to its
regular service, Big Blue
Bus launched the Mini Blue
in July 2007. The Mini Blue
has five lines providing
smaller, faster neighborhood
rides. The Mini Blue buses

43
For a complete Sustainable Transportation Options see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Tra
nsportation/Sustainable_Transportation_Options.aspx
135 
n in Santa
Monica
meet their
needs
was met by the current public
transportation system. Another
roughly 42% felt that the current
system falls short, citing slight to
major problems with sustainable
transit options in their responses.
The remaining 14% didn't know
whether the whether the
availability of sustainable transit
options is adequate."
44

are, like the rest of the Big
Blue Bus fleet, 100%
alternatively fueled are
equipped with bike for rider
convenience. Comprehensive
counts of Mini Blue
ridership won’t be available
until next year, but initial
usage surpassed all
expectations. Perhaps the
drop in percentage of
residents choosing
sustainable transportation
options reported above will
be addressed by the launch
of the Mini Blue lines.

Bicycle
Lanes and
Paths
45

(System)
• Percent of
total miles
of city
arterial
streets
with bike
lanes
• Total
miles of
bike paths
in Santa
Monica
35% by
2010
No net
decrease
There are 130 miles of arterial
streets in Santa Monica. Bike
lanes are designated on 13 total
miles of roadway. Of these, 3.78
miles of designated bike lanes
are on arterial streets. That
means less than 3% of Santa
Monica’s arterial streets have
bike lanes, a figure which falls
short of the city's 35% target for
2010. In addition to designated
bike lanes, there is one bike path
that is 3.11 miles long and 20
bike routes covering 18.78
miles.
46

No analysis available.
Vehicle
Ownership
(System)
Average
number of
vehicles per
person of
driving age
10%
reduction in
the average
number of
vehicles per
person by
2010
Upward
Average Vehicle Ownership
In 2000, the number of cars for
each driver, was under one or
.94. By 2003, that figure had
reached .86, and has remained
steady at .86 through 2005. This
means that the percent of
residents who own a car is
Reducing automobile
dependency in favor of
alternative and sustainable
modes of travel is an
important sustainable
practice. The average
number of cars per person of
driving age gives a general

44
For Sustainable Transportation Options source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T23_Options.xls
45
For a complete Bicycle Lanes and Paths description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Tra
nsportation/Bike_Lanes.aspx
46
For Bicycle Lanes and Paths source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T4_BikeLanes.xls
136 
in Santa
Monica
• total
number of
vehicles per
person
• percent of
total that are
qualified
low
emission /
alternative
fuel vehicles
trend in %
of qualified
low
emission /
alternative
fuel vehicles
decreasing, and we are
approaching the .85 target!

Low emissions and alternative
fuel vehicles
Many of the 64,619 vehicles in
the city are traditional fuel
combustion vehicles, however,
given the rising cost of gas and
emerging new technologies that
increase fuel efficiency and
decrease vehicle emissions, this
number is growing.
Unfortunately, data to update
this figure precisely were
unavailable as of this writing.

Although data for Santa
Monicans LEV ownership are
not yet available, total sales of
all hybrids in 2004 doubled
those sold 2003 . The 2005
figure is projected to at least
double with the introduction of
new models.
representation of automobile
dependency in the city. The
percent of total cars that are
low emission or alternative
fuel vehicles captures the
extent to which drivers are
shifting away from
conventionally fueled
vehicles in the city.

Alternative fueled vehicles
are vehicles that operate on
fuels other than gasoline or
diesel and/or technologies
which are less polluting.
Some examples compressed
natural gas, liquid natural
gas, propane, electricity,
hybrid gasoline and
electricity, and hydrogen.
Low emission vehicles can
run on traditional fuels such
as gasoline and diesel and on
alternative fuels. For a
description of the low
emission and alternative fuel
vehicles, as well as
suggestions on LEV and
alternative fuel car purchase
please see clean air vehicle
information.

Although updated
information on LEV/ZEV
and Alternative Fuel
Vehicles for Santa Monica
was unavailable as of this
writing, the state of
California’s proportion of
LEV/ZEV/AFV was under
1%, but growing.

Bus
Ridership
47

(Program)
• Annual
ridership on
Upward
trend (All
points)
Annual Ridership
Ridership on the Big Blue Bus
remains strong. After dropping
off from the 23 Million trip
highpoint in 2001, ridership has
An efficient and effective
sustainable transportation
system provides a viable
alternative to single
occupancy driving for those

47
For a complete Bus Ridership description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Tra
nsportation/Bus_Ridership.aspx
137 
Santa
Monica
Big Blue
Bus (BBB)
• Percent of
residents
who have
ridden
the BBB in
the past year
• Percent of
residents
who have
ridden
the Tide
shuttle in
the past year
• Annual
ridership on
MTA routes
originating
in Santa
Monica
hovered between 20 and 21
million trips per year in recent
years.

Percent of Residents
Santa Monica residents are
utilizing the Big Blue Bus. In
2001, 50% of residents reported
having used the Big Blue Bus in
the previous year. In 2002, the
percent increased to 54%.
Residential use of the Tides
Shuttle has remained constant in
2001 and 2002 at around 15%.

Annual Ridership MTA
The annual ridership on MTA
routes originating in Santa
Monica in 2004 was around 2.7
million. During the two years in
which data exist, the MTA
represents between 9% and 12%
of total bus ridership.
48

who own a car but want to
reduce the environmental,
social and economic costs of
driving. It further provides a
necessary service to
community members who do
not own a vehicle. There are
three major bus services
available to Santa Monica
commuters. These are the
Big Blue Bus, the MTA and
the Tide Shuttle. Together
these services provide
residents, visitors and
commuters with a more
sustainable transportation
option.

Its destinations include arts
and leisure centers, parks
and beaches, shopping
centers, colleges and public
buildings as well as major
commuting corridors.

Big Blue Bus also possesses
a strong commitment to
environmental stewardship
and sustainable
transportation. Half the BBB
fleet runs on LNG, which
does not contribute to
greenhouse gas emissions
and emits 80% less
particulate matter into the air
than does diesel fuel. Last
year the BBB also opened a
new fuel and wash facility
that uses a biodegradable
soap and recycles 80% of the
water used.

Alternative (City staff to The city has been adding a Alternative fueled vehicles

48
For Bus Ridership source information see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T6_BusRidership.xls
138 
Fueled
Vehicles
49

(System)
Percent of
the City’s
non-
emergency
fleet
vehicles
using
alternative
fuels
• Public
Works
vehicles
• BBB
vehicles
• Non
emergency
police and
fire vehicles
develop
target)
variety of alternative fuel
vehicles to its non-emergency
public works fleet in order to
meet the diverse needs in the
city. There are 501 city vehicles.
In 2006, 407 of these were
alternatively fueled, representing
81% of the fleet. Eighty-one
percent is a dramatic increase
from its 1993 level of 10% and
exceeds own 75% target!

The Big Blue Bus has a total of
217 vehicles, including its repair
vehicles. Of those, 107 are
fueled alternatively. The Big
Blue Bus plans to gradually
replace its remaining
conventional diesel powered
buses with alternatively fueled
vehicles as those buses are
retired from service.

Information on the sustainability
of the non-emergency police and
fire vehicle was not available as
of this writing.
50

operate on fuels other than
gasoline or ordinary diesel,
compressed natural gas
(CNG), liquid natural gas
(LNG), propane,
biodiesel/petroleum blend,
electricity, hybrid gasoline
and electricity, and
hydrogen. The benefits of
alternative fuel vehicles
include improvement in
environmental and human
health resulting from
reduced dependence on
fossil fuels, greenhouse gas
emissions and air pollution.

The city is using alternative
fuel vehicles because of the
beneficial environmental and
human health impacts as
well as state regulations that
require the city to use
alternative fuel vehicles or to
attain a certain level of fuel
efficiency or emissions
reduction. See the city's Fleet
Management Website for
more information on specific
vehicles.

Traffic
Congestion
51

(System)
• Number of
signalized
intersections
with
unacceptabl
e motor
vehicle
Downward
trend
Upward
trend
Downward
trend
Traffic congestion is a problem
in Santa Monica. Several
intersections have unacceptable
levels of congestion during the
morning and evening commute
hours. Additionally there are a
few intersections that have
traffic congestion throughout the
day.

The target for this indicator is a
The city has a goal of
creating a multi-modal
transportation system that
minimizes and, where
possible, eliminates pollution
and motor vehicle
congestion. This indicator
measures the number of
signalized intersections with
unacceptable motor vehicle
congestion (LOS D,E or F)

49
For a complete description of Alternative Fueled Vehicles see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Tra
nsportation/Alternative_Fuel_Vehicles_-_City_Fleet.aspx
50
For Alternative Fueled Vehicles source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T7_AFV.xls
51
For a complete description of Traffic Congestion see:
139 
congestion
(LOS D, E
or F) during
peak hours
• Level of
service
(LOS) for
sustainable
modes
of
transportatio
n at
impacted
intersections
• Locally
classified
streets that
exceed City
thresholds
for traffic
levels
downward trend in the number
of intersections with
unacceptable congestion, a
downward trend in the number
of locally classified streets that
exceed desired traffic levels, and
an upward trend in the level of
service for sustainable modes of
transportation.
52

during peak hours, the level
of service (LOS) for
sustainable modes of
transportation at impacted
intersections, and the locally
classified streets that exceed
city thresholds for traffic
levels.

Level of Service (LOS) is
reported in letter grades.
Each letter grade
corresponds to a measured
range of time at any
intersection. The table below
shows the corresponding
times for each letter grade.

In summary, this measure
defines acceptable or
unacceptable congestion
levels, and categorizes
intersections accordingly,
ultimately yielding a number
of unacceptably congested
intersections. Given that
definition, no improvement
seems to have occurred in
our congestion situation.

There has, however, been
movement. For example,
during the morning
commute, 38 intersections
have improved their levels of
service, and 25 those have
even moved from a D, E, or
F LOS to the “acceptable”
levels of A, B or C.
Generally, while there have
improvements in morning
congestion in some spots,
there has also been a
corresponding worsening in
afternoon congestion in
others, so there appears to be
no net change. Still, the

52
For Traffic Congestion source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T8_TrafficCongestion.xls
140 
city’s Transportation
Management Division is
using all the technical and
planning tools at its disposal
to address this problem.

Pedestrian
and Bicycle
Safety
53

(System)
Number of
bicycle and
pedestrian
collisions
involving
motor
vehicles
Downward
trend
Reducing the opportunities for
collisions is important in
promoting a bicycle and
pedestrian friendly community.
The city has adopted a two-fold
strategy to reduce the number of
collisions between motor
vehicles and pedestrians or
bicyclists. The two-fold strategy
includes both a strong
educational campaign and
modifications to the existing
landscapes in the community.
The goal of these programs is to
create a safe community where
bicyclists and pedestrians share
the roadways with motor
vehicles.

This indicator measures
pedestrian and bike safety by the
number of bicycle and pedestrian
collisions involving motor
vehicles. The target is to achieve
a downward trend in the number
of collisions.
54

The City of Santa Monica is
committed to promoting a
safe and walkable
community that meets the
needs of its residents and
visitors. Making conditions
safer for walking and biking
will encourage a greater
number of people to utilize
these healthy, sustainable
modes of transportation.

The city’s educational
campaign to facilitate this
goal has included the use of
billboards and trailers in
movie theaters to educate
pedestrians and drivers about
right-of-way issues in the
city and encourage drivers
and pedestrians to be
cautious and respectful as
they share the roadway. In
addition to education,
changes to the physical
landscape have occurred.
These include redesigning
major streets and eliminating
traffic lanes in favor of bike
lanes, wider sidewalks and
medians. Additional safety
improvements have included
traffic calming and installing
street trees, pedestrian
lighting, and embedding
flashing yellow lights in the
pavement to illuminate some
crosswalks.

53
For a complete description of Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T9_PedBikeSafety.xls
54
For Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T9_PedBikeSafety.xls
141 

Traffic
Impacts to
Emergency
Response
55

(System)
Average
emergency
response
times for
public
safety
vehicles
• Police
• Fire
No upward
trend
Since 2002, the average response
time for emergency Police calls
has hovered between 7 and 8
minutes. In 2007, emergency
police response was 7 min, 39
seconds on average. In 2002, the
average response time for
emergency Fire calls was 4
minutes. Since then it has edged
upward, to 4 minutes, 30
seconds in 2006, and a slight
drop down to 4 minutes, 15
seconds in 2007.

The variations in response time
can have a myriad of causes.
Some increase in delay can be
attributed to increased
congestion on roadways in the
community as well as street
calming measures such as speed
bumps and traffic circles
introduced to create a more
walkable and safe community
for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Altered routes by fire vehicles or
assistance from Traffic Safety
Officers could account for
reduced delays for fire
vehicles.
56

Emergency response time is
an essential component of a
reliable public safety
program. Residents,
businesses and visitors rely
on the Police and Fire
Departments to respond to
emergency calls in a timely
manner. The city has a
commitment to providing the
community with the highest
level of public safety.

In the spring of 1997, the
Fire Department conducted
tests using emergency
apparatus to determine the
actual delays caroused by the
speed humps in the Sunset
park are. Delays averaged
6.5 seconds per speed hump.

The Fire Department has
designated specific streets as
“emergency response
routes.” The Fire Department
has requested that no further
traffic measures be installed
on these streets.
Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

Table 14. Santa Monica Transportation Report Card grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012

55
For a complete Traffic Impacts to Emergency Response see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Tra
nsportation/Traffic_Impact_on_Emergency_Response.aspx
56
For Traffic Impacts to Emergency Response source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Transportation/T10_EmergencyResp.xls
142 
Grade C- C C+ C+ C+ B-
Effort A A A A A A
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)
143 
Goal Area 4: Economic Development

Goals:

“1. Nurture a diverse, stable, local economy that supports basic needs of all segments of
the community.

2. Businesses, organizations and local government agencies within Santa Monica
continue to increase the efficiency of their use of resources through the adoption of
sustainable business practices. The City takes a leadership role by developing a plan by
2005 to increase the adoption of sustainable practices by Santa Monica businesses and
encouraging sustainable businesses to locate in Santa Monica” (Ci. of Santa Monica
2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“Santa Monica’s economy remains resilient, and experienced growth in the finance,
information and health sectors. The local economy continues to be stable and diverse
with no sector representing more than 25% of total economic activity. Though total
wages fell 8% in 2009, back to 2006-7 levels, no one sector was disproportionately
affected. The city, Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitors Bureau and
Sustainable Works continue to collaborate on programs that support local businesses.
More than 200 businesses now participate in the recently launched Buy Local Santa
Monica program. To date, 51 Santa Monica businesses have been recognized for their
exceptional commitment to sustainable practices through the Green Business
Certification Program and 78 businesses have been recognized with Sustainable Quality
Awards. An additional 158 businesses have participated in the Sustainable Works
Business Greening Program. The rising cost of living and an unbalanced ratio of jobs to
housing make it difficult for people to live near their workplace, exacerbating traffic and
parking problems. The consistent grade reflects the continued strength of the local
economy and growth in local green business, while recognizing the challenges presented
by cost of living and the global recession” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2010).

144 
Table 15. Santa Monica Economic Development outcomes

Indicators –
System and
Program
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Economic
Diversity
57

(System)
Percent of total
economic
activity/output
by business
sector
(expressed as a
percent of total
wages)
No single
sector shall be
greater than
25% of total
economic
activity/output;
and the top
three sectors
shall not be
greater than
50% of total
economic
activity/output
The business environment in the
city is diverse. Between 2004 and
2011 no single sector of the
economy represented more than
25% of the total. The top three
sectors were Information,
Professional, Science and
Technology, and Financial
Services & Insurance. The
Information Sector ranged
between 16% and 21% during
those years. The Professional,
Science and Technology Sector
has represented between 18% and
20% of payroll. The Healthcare
sector and Finance and Insurance
have traded off in the third
position in from 2006-11,
comprising between 8-10% of the
total. In 2011, the other sectors
represent about 53% of the total
payroll of businesses in the city,
still meeting the targets for this
indicator.
58

In 2008, the city’s
Office of Sustainability
and the Environment in
concert with the
Housing and Economic
Development, Planning
and Community
Development,
Environmental and
Public Works
Management
departments and the
Sustainable City Task
Force, has
commissioned the
development of a Santa
Monica Strategy for a
Sustainable Local
Economy. The purpose
of the Strategy for a
Sustainable Local
Economy is to ensure
the long-term viability
and sustainability of
our local economy; and
to attract and retain
businesses to Santa
Monica that contribute
to the overall
environmental,
economic and social
sustainability of our
community. This study
will define and develop
approaches to enrich
the sustainable aspect

57
For a complete description of Economic Diversity see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Eco
nomic_Development/Economic_Diversity.aspx
58
For Economic Development source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Economic_Development/E1_EconomicDiversity.xls
145 
of the City’s economy;
and will complement a
strategic economic
development study
being conducted
concurrently as part of
the City’s Land Use
and Circulation
Elements update of the
City’s General Plan.
Business
Reinvestment
in the
Community
59

(System)
(indicator
developed in
2007)
Annual
increase in
reinvestment
by businesses
This indicator is currently being
developed, but an annual increase
in business reinvestment in the
community is clearly beneficial.
No analysis available.
Jobs / Housing
Balance
(System)
• Ratio of the
number of jobs
in Santa
Monica
to the amount
of housing
• Percent of
Santa Monica
residents
employed
in Santa
Monica

Ratio should
approach 1
Increasing
trend
This indicator is currently being
developed, but an annual increase
in business reinvestment in the
community is clearly beneficial.
No analysis available.
Cost of Living
(System)
Santa Monica
household
incomes in
relation to
Santa Monica
cost of living
index
(SMCOLI)
(no target) Both average household income
and cost of living are increasing,
but the cost of living is increasing
at a slightly higher rate. The
average household income in
1990 was $69,627 and the
average cost of living was
$25,206. In 2000, the average
household income has risen to
$79,890 and the average cost of
living has grown at a bit more
heightened pace to reach
$31,820. In 1990 the cost of
The City has a goal to
nurture a diverse,
stable, local economy
that supports the basic
needs of all segments
of the community. The
cost of living index is
one tool used to
monitor the local
economy. The cost of
living index is a useful
way to consider
changes in economic

59
For a complete Business Reinvestment description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Eco
nomic_Development/Business_Reinvestment.aspx
146 
living represented 36% of
household income. It has risen
almost constantly since then to a
high of 40% in 2000.
prosperity in the
community due in part
to changes in factors
beyond the control of
individual households
such as inflation. The
City is tracking this
indicator because the
relative purchasing
power of the City’s
households has an
impact on the local
economy and because
the larger economic
implications of a high
cost of living impacts
individual residents and
the city as a whole.

Quality Job
Creation
(System)
Number of net
new jobs
created in Santa
Monica that
pay greater than
or equal to the
SMCOLI as a
percent of total
new jobs
created

Increasing
trend
This indicator looks at the
number of net new jobs created in
Santa Monica that pay greater
than or equal to the SMCOLI as a
percent of total new jobs created.
The target is an increasing trend.
No analysis available.
Income
Disparity
• Percent of
Santa Monica
households
earning
less than
$25,000/year
• Percent of
households
earning more
than
$100,000/year
60

(no target)

Income disparity is an important
indicator of the economic
strength of the community. This
indicator compares the percent of
the population earning more than
$100,000, or the wealthy
population, to the percentage
earning less than $25,000, or the
low income population. The
presumption is that equal
numbers of rich and poor living
in a community foster an
economic and social equilibrium.
Such would theoretically be the
Income disparity in the
city is a geographic as
well as economic issue.
The current housing
stock may not meet the
housing needs of those
residents earning less
than $100,000. In
addition, the jobs
paying more than
$100,000 may not be
located in the city.
Therefore those people
working in the city of

60
For a complete description of Income Disparity see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Eco
nomic_Development/Income_Disparity.aspx
147 
case if this ratio is "1.0", a state
of income parity. Large income
disparity, however, can cause
"inequalities in access to city and
social service, resources and
power, as well as poverty and
poverty-related problems. It also
threatens the long-term stability
of the economy,” according to
CEROI (Cities Environment
Report on the Internet).

Until a permanent target can be
set, the interim target for this
indicator is 1.0.
61

Santa may be
commuting from other
communities and those
living in Santa Monica
may be commuting to
other areas for work.
This leads to an
increase in the job/
housing balance,
increased vehicle miles
traveled, and increased
congestion.
Resource
Efficiency of
Local
Businesses
• Ratio of
energy use to
total economic
activity
by business
sector
• Ratio of total
water use to
total economic
activity by
business sector

Downward
trend

This data is currently unavailable
because of difficulty in
disaggregating the energy and
water use data in relationship to
the business sector responsible
for its use. Currently, resource
use data is not collected in a
manner that supports reporting on
this indicator.
No analysis available.
Local
Employment
of City Staff
• Percent of
City employees
who live in SM
• Distance City
employees
travel to work
(no target)

The percentage of city of Santa
Monica employees living in
Santa Monica has hovered around
15-16% for the past six years.
Currently, the city has 1,949
permanent employees, 298 of
which live in Santa Monica. This
represents 15% of municipal
employees. On average city
employees traveled 11.6 miles to
work in 2002.

The city has a goal to
nurture a diverse,
stable, local economy
that supports the basic
needs of all segments
of the community.
Local employment of
city staff is an
important step towards
this goal. Employing
local residents to work
in the city increases the
potential for the money
being generated in the
local economy to stay

61
For Income Disparity source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Economic_Development/E6_IncomeDisparity.xls
148 
in the local economy.
Additionally, the
distance employees
travel to work is
important as it
contributes to the
number of cars on the
road and their
associated impacts.
Vehicle travel as part
of an employee’s daily
commute can have
significant impacts
such as increased
congestion, vehicle
emissions, air
pollution, and soil and
water contamination.
Local employees may
be more likely to utilize
public transportation,
walk or bike to work.
Those who drive to
work will drive shorter
distances and will thus
contribute less to traffic
congestion and to the
associated pollution
and greenhouse gas
emissions.

There has been no shift
in the economics of
cost of living in Santa
Monica which would
make it more
affordable to city
employees. The
availability of more
affordable housing
might increase the
percentage in the
future.

Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

149 

Table 16. Santa Monica Economic Development Report Card grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade B B B B B B
Effort C+ B+ A- A- A- A-
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)

150 
Goal Area 5: Open Space and Land Use
Goals:

“1. Develop and maintain a sufficient open space system so that it is diverse in uses and
opportunities and includes natural function/wildlife habitat as well as passive and active
recreation with an equitable distribution of parks, trees and pathways throughout the
community.

2. Implement land use and transportation planning and policies to create compact, mixed-
use projects, forming urban villages designed to maximize affordable housing and
encourage walking, bicycling and the use of existing and future public transit systems.

3. Residents recognize that they share the local ecosystem with other living things that
warrant respect and responsible stewardship.”
(Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“There are 245 acres of state beach and 26 community parks in Santa Monica’s open
space system. Park accessibility continues to be good with 90% of residents living within
••• mile of open space. The city’s commitment to increase open space for its residents
over the last decade is notable. In 2009 the LEED Gold Annenberg Community Beach
House opened, making accessible to the public a beautiful beach club experience with no
membership required. The trees making up Santa Monica’s urban forest continue to
increase in number and in both species and age diversity. The city continues to promote
progressive land use policy. Plans are underway for 2 new centrally-located parks that
will transform Santa Monica’s Civic Center. A number of mixed-use development
projects that combine housing, office and retail space have been built to help reduce
traffic and parking congestion and encourage walking and transit use. The consistent
grade reflects the city’s commitment to maintaining a sufficient and diverse open space
system as well as efforts to create land use and transportation policies that promote
mixed-use, transit-oriented development” (Sustainable City Report Card, 2010).

Table 17. Santa Monica Open Space and Land Use outcomes
Indicators
– System
and
Program
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
151 
Open
Space
62

(System)
• Number of
acres of
public open
space by
type
(including
beaches,
parks, public
gathering
places,
gardens, and
other public
lands utilized
as open
space)
• Percent of
open space
that is
permeable
Upward trend
Upward trend
Recognizing the importance of open
space in a sustainable city, Santa
Monica is looking at the number of
acres of open space in the city. The
target is an upward trend in the
amount of open space as well as
increased permeability in open
space areas. They main goal is to
ensure that net open space does not
DECREASE in the future.
63

The goal for this
indicator is to develop
and maintain a sufficient
open space system so
that it is diverse in uses
and opportunities and
includes natural
functions/ wildlife
habitat as well as passive
and active recreation
with an equitable
distribution of parks,
trees and pathways
throughout the
community. Parks and
open spaces are
important because they
accommodate recreation,
allow contemplation,
and promote community
gathering. Public parks
provide the common
open space people need
for recreation, whether
active or passive,
organized or casual.
Generally, open space is
unpaved, and accessible
free of charge.

The Annenberg
Community Beach
House opened Spring
2009 at 415 Pacific
Coast Highway. It is
open year-round (pool
and fitness room open
seasonally). The Beach
House is operated by the
City of Santa Monica
through a long-term
agreement with the State
of California. The
project was made

62
For a complete Open Space description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Ope
n_Space_and_Land_Use/Open_Space.aspx
63
For Open Space source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Ope
n_Space_and_Land_Use/Open_Space.aspx
152 
possible by generous
funding from the
Annenberg Foundation,
at the recommendation
of Wallis Annenberg. Its
construction cost was
$31.5 million and is a
certified LEED Gold
facility. While The
Beach House does not
increase the open space
available to the
community because the
space was already beach
property, it is a
remarkable re-purposing
of existing space in the
first-known facility
offering a beach club
experience to the general
public.
Trees
64

(System)
• Percent of
tree canopy
coverage by
neighborhood
• Percent of
newly
planted and
total trees
that
meet defined
sustainability
criteria*
*developed
in 2007
Upward trend
Target to be
developed
The city is looking at the percent of
tree canopy coverage by
neighborhood and the percent of
newly planted and total number of
trees that meet defined
sustainability criteria. The target for
tree canopy is to have an upward
trend in the percentage of tree cover
throughout the community.
Unfortunately the precise data is not
currently available by
neighborhood. The target for
sustainable trees has not yet been
determined, but an increase is
expected to be beneficial.
65

This indicator measures
the tree canopy provided
by publicly owned
trees. If the tree canopy
includes privately owned
trees, Santa Monica’s
tree canopy picture
improves. The US
Forest Service has
estimated approximately
50,000 privately owned
trees in Santa Monica.
Some of these do not
significantly add to the
canopy, such as palm
trees. Still, if included,
the combination of the
33,800 public- and
privately owned trees
together constitute about
25% tree canopy.
Trees provide
environmental and

64
For a complete Trees description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Ope
n_Space_and_Land_Use/Trees.aspx
65
For Trees source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Open_Space_and_Land_Use/OSLU2_Trees.xls
153 
public health benefits.
They provide shade,
increase the aesthetic
value of the city and
contribute to higher
property values. The tree
canopy contributes to
reduction in storm water
runoff, reduces solar
gain and minimizes
evaporative loss from
excessive exposure to
direct sun. Additionally,
trees in the urban forest
contribute to increased
air quality. A study
conducted by the U.S.
Forest Service estimates
that the air pollutant
uptake by Santa
Monica's tree canopy
cover is 10.7 metric tons
or 0.8 lb per tree. The
city’s community
forester estimates that
municipal trees provide
important health and
environmental benefits
to residents at an
estimated value of $1.9
million or roughly $65
per tree.

Santa Monica’s urban
forest is fairly even-aged
though the city has
begun the gradual
replacement of older
trees. This will result in
a short-term reduction of
canopy cover and the
associated benefits.
However, this loss will
be offset by the benefits
associated with planting
the appropriate species
of trees and diversifying
the age of the city’s
urban forest.
The tree inventory on
which this reporting is
154 
based took place in
2009. A new inventory
takes place every 7-10
years.
Parks -
Accessibility
66

(System)
Percent of
households
and
population
within ••• and
••• mile of a
park by
neighborhood
Upward trend
in park
accessibility
for Santa
Monica
residents
The city has a goal to develop and
maintain a sufficient open space
system with an equitable
distribution of parks, trees and
pathways throughout the
community. This indicator currently
measures the percent of households
and population that live within ½
mile and a ¼ mile of a park. The
target for this indicator is an upward
trend in the accessibility of parks in
the city.
67

There are almost 424
acres of public open
space in the City of
Santa Monica. Public
parks make up 112 acres
of the total open space in
the city. As a measure of
the city¹s sustainability,
access to these parks is
essential. Parks provide
places for rest,
recreation and aesthetic
value. The open space
and park areas in Santa
Monica included in this
analysis include "green
streets" such as San
Vicente Blvd. Although
it is not explicitly a park,
it is a public space
which affords the
opportunity for jogging
and biking in a less
urban setting.

Parks and open space
also reduce air pollution,
storm water runoff, and
the urban heat island
effect. Utilizing
community parks and
open space to improve
environmental health,
neighborhood
attractiveness and
livability throughout the
city is an important
strategy for a sustainable
city. Generally, a 1/2
mile is about a 10-

66
For a complete description of Parks and Opens Space see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Open_Space_and_Land_Use/OSLU3_ParksAccessibility.xls
67
For Parks and Open Space source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Open_Space_and_Land_Use/OSLU3_ParksAccessibility.xls
155 
minute walk and a 1/4
mile is about a 5-minute
walk.

Following last year's
opening of the two new
parks highlighted above,
the only densely
populated area of Santa
Monica which is not
served is the northwest
border along Centinela.
Otherwise, the less
populous areas north of
Montana have few
parks, but have green
streets and large
individual lots.

Land Use
and
Developmen
t
(System)
Percent of
residential,
mixed-use
projects that
are within •••
mile of
transit nodes
and are other-
wise
consistent
with
Sustainable
City Program
goals

Upward trend This indicator looks at the percent
of residential, mixed-use projects
that are within ¼ mile of transit
nodes and are otherwise consistent
with Sustainable City Program
goals. The target is to have an
upward trend.

The land use and development
patterns that are “otherwise
consistent with Sustainable City
Program goals” have not been
delineated in a manner that
facilitates reporting on this indicator
at this time.
No analysis data.
Regionally
Appropriate
Vegetation
68

(System)
Percent of
new or
replaced,
non-turf,
Target to be
developed
This is the first year of reporting on
this information. For the public
landscaping taking place between
2007-2009, the total square footage
of landscaping was 203,804. Of
that amount, 5,000 square feet
surrounding the DC-3 Monument
were turf, which is not regionally
This indicator was
developed to quantify
the broader concept,
namely Sustainable
Landscape. Sustainable
Landscape is based upon
a unique set of design
principles. These design

68
For a complete Regionally Appropriate Vegetation description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Ope
n_Space_and_Land_Use/Regionally_Appropriate_Vegetation.aspx
156 
public
landscaped
area and non-
recreational
turf area
planted with
regionally
appropriate
plants
appropriate. Otherwise, the public
landscaping was regionally
appropriate, making the percentage
for this indicator 98%!
69

principles are outlined
below and reflect the
different elements to
consider when creating a
landscape that
minimizes its impact on
precious resources like
water, but maximizes its
potential for creating
long lasting beauty and
ecological habitat. A
well thought out,
resource efficient design
will reduce maintenance
costs by working in
concert with natural
cycles instead of against
them.
• Use Green
Building
Materials
• Recycle
Materials On-
Site and
Minimize Waste
• Minimize
Impacts on Air,
Water, & Fossil
Fuel Resources
• Use Climate
Appropriate
Plants
• Reduce
Pesticide and
Chemical Use
• Use Mulch
• Incorporate
Edibles
• Consider Proper
Plant Placement
and Scale
• Utilize
Sustainable Pest
and Plant
Disease Control
• Address Soil
Health

69
For Regionally Appropriate Vegetation source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Open_Space_and_Land_Use/OSLU5%20Regionally%20Appropriate%20Vegetation.xls
157 
• Incorporate Rain
Water Recovery
Features
• Use Water-
Efficient
Irrigation

Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)
Table 18. Santa Monica Open Space and Land Use Report Card grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade B+ A- A- A- A- A-
Effort A A A A A A
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)
158 
Goal Area 6: Housing
Goal:

“Achieve and maintain a mix of affordable, livable and green housing types throughout
the city for people of all socioeconomic/cultural/household groups (including seniors,
families, singles, and disabled)” (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“All rent-controlled units retain the protections given by the Rent Control Law including
just-cause eviction protections. However, the affordability of more than half of the city’s
rent controlled housing units has been lost due to state-mandated vacancy decontrol in
1999. The controlled housing stock affordable to low and very-low income residents
continues to decrease, from 86% before state-mandated vacancy decontrol to 39% in
2010. The rate of this drop in affordability has been slowed by lower rents during the
recession and by upward adjustments in rents defined as “low-income” based on
increases in the Los Angeles County Median Family Income. Still, the city’s progressive
legal protections have helped to keep 39% of the controlled units affordable to low and
very-low income tenants. In addition to preserving the existing stock of affordable rental
units, the city is investing in the development of new affordable housing. The city added
248 units of affordable housing in 2008, nearly 50% of total new units completed
citywide. Another 290 affordable housing units were completed in 2009. Twelve percent
of the affordable housing stock completed in 2009 was targeted for special need
populations. The consistent grade reflects the continued loss of housing affordability
which is somewhat tempered by the city’s commitment to retaining existing and
providing additional affordable housing units” (Sustainable City Report Card, 2010).

Table 19. Santa Monica Housing outcomes
Indicators
– System
and
Program
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Availability
of
Affordable
Housing
70

(Target
developed by
City staff in
2008 with the
Since 1999, the city has lost the
affordability of more than half of its
rent controlled housing units due to
state-mandated vacancy decontrol.
No analysis available.

70
For a full description of Availability of Affordable Housing see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hou
sing/Distribution_of_Affordable_Housing.aspx
159 
(System)
Percent of all
existing and
new housing
in Santa
Monica
affordable to
very low,
low,
moderate,
and upper
income
households
next update
of the City’s
Housing
Element)

The controlled housing stock
affordable to low and very-low
income residents continues to
decrease from 86% before state-
mandated vacancy decontrol in
1999 to 40% in 2006. This factor,
combined with sustained upward
pressure on real estate prices, has
severely reduced the availability of
affordable housing. However, the
city’s progressive legal protections,
such as the just-cause eviction
protections in rent controlled units,
have contributed to keeping 40% of
the controlled units affordable to
low and very-low income tenants.
In addition to preserving the
existing stock of affordable rental
units, the city is investing in the
development of new affordable
housing. The Housing and
Redevelopment Division financed
almost $16 million for the
production of more than 60 units of
affordable housing in three
projects. Design development for
the Civic Center Village is
underway and will include at least
160 affordable housing units. The
consistent grade reflects the
continued loss of housing
affordability while recognizing the
significant accomplishments being
made in both retaining existing and
providing additional housing units
affordable to low income
residents.
71

Distribution
of
Affordable
Housing
72

(System)
Distribution
(no target)

In 2003 there were 3,473 affordable
housing units distributed throughout
the City of Santa Monica. 27% of
the affordable housing units are in
the Wilshire/Montana
neighborhood. 22% of the
Affordable housing in a
sustainable city is
dispersed throughout the
community. Typical
urban growth patterns
result in a lack of

71
For Availability of Affordable Housing source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Housing/H2_HousingDistribution.xls
72
For a complete description of Distribution of Affordable Housing see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hou
sing/Distribution_of_Affordable_Housing.aspx
160 
of low
income
housing by
neighborhood
affordable housing units are in the
Pico neighborhood. 16% of the
affordable housing units are in the
Ocean Park neighborhood. 10% are
in the Mid-City neighborhood and
another 10% of the units are in the
Sunset Park community. 1% of the
affordable housing units are north
of Montana.
73

affordable housing,
concentrated poverty
and limited access to
jobs and community
resources. In a
sustainable city,
affordable housing is
dispersed throughout the
community to promote
integration, share
resources and provide a
consistent level of
service to every member
of the community.
Affordable
Housing for
Special
Needs
Groups
74

(Program)
Number of
new or
rehabilitated
affordable
housing units
for families,
seniors, the
disabled and
other special
needs groups
as a
percentage of
all new or
rehabilitated
affordable
housing
development

Upward trend In 2010 the city completed 20 new
affordable units, all for seniors. So
.04% of new affordable housing
was for special categories of renters
in that year. In 2011, 8 of the 134
new units completed were
affordable, though none of them
were set aside for special needs
populations. The percentage of this
indicator in 2011 was 0%.
The City recognizes the
need to provide housing
to the special needs
segments of the
population. Historically,
the private housing
market has found it
difficult to address the
specific needs of
particular groups, such
as families, seniors, the
disabled and others.
However, this year the
hard work over many
years by the Housing
and Redevelopment
Division has borne fruit.
Production
of “Livable”
Housing
75

Upward trend The four elements used to
determine livability in the city are
the number of new housing units in
Livable housing in a
sustainable city is
located in reasonable

73
For Distribution of Affordable Housing source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Housing/H2_HousingDistribution.xls
74
For a complete description of Affordable Housing for Special Needs Groups see:
www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Housing/
Affordable_Housing_for_Special_Needs.aspx
75
For a complete description of Production of “Livable” Housing see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hou
sing/Livable_Housing.aspx
161 
(Program)
Distribution
of low
income
housing by •
Number of
new housing
units in non-
residential
zone districts
as a
percentage of
the total new
housing
• Percent of
new units
within •••
mile of:
• transit stop
• open space
• grocery
store
non-residential districts as a
percentage of the total new housing,
the percent of new units within one-
quarter mile of a transit stop, the
percent of new units within one-
quarter mile of open space, and the
percent of new units within one-
quarter mile of a grocery store. The
Indicator for Livable Housing is
reported as a blended average of
these four elements. Each of these
individual elements contributes to
the overall livability in the
community. Ideally, each individual
component will experience an
upward trend from year to year.
76

proximity to the
community resources
residents depend on. The
Sustainable City Plan
describes livable
housing as “housing that
is within close proximity
to neighborhood serving
commercial areas, transit
stops and community
resources such as parks
and open space.” Close
proximity to transit
stops, open space and
grocery stores are
identified as important
because they provide
transportation options,
recreational
opportunities and access
to food and other
essential residential
needs.

Developing residential
housing in non-
residential districts can
be beneficial to residents
because it can increase
‘livability.’ Livability is
an expression of the
proximity of housing to
the resources and
services on which
residents depend.
Development in non-
residential zones can
bode well for a future
increase in proximity to
transit stops, grocery
stores and available
open space for residents.

Production
of “Green”
Housing
(Program)
Upward trend This indicator original conception
looked at the percent of new and
substantially rehabilitated housing
that complies with Green Building
As currently configured,
data to support this
indicator is not
available. Once the new

76
For Production of “Livable” Housing source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Housing/H4_LivableHousing.xls
162 
Percent of
new and
substantially-
rehabilitated
housing that
complies
with Green
Building
Ordinance
#1995 as a
percentage of
the total new
and
rehabilitated
housing
Ordinance #1995 as a percentage of
the total new and rehabilitated
housing. The target was to have an
increasing trend.

However, this ordinance was
superceded this year by Ordinance
2261, (updating SM 8.108 ), which
was passed in April 2008 and
amended the City green building
codes to require all new single-
family and multi-family residences
under four stories to submit a LEED
for Homes checklist, a GreenPoint
Rated checklist, or a Santa Monica
green building checklist. The
ordinance requires all other new
buildings to submit a LEED for
New Construction checklist. The
ordinance also provides expedited
permitting for new projects
registered with LEED for New
Construction, LEED for Homes,
and LEED for Core and Shell.

This ordinance was passed to
expand the other green building
ordinances in place. Specifically,
1. City Council adopted an
ordinance in 2000 requiring
all new city projects to
achieve LEED Silver
certification, which is in
some cases relevant to
housing development.
2. In April 2004, the city
launched the Santa Monica
Green Building LEED
Grant Program that
provides a financial
incentive for private
developers who achieve
LEED certification.
3. In August 2005, the city
passed an ordinance
allowing LEED registered
projects to receive
expedited permitting. This
includes all LEED for New
Construction, Homes, Core
and Shell.
ordinance is in place,
better metrics can be
developed to reflect the
intent of this indicator.
163 
Taken together, these should
ordinances should ensure that all of
the new housing built in the city is
green building compliant.

The ordinance went into effect in
May 2008. The next update of this
indicator should demonstrate its
effectiveness.

Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

(No Sustainable City Report Card Grades for Housing)
164 
Goal Area 7: Community Education and Civic Participation
Goals:

“1. Community members of all ages participate actively and effectively in civic affairs
and community improvement efforts.

2. Community members of all ages understand the basic principles of sustainability and
use them to guide their decisions and actions - both personal and collective”
(Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“Santa Monica residents actively participate in civic affairs and engage in community
events. In 2009, 71% of residents reported that they have input on major community
decisions affecting their lives. More than 4,000 people and 60 community groups took an
active role in shaping the future of Santa Monica by participating in the update of the
Land Use and Circulation Elements (LUCE) which Council adopted in July 2010. In
2009, 822 people took the next step towards a sustainable lifestyle by participating in the
Sustainable Works Community Greening Program bringing the total participants to more
than 5,000. Nearly 15,000 people participated in the Santa Monica Festival and 20,000
people attended the AltCar and AltBuild Expos. Annually 600,000 people visit Bergamot
Station which is Southern California’s largest art gallery complex and cultural center.
Attendance at these events highlights Santa Monica’s community and cultural vitality.
The consistent grade reflects significant community participation in major community
events and civic affairs” (Santa Monica, 2010).

Table 20. Santa Monica Community Education and Civic Participation outcomes
Indicators
– System
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Voter
Participatio
n
77

(System)
Percent of
registered
Santa Monica
Increase SM
voter
participation
to 50% in off
year elections
by 2010
There are a variety of elections that
Santa Monica voters can participate
in. There are the General elections,
the L.A. County elections and Santa
Monica Special elections. The
target for this indicator is to
increase Santa Monica voter
As indicated above, in
the off-year November
2010 election, Santa
Monica voter
participation exceeded
the target by 30%! This
was probably due to a

77
For a complete Voter Participation description see:
www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Communi
ty_Education_and_Civic_Participation/Voter_Participation.aspx
165 
voters who
vote in
scheduled
elections.
Compare to
voter
participation
rates at the
regional and
national
levels.
participation to 50% in off year
elections by 2010. This indicator
tracks the percentage of registered
voters in the City of Santa Monica
who vote in regularly scheduled
elections.
78

contentious
gubernatorial and US
Senate contest on the
ballot to entice voters.

In order to better
understand this indicator
we examine Santa
Monica voter
participation rates in
relationship to the rate of
participation regionally
and nationally.
Typically, voter turnout
is higher in general
election years. Voter
turnout is at its highest
in the years that
correspond to a
Presidential election.
This trend is consistent
with the voter turnout
results in Santa Monica.
Santa Monicans
generally turn out in
greater numbers than
voters in LA County,
California and the
United States as a
whole. In 2010, this held
true: Santa Monica
turned out 65%
compared to 54% in Los
Angeles County and
60% in California as a
whole.

Participatio
n in Civic
Affairs
79

(System)
Percent of
Santa Monica
residents who
Upward trend Meeting Attendance
The percent of Santa Monica
residents who have attended a city
sponsored meeting in the last year is
a measure of civic participation in
the city. Civic participation has
waned slightly. In 2001, 18% of
There are clear signs
beyond the survey
results called for by this
indicator that Santa
Monicans are engaged
with their community
and participate in

78
For Voter Participation source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Community_Education_and_Civic_Participation/CECP1_VoterParticipation.xls
79
For a complete description of Participation in Civic Affairs see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Co
mmunity_Education_and_Civic_Participation/Civic_Participation.aspx
166 
have attended
a city-
sponsored
meeting of
any kind in
the past year,
including
City Council
meetings,
City
Commission
meetings, or
special-topic
workshops
residents had attended a city
sponsored meeting. In 2002, this
dropped slightly to 16% of the
population.

Empowerment
The percent of Santa Monica
residents who feel that they have
the opportunity to voice their
concerns on major community
decisions that affect their lives is
high in the city. In 2002, 68% of the
population reported that they felt
they had the opportunity to voice
their concerns.

Community Involvement
The percent of Santa Monica
residents who have attended
community events in the last year
varies greatly depending on the
event. In 2002, 10% of the
population attended a Virginia
Avenue Park event,12% attended a
block party, 27% attended the Santa
Monica Community Festival, 42%
attended a concert on the Pier and
85% of the community attended the
Farmers Market. Taken together,
we can see that 35% of residents
participated in one or more
community event in 2002.

Volunteering
The percent of Santa Monica
residents volunteering for an
organization located in Santa
Monica is growing. In 2001, 25% of
residents reported having
volunteered for an organization. In
2002, this increased to 28% of the
population having reported
volunteering in the local
community. This is more than a10%
increase in volunteering in 2002
over 2001 levels, but only 28% of
residents report volunteering in city
community events and
neighborhood meetings.
Santa Monica residents
actively participate in
civic affairs and engage
in community events.
There are five active
neighborhood
organizations and five
active business
improvement districts in
the community. Santa
Monica residents have
widespread awareness of
community issues.
Residents and business
leaders have been active
participants in the
update to the Land Use
and Circulation
Elements, as well as in
the various festivals and
gatherings highlighted
above.

80
For Participation in Civic Affairs source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Community_Education_and_Civic_Participation/CECP26_CivicParticipation.xls
167 
programs.

Participation in Neighborhood
Organizations
The percent of Santa Monica
residents that are active members of
a recognized neighborhood
organization remained relatively
constant from 1999 to 2002. In
1999, 13% if residents were active
in a neighborhood organization.
This increased slightly in 2000 to
14%. This dropped slightly in 2001,
to 12%, but increased again in 2002
to 13%.

The average of these percentages is
32%. However, by way of
comparison, in Southern California
as a whole, 25% of the citizenry are
highly engaged. Excluding the
measures of perceived
empowerment and attendance of
community meetings, only 19% of
Santa Monicans are highly
engaged.
80

Jobs /
Housing
Balance
(System)
Percent of
Santa Monica
residents who
feel that they
have the
opportunity
to voice their
concerns in
the city on
major
community
decisions that
affect their
lives

Upward trend No category found in Progress
Report.
No category found in
Progress Report.
Cost of
Living
(System)
Percent of
Upward trend No category found in Progress
Report.
No category found in
Progress Report.
168 
Santa Monica
residents who
attend
community
events such
as the Santa
Monica
Festival, a
summer
concert at the
Pier, an event
at Virginia
Avenue Park,
a
neighborhood
block party, a
weekly
farmers’
market

Quality Job
Creation
(System)
Percent of
Santa Monica
residents
volunteering
and total
hours
volunteered
in selected
City funded
public benefit
programs

Upward trend No category found in Progress
Report.
No category found in
Progress Report.
Participatio
n in
Neighborhoo
d
Organizatio
ns
(System)
Percent of
Santa Monica
residents that
are active
members in
recognized
neighborhood
organizations
Upward trend No category found in Progress
Report.
No category found in
Progress Report.

169 
(by
neighborhood
)
Sustainable
Community
Involvement
81

(System)
Percent of
Santa Monica
residents who
are aware of
the
Ecological
Footprint for
Santa Monica
and
understand
their
contribution
to it
25% by 2010 When the Sustainable City Plan
Survey was conducted in 2003, only
5% of the respondents were aware
of the Santa Monica Ecological
Footprint, leaving 95% of the
respondents unaware of the Santa
Monica Ecological Footprint.
Awareness of the Sustainable City
Plan is up. Twenty-five percent of
those questioned in the 2005 Survey
had heard of the Santa Monica
Sustainable City Plan, up from 17%
in 2003 and 13% in 1998 indicating
steady progress. In 2007 and 2009,
the Survey did not address the
Sustainable City Plan Issue.
82

One tool leveraged in
pursuit of increased
sustainable community
awareness is the
Ecological Footprint, a
measure of humanity's
use of nature. In
particular, this tool
measures the area in
acres of biologically
productive land and
water that must be used
exclusively to produce
all the resources that the
city’s residents
consume, and to absorb
all the wastes that they
produce in one year.
Although the footprint
shrank from 21.4 to 20.6
acres per capita between
1990 and 2000, it still
exceeds the sustainably
viable footprint of 4.6
acres per person.

The city’s 2009
Residents’ Survey
addressed the city’s
environmental efforts
generally, not
knowledge of the
Sustainable City Plan
specifically. The
response was highly
favorable: 62% of
residents were either
“satisfied” or “very
satisfied” at the efforts
the city makes to help
make the community

81
For a complete description of Sustainable Community Development see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Co
mmunity_Education_and_Civic_Participation/Sustainable_Community_Involvement.aspx
82
For Sustainable Community Development source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Community_Education_and_Civic_Participation/CECP7_CommInvolvement.xls
170 
more environmentally
responsible.

Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

171 
Table 21. Santa Monica Community Education and Civic Participation Report Card
grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade B+ A- A- A- A- A-
Effort A A A A A A
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)

172 
Goal Area 8: Human Dignity
Goals:

“Santa Monica will be a community in which:

1. All its members are able to meet their basic needs and are empowered to enhance the
quality of their lives; and

2. There is access among community members to housing, health services, education,
economic opportunity, and cultural and recreational resources; and

3. There is respect for and appreciation of the value added to the community by
differences among its members in race, religion, gender, age, economic status, sexual
orientation, disabilities, immigration status and other special needs”
(Ci. of Santa Monica 2006).

Progress toward goals:

Highlights:

“Santa Monica is very proactive in supporting the ability of its residents to meet their
basic needs and live with dignity. The Community Development Grants Program
provided over $7.5 million to support local family, disability, employment and homeless
services in 2009. Communitywide implementation of the Action Plan to Address
Homelessness resulted in an 8% drop in homelessness between 2007 and 2009 and a 7%
increase in homeless people receiving services. The city’s leadership in implementing
innovative programs for homeless veterans has attracted the notice of the Federal
Veterans Administration for possible use as a nationwide model. Santa Monica residents
report feeling safe in their communities and feel empowered to meet their basic needs.
Reports of violent crime dropped to the lowest level since 2003. Reports of gang crime in
2009 dropped more than 30% below 2006 levels as a result of the collaborative work of
the Gang Violence Action Partners. The grade improvement reflects the concrete
progress being made by the community to ensure that all residents are able to meet their
basic needs and feel safe in their community” (SM Sustainable City Report Card).

Table 22. Santa Monica Human Dignity outcomes
Indicators – System
Level

Targets Performance Summary Analysis
Basic Needs – Shelter
83
(no target) Between 2002 and 2007, the

83
For a complete Homelessness description see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hu
man_Dignity/Homelessness.aspx
173 
(System)
• Number of homeless
living in Santa Monica
• Percent of Santa
Monica homeless
population served by the
city shelter
that transition to
permanent housing
Upward trend number of homeless Santa
Monica residents obtaining
city services on any given day
rose from 2,566 persons to
2,743. Of the 2,743 persons
served In 2007 344 were
transitioned to permanent
housing, an increase from the
244 placed in permanent
housing in 2002.
Santa Monica hosts a
disproportionately high per
capita share of the homeless
population measured in both
LA County as a whole, and in
surrounding western LA
County cities.
84

Priority goals of
the city’s Human
Services Division
are to reduce the
number of
homeless people
on the streets of
Santa Monica and
to move the most
vulnerable,
chronically
homeless
individuals into
housing. The city
funds seven core
agencies and 21
programs that
exclusively serve
homeless people
and at least six
additional agencies
that provide
services to
homeless people as
well as other low-
income
populations.

During the course
of counting and
trying to move
homeless people
off the streets,
city’s Human
Services Division
has identified
several sub-
populations which
require special
programming to
assist.

Basic Needs – Health
Care
(System)
• Percent of residents
with health insurance
Upward trend
Upward trend
This indicator looks at the
percent of resident with health
care. No target has been
developed for this indicator,
but an increase in the percent
No analysis
available.

84
For Homelessness source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Human_Dignity/HD1_Homelessness.xls
174 
• CapaCity of local
health service providers
to meet the basic health
care needs of
Santa Monica residents
of residents carrying health
insurance is a positive step.

Due to reporting constraints
this data is currently
unavailable.

Basic Needs –
Economic
Opportunity
85

(System)
Percent of Santa Monica
residents who work
more than 40 hours per
week in order to meet
their basic needs
Downward
trend
51% of respondents report a
member of the household
working more than 40 hours a
week. Of the 51% that
reported working more than
40 hours per week, almost
15% of the respondents
reported that both the
respondent and their spouse
worked more than 40 hours
per week.

Of the 51% who worked more
than 40 hours per week,
90.6% of them worked more
than 40 hours per week at a
single job and 9.4% worked
more than forty hours per
week at 2 or more jobs. On
average, those who worked
more than one job worked 2
jobs.

Interestingly, 86% of those
who reported working more
than 40 hours per week
reported doing so because it is
expected due to the nature of
the job. This is compared to
22% who reported working
more than 40 hours per week
in order to make more money.
Half of those who reported
working more than 40 hours
per week in order to make
more money do so because it
is necessary to meet their
family’s basic needs. This
represents 3% of the
respondents who report
The SCP states that
Santa Monica will
be a community in
which all its
members are able
to meet their basic
needs and are
empowered to
enhance the quality
of their lives. It
also states that
Santa Monica will
be a community
where there is
access among
community
members to
housing, health
services, education,
economic
opportunity, and
cultural and
recreational
resources.
Economic
opportunity is
critical to meeting
these goals.

85
For a complete description of Economic Opportunity see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hu
man_Dignity/Economic_Opportunity.aspx
175 
working more than 40 hours
per week to meet their basic
needs.
86

Basic Needs – Public
Safety
87

(System)
Crime rate per capita –
report by
neighborhood/reporting
district, and by type
(property, violent, hate)
Downward
trend
During 2009, violent crime
was up down to the lowest
level per capita since tracking
this indicator. Stated another
way, during 2009, there was
roughly one violent crime per
year for every 228 Santa
Monica residents. Property
crime rose 12.5% from 2007
to 2009. Property Crime per
capita dropped 3.6% to 3.4%
this year. That represents
approximately one property
crime annually for every 28
residents in 2009.

Reported hate crime in Santa
Monica was 5 in 2000, rose to
29 in 2001 and since has
remained low at 3 in 2009.
88

Santa Monica’s
violent crime rate
per 100,000
population exceeds
that of all the
larger jurisdictions
with which it is
geographically
contiguous except
the City of Los
Angeles. Santa
Monica’s property
crime rate per
100,000 population
exceeds all its
larger jurisdictions.

Crime continues its
downward trend
nationally and
statewide since
2006. The U.S.
and California
violent crime rate
dropped between
3% and 4%. Santa
Monica’s violent
crime dropped
dramatically during
that time, 25%. A
similar trend
between 2007 and
2009 occurred
regarding property
crime: the national
property crime rate
dropped 2%,

86
For Economic Opportunity source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Human_Dignity/HD3_Ability.xls
87
For a complete description of Crime Rate see:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hu
man_Dignity/Crime_Rate.aspx
88
For Crime Rate source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Human_Dignity/HD4_CrimeRate.xls
176 
statewide 4% and
in Santa Monica,
20%.

Residents’ Perception
of Safety
89

(System)
Percent of residents who
feel that Santa Monica
is a safe place to live
and work
Upward trend Between 2000 and 2007, the
percentage of residents
reporting feeling safe in their
communities and business
areas has hovered at about
80%.

In general, residents feel safer
in their neighborhoods and
business districts during the
day than they do at night. The
difference between perception
of safety among residents can
swing as much as 30
percentage points in a given
survey year.
90

Residential
perception of
safety can be
affected by
multiple
influences.
Increased police
presence,
neighborhood
involvement,
improved
neighborhood
appearance and
expanding
nuisance abatement
can all contribute
to a community’s
sense of safety.
Additionally, a
sense of
responsiveness to
the needs of
residents can also
contribute to the
perception of
safety.

Neighborhood
Resource Officer
Program
In January 2008,
the Police
Department
implemented the
Neighborhood
Resource Officer
Program, a way to
link the public and
the police, to have
one officer

89
For a complete description of Perception of Personal Safety:
http://www.smgov.net/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progress_Report/Hu
man_Dignity/Perception_of_Personal_Safety.aspx
90
For Perception of Personal Safety source data see:
http://www.smgov.net/uploadedFiles/Departments/OSE/Categories/Sustainability/Sustainable_City_Progre
ss_Report/Human_Dignity/HD5_Perception_of_Personal_Safety.xls
177 
responsible to
those who live,
work or visit a
given beat area.
New patrol beats
went into effect on
in January 2008,
and are aligned for
a more efficient
patrol pattern. The
new beat design
includes linking
merchant groups
and neighborhood
organizations
within the same
patrol beat
boundaries.
Program
Awareness &
Effectiveness:
According to the
city’s 2009
Residents’ Survey,
71% of residents
were unaware of
the program. Of
those who are and
who have been in
contact with the
neighborhood
resource officer,
large majorities
gave high
satisfaction ratings
on three measures:
responsiveness,
accessibility and
cooperation in
preventing crime.
Incidents of Abuse
(System)
• Number of incidents
of abuse (domestic,
child, and elder abuse)
• Percent of cases
prosecuted
Downward
trend
Upward trend
This indicator looks at the
number of reported incidents
of abuse (domestic, child, and
elder abuse), as well as the
percent of cases prosecuted.
The target is to have a
downward trend in incidents
of abuse and an upward trend
in prosecution.

Due to reporting constraints
No analysis
available.
178 
this data is currently
unavailable.
Incidents of
Discrimination
(System)
• Number of reports
regarding employment
and housing
discrimination
• Number of cases
prosecuted
Upward trend
Downward
trend
This indicator looks at the
number of reports regarding
employment and housing
discrimination, as well as the
number of cases prosecuted.
The target is to have a
downward trend in incidents
of discrimination and an
upward trend in prosecution.

Due to reporting constraints
this data is currently
unavailable.
No analysis
available.
Source for indicators and targets (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica 2006)
Source for performance summaries and analyses (exact quotes): (Ci. of Santa Monica
2011)

Table 23. Santa Monica Human Dignity Report Card Grades

2005 2006 2007 2008 2010 2012
Grade N/A B- B- B- B B+
Effort A A A A A A
Source: (Ci. of Santa Monica 2012)

179 
Chapter 5: San Francisco Case Study
The creators of San Francisco’s Plan started the process just after Santa Monica,
and developed the initial Plan over around the same time. San Francisco’s Sustainability
Plan has an interesting and dynamic history, which parallels the City’s environmentally
progressive reputation. Largely community-created, the Plan did not get taken on to be
implemented directly by the City, but has served as a foundational document that has
informed the structure of all of San Francisco’s significant sustainability efforts. It serves
as an alternative model to Santa Monica’s more internally comprehensive approach, and
has arguably been equally as effective. While much remains to be done, the City has
pioneered a number of significant municipal environmental polices that have been
emulated around the country, and the Plan was the initial catalyst to these efforts.
San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan was adopted in 1997 by the Board of
Supervisors as a policy advisory document after a long and involved community
stakeholder process. The process was spurred by a voter initiative, which was placed on
the ballot by the mayor and the Board of Supervisors at the time. The Plan itself has
never been altered since; it serves as a foundational document for the City’s sustainability
efforts, but not as a living document the way that Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Plan
does. Importantly, the Plan was adopted the same year as San Francisco’s Department of
the Environment was created, and both were supported by the same group of advocates.
At the time, liberal Democrat Willie Brown was mayor, and both the Board and the
mayor were supportive of the Plan throughout.
Since then, the Plan served as the foundational starting point for both the
development of program areas within the Department of the Environment, as well as for
180 
related policies, which together are called the Environment Code (Blumenfeld 2013).
Outcome targets, rather than being attached to the Plan itself, which only had some initial
guiding indicators, are embedded in the Strategic Plan of the Department of the
Environment by program area. These goals are reported on every 2-3 years. The
Sustainability Plan does not directly interact with the City’s General Plan, but does serve
as the foundation for the City’s overall sustainability work.
The history of San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan is in some ways a split history
between the Plan itself and the Department of the Environment, which were created in
the same year. The creation of both was the result of action by the Board of Supervisors
and the mayor at the time. Since the creation of the Plan, San Francisco has seen the
election two new Mayors, Gavin Newsom in 2004, and Ed Lee in 2011, as well as the
dot-com boom and bust in the late 2000’s, which was a definitive moment in San
Francisco’s recent history.
Many of the people currently working in program areas at San Francisco’s
Department of the Environment were not around for, and do not remember the details of
the formation of the Plan. Those who were not present during the formation of the Plan,
but who have worked at higher levels in and with the Department of the Environment, do
tend to know the general story of the genesis of the Plan. These early implementers
include, David Assmann, Deputy Director of the San Francisco Department of the
Environment, and Jared Blumenfeld, former head of the SF Environment. Several of my
interviewees, including, Raquel Pinderhuges, Scott Edmonston and Anne Bartz, were part
of the actual formation of the Plan, and describe in some detail what they can remember
of that time. Some of the details of accounts of the formation of the Plan conflict in minor
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ways with each other, but all interviewees acknowledge that more than a decade has
passed and many details are fuzzy in their memories. The following is a chart of
interviewees and their respective roles relative to the Plan:
Table 24. San Francisco interviewees
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Name Role Date
Interviewed
David Assmann Deputy Director of the San Francisco
Department of the Environment (SF
Environment)

October 9, 2012
Scott Edmonston,
AICP
Facilitator and member, Economic Development
group during plan formation process; Strategic
Urban and Regional Sustainability Planner.
Information and Analysis Group-Citywide
Planning. San Francisco Planning Department

October 9, 2012
Mei Ling Urban Forest and Urban Agriculture
Coordinator; San Francisco Department of the
Environment (SF Environment)

October 31,
2012
Sraddha Mehta Senior Environmental Justice Coordinator
Department of the Environment, (SF
Environment)

October 31,
2012
Anne Bartz Facilitator, Environmental Justice group during
plan formation process; Operations Manager
Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute)

October 31,
2012
Raquel
Pinderhuges
Member Environmental Justice group during
plan formation process, Professor of Urban
Studies and Planning at San Francisco State
University

November 1,
2012
Alexa Keilty Residential Zero Waste and Special Projects
Assistant; San Francisco Department of the
Environment (SF Environment)

January 28,
2013

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Note: Would have liked to have gotten a hold of Beryl Magilivy, Omar Grande at
People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), Annie
Eng (spoke to Sraddha Mehta instead), and Calla Ostrander.

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Rich Chien, LEED
AP
Green Building Program – Private Sector; San
Francisco Department of the Environment (SF
Environment)

January 29,
2013
Jared Blumenfeld Former Executive Director of SF Environment
(2001-2010); EPA Regional Administrator,
Southwest Region 9

January 29,
2013
Laura Tam

SPUR Sustainable Development Policy Director February 26,
2013

While in San Francisco the linkage is less direct than in Santa Monica, the
evidence indicates that the Plan has affected measurable outcomes toward sustainability.
Several important indicators linked to program have moved significantly, as in the Zero
Waste and Toxics Reduction Program areas. Beyond indicator outcomes, significant
institutional governance outcomes are also evident, including the presence of the
Environmental Code and the design of SF Environment program areas. The following
table describes the key findings in San Francisco:
Table 25. Key findings in San Francisco
Key Finding

San Francisco findings
What makes a sustainability plan strong is
“The Three P’s:” people, programs, and
purpose.

The Plan is carried out through the
Environmental Code and by the staff
members implementing programming at
the Department of the Environment. The
larger urban culture of wanting to be an
environmental leader and early adopter
drove outcomes.

Operationalizing “The Three E’s” of
environment, equity, and economy is
crucial, and while all three take effort,
equity is the most difficult.

San Francisco has an Environmental
Justice program area in the Department of
the Environment, which is unique among
American cities. Housing prices and
gentrification are still major challenges.

The incredible absence of planning and San Francisco’s Plan does not even directly
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planners affect the General Plan, although at least
one of my San Francisco interviewees was
working on implementing sustainability
goals, and housed in the Department of
Urban Planning.

In assessing outcomes of San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan a few things become
clear. First, the evolution of San Francisco’s programs and policies from its original Plan
has been indirect, and so outcomes are now assessed more directly to the Department of
the Environment’s Strategic Plan goals every 2-3 years. Still, the program areas, as well
as the policies in the Environment Code, do align fairly closely with the original goal
areas and indicators. In all, significant measurable progress toward sustainability has
been made since the Plan was adopted in 1997. Because the original Plan is not the
source of exact outcomes, San Francisco is less attached to progress in indicator metrics
in an outward way. The metrics to matter to Department of the Environment staff in
terms of reporting every several years in the Strategic Plan. However, San Francisco does
not release a report card or other more public relations friendly reporting mechanism to
the general public.
Jared Blumenfeld (2012) highlighted the tension between executing tasks at hand
and writing reports, indicating his preference for execution, and also noting that reporting
rotates between program areas to keep things balanced. The SF Environment website
reflects a good deal of specifics around each program area, but is more focused on
programs and resources for citizens, rather than reporting on progress. From the in-depth
interviews, a good deal of depth is not captured in the Strategic Plan indicators, both
because specific and quantifiable indicators are difficult to design (as in the case of urban
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farms (Ling 2012), and because there are a good deal of unquantifiable outcomes that
arise from efforts such as collaboration and outreach. In San Francisco, the Plan itself is
rarely credited with positive urban sustainability outcomes, interview evidence revealed
that the Plan did, in fact, have a major role in launching the efforts that brought these
outcomes to be (Blumenfeld 2013; Pinderhuges 2012).
As in Santa Monica, a richer notion of “success,” beyond just the movement of
indicators, developed than was originally set forth over the course of this research. With
regard to indicators, although current outcome metrics used are not directly related to
initial goals set forth in the Plan, they are originally inspired by that source, and these
metrics discernibly reflect positive movement toward sustainability. Evidence further
suggests that, beyond the movement of indicators, the existence of the Plan itself, and the
design of the Plan with clear goals, indicators, and targets, has increased the sustainability
of internal systems, as well as the overall urban system in a number of ways. The
following are the most important ways in which San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan has
affected outcomes:
1. Existence of the San Francisco Department of the Environment (also called SF
Environment, used interchangeably here)
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2. Internal structure of Department of the Environment
3. Environment Code and other subsequent plans and policies, such as the
Greenhouse Gas Plan
4. Increased awareness and promotion of the idea of sustainability in staff and
community
5. Studying and mimicking of San Francisco’s Plan worldwide

First, the existence of the Department of the Environment, while it did not grow
directly from the Plan, it did grow from the same group of advocates, and its work has

92
San Francisco’s Department of the Environment is also known as SF Environment, to avoid confusion
around the acronym DOE, which also stands for Department of Energy (Ling, 2012)
185 
been heavily influenced by the original Plan. Unlike in Santa Monica, the Department is
not positioned at the center of City operations, and does not have the same level of
power, taking mostly an advisory role in the City. However, this advisory role seems
quite effective (Ling 2012). Similarly, the internal structure of the Department of the
Environment, does reflect most of the initial goal areas set forth in the original
Sustainability Plan, and is also internally stable and generally well-organized. Third, as in
Santa Monica, the existence of the Plan, along with the outreach and education
component, have directly affected in increased awareness, acceptance, and promotion of
the idea of sustainability in City staff and members of the community. This acceptance
and promotion of the idea of sustainability directly affects behavior of individuals and
overt actions that move toward increasing sustainability in the City. Fourth, also as in
Santa Monica, the role of San Francisco as a leader and educator in urban sustainability
has inspired the creation and design of sustainable city plans in other cities around the
world, and has increased awareness of the role of urban sustainability in a state, national,
and global context. The Plan and the Environment Code are institutionally in quite good
harmony internally and with the systems they interact with.
People, Programs, and Purpose
As Jared Blumenfeld, EPA Region 9 Administrator, and Executive Director of
San Francisco’s Department of the Environment from 2001-2010, describes, the Plan was
originally inspired by international agreements, and the original intentions set by the
creators of the Plan have permeated policies and actions throughout the City, leading to
outcomes that can be observed to this day and into the future. According to Blumenfeld
(2013), who was the central architect of the early implementation of the Plan, Agenda 21
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inspired the creation of the Plan in the early 1990’s, which led to the creation of a bundle
of environmental policies, called the Environmental Code. The Plan also affected the
development of the Department of the Environment and its program areas. Together, SF
Environment’s programming and the Environmental Code have driven observable and
tangible successful sustainability outcomes in San Francisco (Blumenfeld 2013). Like
Santa Monica, San Francisco seeks to be a leader in sustainability, and that, for the most
part, drives ongoing support by the City and the community. The Department is also able
to secure its own funding through grants and fees, which allows it to weather economic
storms at the city level, and gives it a good deal of freedom to keep program areas robust
and fully staffed. As in Santa Monica, outreach, education, and partnering with
community groups is also key to success.
Operationalizing the Three E’s: all three are hard, but equity is the hardest
Unlike Santa Monica and most other cities in the country, San Francisco had a
strong subcommittee on environmental justice in the formation of the Plan, and has a
dedicated and funded environmental justice program housed in SF Environment. Even so,
equity still proves to be the most difficult program area to address directly among the
Three E’s. San Francisco, like Santa Monica, faces challenges of gentrification,
displacement, and dealing with the larger economic context around the City, which
highlights the paradoxical state of being a wealthy, elite, largely white city with major
wealth disparity, while also being a groundbreaker in social and environmentally
progressive policy and culture. The extremes of the boom and bust of the dot-com empire
further exacerbated this reality, as well as the strong presence of business, labor, and
community group interests in San Francisco politics.
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I did find that interviewees in San Francisco, particularly those who were city
employees, were seemingly more comfortable directly addressing both the challenges and
the progress with regard to social equity than those in Santa Monica. According to
Professor Raquel Pinderhuges, the group of stakeholders who created the plan, brought
up the importance of environmental justice as a standalone subtopic, and that equity as a
topic was foundational to the creation of the Plan (Pinderhuges, 2012). She also pointed
out that San Francisco has a strong history of community involvement in general, and
particularly with regard to the environment and social equity. She specifically notes the
organizations, Greenlining Institute, Urban Habitat, and Poder
93
, are present in political
and planning meetings, pressuring the City establishment to prioritize equity and
environmental goals (Pinderhuges, 2012). The presence of strong community groups
pressuring the City toward environmental and equity goals, seems to be more present in
San Francisco than in Santa Monica. Overall, making progress on equity in the context of
sustainability is a real challenge in San Francisco, however. Pinderhuges notes the fact
that parts of town, including the Mission and the Bayview are gentrified and gentrifying,
which is glaringly obvious to the most casual observer. She further notes that some
environmental wins like removing lead from the air in the Mission and expanding Market
Street in the Tenderloin, have actually served to exacerbate displacement, and thus social
equity issues in these area. Certainly, significant steps have been taken, and my
interviewees generally were able to speak candidly about the real challenges involved.
Planners and Planning
As in Santa Monica, the absence of urban planning in the sustainability planning
process is evident. San Francisco’s Plan does not even directly affect the General Plan,

93
I did attempt to speak to leaders in these organizations, but unfortunately was not able to reach them.
188 
although at least one of my San Francisco Interviewees was in fact working on
implementing sustainability goals, and was housed in the Department of Urban Planning.
Institutionally, the City Planning Department does not appear to have been present or at
least a significant force in the formation or implementation of the Sustainability Plan.
Perhaps the formation process of the Plan does reflect the interdisciplinary nature of
sustainability, but still the opportunity for planners to take a leadership role stands out in
San Francisco as it did in the Santa Monica case. The following is a list of interviewees,
their title/role, and the date interviewed.
Overall, San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan does affect outcomes significantly,
even though it is not attached directly to specific outcomes. It was the inspiration for the
department and program areas that do measure specific outcome indicators, as well as for
a bundle of policies that move sustainability forwarding San Francisco.
As in Santa Monica, people, programs, and purpose are what brought and
continue to bring the Plan to life. Although the Plan is no longer edited, and although
many in the City do not know of its importance, it lives on through the Department of the
Environment program areas and the Environment Code. In-depth interviews revealed the
importance of the community engagement process of the Plan in determining the
direction of sustainability efforts in the City, and the act of creating the Plan at all sent a
message within the City and elsewhere that San Francisco intended to be a leader in
sustainability. As in San Francisco, not all Three E’s are equally addressed by the City,
with environment taking precedence from the beginning. However, with a dedicated
Environmental Justice program area, San Francisco has taken some notable steps in the
realm of social equity that might help serve as a guide for other cities. And as in the other
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cities, urban planners are decidedly missing in the formation and implementation of the
Plan. In all, however, San Francisco does have a strong, important sustainability Plan that
has played a central role in moving sustainability efforts measurably forward in the City.
How was the Plan Developed?
Plan history: what were the processes?
The Plan is the result of a large community stakeholder process that took place
after an initial baseline study, and the Department of the Environment was voted into
creation by a voter initiative. The voter initiative initially came from the Office of Mayor
Willie Brown. Assmann describes,
“It was actually created by a voter initiative, in 1996, just bef- as this Plan was
being put together was when the Department was being created as well. And the
voter initiative came by the Board of Supervisors. But it came out of the Mayor’s
Office, the Mayor’s Office proposing it through the Board of Supervisors to a
ballot initiative. And then the Department consolidated a number of different
environmental programs under one roof. When I started with the Department, in
2000, I was the eighth employee, now we have 115. So, in a little over 10 years,
we’ve gone from eight to 115” (Assmann 2012).

As with Santa Monica, the seeds of the Plan came from inside the City, but soon involved
the greater community. Also like Santa Monica, the first step was to consolidate existing
efforts, starting with environmental efforts.
The original 1997 plan was based on the approach of the European Community’s
Agenda 21
94
Implementation plan for the United Kingdom, and its indicator section on
Sustainable Seattle’s sustainability plan
95
(SF Environment 1996). Jared Blumenfeld,
former Executive Director of the Department of the Environment explains,
“So, it all started in 1992 with the Rio Earth Summit. And in Rio, you, there were
a lot of expectations of what would come out of it. A climate treaty came out,
biodiversity agreement, but also this huge 800-page blueprint for sustainable

94
United Nations plan of action for global sustainable development
95
See: http://www.sustainable-city.org/Plan/Intro/intro.htm
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development called Agenda 21. So that is what San Francisco’s history was, so,
after the Rio Earth Summit, they had this sustainability planning group of about
400 people, and it was very citizen based” (Blumenfeld, 2013).

Scott Edmonston, who was a facilitator and member of the Economic Development
subcommittee, and is currently the Strategic Urban and Regional Planner for the San
Francisco Planning Department, also mentions the 1992 Rio Convention, as well as
ICLEI’s work and San Francisco’s history of civic and activist involvement.
“This is where I’m a little less informed, but what my understanding was, was that
- so this is probably 1995 and San Francisco’s had a history of civic involvement
and activist initiatives by all sorts of different groups, and I think the Sierra Club
and others that had been active in terms of environmental initiatives kind of came
away from Rio 1992 and were thinking well San Francisco should do something
what should San Francisco do. So 92 to 95’s three years – so there was this
gestation period there where – the idea to do a sustainability plan for the City
came up and it probably came up out of ICLEI’s work where they took kind of the
global level Rio stuff and brought it to the city level” (Edmonston, 2012).

In 1993, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors created a Commission on San
Francisco’s Environment, which was responsible for creating and implementing a
sustainability plan for the City (SF Environment 1996). To accomplish this task, the
Board engaged in a collaboration called Sustainable San Francisco, “a collaboration of
city agencies, including The City Planning Department, the Bureau of Energy
Conservation, the Recreation and Park Department, and the Solid Waste Management
Program; businesses; environmental organizations; elected officials; and concerned
individuals” (SF Environment 1996). David Assmann describes the overall process:
“There’s been kind of an evolution of plans in the City of San Francisco, but the
best and most well known plan is the 1996 Sustainability Plan, which was put
together with the help of probably 400 stakeholders from various parts of the City
including governments, non-profits, some business. Looking at fourteen different
areas of sustainability and coming up with an action plan. Actually, I’ll pull it out
while we’re talking so I can properly reference it. I do have a copy…it was…the
different areas included air quality, biodiversity, energy conservation, climate
change and ozone depletion, it kind of gives you a sense of the datedness of it,
191 
because ozone depletion is not really an issue these days, though we still have to
be concerned about it. Food and agriculture, hazardous materials, human health,
parks, open spaces and streetscapes, solid waste, transportation, water and
wastewater, those were specific environmental topics and then there were some
topics that spanned across these areas including economy and economic
development, environmental justice, municipal expenditures, public information
and education and risk management. And there were stakeholders brought
together for each of these areas that had a series of meetings that culminated in a
draft plan, which was ultimately adopted by the Board of Supervisors and the City
through what was then the brand new Department of the Environment. That’s the
genesis of the Sustainability Plan” (David Assmann 2012).

Scott Edmonston (2013) describes the general process of drafting that occurred by topic
and sub-topic among committee members:
“The Plan is basically organized around five or six kinds of standard
environmental areas like air, water, and what have you and then a few cross area
areas like economy and economic development. And there were representatives
from each of the stakeholder groups in each of the topical areas and those groups
were responsible for producing the content for that area, and the content for each
topic was broken down into four sub areas, one was sort of long range, sort of
ultimate goals, and then there were two increments of – or three increments of
objectives. So I think there was a 15 year or a 10 a five and one year objectives
that, either actions or strategies were identified for” (Edmonston 2012).

Everyone familiar with the formation of the Plan emphasized the scale and
diversity of the community stakeholder process in developing the Plan (Assmann 2012;
Pinderhuges 2012; Edmonston, AICP 2012; Bartz 2012; Blumenfeld 2013).
Anne Bartz, who was a facilitator of the Environmental Justice subcommittee describes:
“It happened in the early 2000’s; it was a huge process. The organizer Beryl
Magilvy did a great job of pulling in lots and lots and lots of people. And there
was a lot of excitement about it. It was early on the process of communities doing
a lot of these plans, I think. So, it was very exciting, there was a lot of energy
around it” (Bartz 2012).

Edmosnton notes, “The Plan in general…it’s a community based plan so it’s multiple
stakeholder involvement in producing it and in theory in implementing it, so we had the
business sector, the civil sector, and the government sector represented” (Edmonston,
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2012). Over a five-year period, this coalition researched other plans, created drafts, and
solicited public comment feedback. Many interviewees described a large-scale
community process (Edmonston, AICP 2012; Assmann 2012; Blumenfeld 2013). Even
those who did not remember the specifics of the formation of the Plan did have a sense
that it was a large process of community involvement. Assmann describes,
“There were over 400 people that were involved in the initial Plan. The key
players at the time were the emerging Department of the Environment. There was
a director and no staff at that point. So, and there were about 30 people that were
basically part of a – I won’t call them a steering committee, but it was a, it was a
steering committee – Sustainable San Francisco Steering Committee. And of the
list of the people here that were involved in the initial drafting of the plan. And
then we had stakeholder groups for every topic area, each one of the topic areas
that I mentioned. And they would have a cross-section of people, like for
example, the air quality had architects, had somebody from the Metropolitan
Transportation Commission, somebody from the Public Works Department,
Transportation Authority, the EPA, the Electric Vehicle Association, some
corporate people from like the Gap, the Lung Association was involved, the
Environmental Health Network was involved, clean air programs, PG & E’s
Clean Air Transportation, Planners for Social Responsibility. We had a cross-
section of people so each topic area had a cross-section of people that were
involved and they all met over a period of about a year, putting together this
initial plan. As volunteers, nobody got paid for this” (Assmann 2012).

Scott Edmonston also notes some of the strategy involved in the decision of how
to formulate and position the plan. Evidence suggests that the Plan coordinator, Beryl
Magilivy’s focus was on making sure the community element of the Plan was the main
focus from the beginning, and then the Plan was adopted and brought into the City and
County apparatus from there (Edmonston, 2012). Edmonston also describes a strategy of
quickness behind putting the Plan together from the community perspective before
working through the municipal apparatus, which was unusual and innovative at the time:
“The form – there was a fair amount of discussion about what form the Plan
should take and whether the Plan should be a new element to the General Plan or
an update to the General Plan, or a standalone plan – and like that. And being the
activist that she was, Beryl didn’t want – was afraid that any kind of formal
193 
planning effort that involved the Planning Department and lots of the formal
processes would just bog down the whole process and at the very least make it
take a long time and maybe not be as creative as necessary – and so she and
others came up with the idea that the Plan should not be a formal plan, because
that would trigger CEQA and environmental review and cost a lot of money and
take a lot of time. And it should just really be the basis for action as opposed to a
plan that gets put on the shelf. And so they came up with this strategy of making a
community-owned plan – community as in all three sectors of stakeholders –
authored and implemented, or implemented by the people who had authored it as
well. And so, and then in addition the idea was to do a really fast planning process
with the idea that you can probably get at least 80% of what you need done in
20% of the time, and that’ll probably be good to start. And you’d update and
refresh the plan as you went – as you completed things etc” (Edmonston 2012).

Raquel Pinderhuges, who was a member of the Environmental Justice subcommittee,
notes that the details of the process are fuzzy in her memory, but that the basic process
involved dividing into subcommittees based on category and then developing sections of
the Plan by category (Pinderhuges 2012).
“And they put together a disparate group of people to develop a sustainability
plan, and they paid Beryl to facilitate it. And then they broke us down into topics,
or we decided on the topics ourselves, and then we were invited, and then we
invited additional people to participate with us. After that, we sat in groups for
many many times, and we, and we were asked to talk about and develop a
document on what we want to emphasize and then to fill out this grid. And every
group was required to fill out the grid. We had a recorder and it looks line Anne –
and it’s always indicated – so it looks like Anne was our recorder, she was a very
young student at the time. It says she was a resident, she wasn’t even a student.
But she became our student afterwards. And she came, took the notes, and then
clearly she gave them right back to Beryl, and then it looks like all they did at the
end was just pull them together” (Pinderhuges 2012).

Pinderhuges notes that the categories for subcommittees were already determined by the
time the drafting groups were created, and that once the sections were drafted
individually, they were turned in and put together to form the Plan. She explains that
sections were basically put together as-is to form the Plan, rather than meeting across
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subcommittees to integrate sections and eliminate overlap (Pinderhuges, 2012). She
describes the process as she experienced it:
“Once we were in the subcommittees, the subcommittees were asked to draft our
vision of a sustainability effort within our area of focus. We predicted and it
happened, that the great problem with dividing us into subcommittees that did not
have an opportunity to work together was that we overlapped in ways that were
very informative, in the sense that certain themes came out over and over again,
for example urban ag came up a lot. But also we, we didn’t have any coherent or
integrated proposal in the end. For example, I recall that we all used all of the
spaces and places for activities, for whatever activities we were proposing. And
clearly those spaces and places could not be used in the multiplicity of was that
we were all proposing them for. So there were lots of problems with the fact – the
single largest problem was that we did not have enough time to integrate across
the groups. On the other hand, clearly certain themes came up over and over
again. The theme of promoting mass transit, the theme of urban ag, the theme of
democratic participation, the theme of the importance of focusing on justice and
equity, community participation…And then, Beryl – we all produced a sub-report,
and then Beryl and her staff took our reports and put them into the larger
Sustainability Plan. Which had sub-sections or themes in it” (Pinderhuges 2012).

From Pinderhuges’ testimony, repeated and overlapping themes that should have
been both cross-pollinated as well as streamlined was the main problem with the process
that ensued. Still, it seems to have been a generally effective, comprehensive, and
thorough stakeholder input process. After the Plan was put together, The City and County
of San Francisco endorsed it in 1997, at which point it became a policy advisory
document at both levels. Throughout 2001-2010, the principles of the Plan were applied
to creating a set of municipal ordinances, called the Environment Code (Blumenfeld
2013). The Environment Code codified many of the goals set within the Sustainability
Plan (Blumenfeld 2013).
Who was involved?
In general, my interviewees identified few individuals as key players, as there
were more than 400 stakeholders involved with creating the Plan. Jared Blumenfeld
195 
(2013) names the Mayor at the time, Willie Brown, and the members of the Board of
Supervisors and the Commission on the Environment, once formed, as the key initiators
of action on the Plan. Interviewees generally did not name individual members or
facilitators of the subcommittees; more often they mentioned people who were part of the
initial implementation of the Plan as key players.
Several interviewees identified Beryl Maglivy as the person hired to lead the
formation of Plan by the Commission on the Environment and offered some political
insight into the interactions. Edmonston describes,
“So as best as I can tell, Beryl Maglivy, who was sort of the leader of the plan
effort, was and had been a key player on the environmental front as well. And so
there was a circle around her, or she was part of a larger circle that included
environmental activists and people she knew inside of government on staff in
different agencies and some political relationships with supervisors Kevin Shelly
was a big supporter” (Edmonston 2012).

Raquel Pinderhuges also identifies Beryl as the leader of the effort, and the person who
coordinated the overall efforts of the subcommittees: “Beryl pulled us together, and
within a fairly short period of time, we either broke down into subcommittees or the
subcommittees, or the subcommittees were…we either identified subcommittees or broke
it down into them, or the subcommittees were already identified, and then we went into
them” (Pinderhuges 2012). Pinderhuges also notes some of the key players over time, and
describes to some degree how the parts of the Plan evolved into the implementation
through the Department of the Environment:
“Some of us stayed connected, including myself, other people dropped off, but in
the end, I don’t think we have a Sustainability Plan for San Francisco. What we
have is a very strong Department of the Environment, which under Jared
Blumenfeld’s leadership, developed very strong strategic connections to the
residential communities and to the business community, which has developed
itself the way many DOE’s do, water, waste, energy, etc., and done really good
work in those individual areas. And they made a decision, importantly to have an
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environmental justice department, which then, under Annie Eng’s leadership and
Annie was part of our group, and she’s an attorney by training, ensured to a
certain degree that justice as an important component as the DOE, you know,
moved forward with it’s various programs. Jared probably would have done that
on his own, because he was very focused on equity and justice” (Pinderhuges
2012).

Blumenfeld (2013) also notes the role of the people involved as well as the municipal
support involved in the first decade or so of the Department of the Environment: “It was a
really great group of people at the Department of the Environment. They were really
smart, and we were given a lot of latitude and support. So, if we hadn’t had those things,
I’m certain we wouldn’t have achieved most of what we did achieve” (Blumenfeld,
2013). In all, many of the individual key players involved in the creation of the Plan are
still working in the sustainability arena in San Francisco 15 to 20 years after the initial
conceptualization of the Plan (Pinderhuges, 2012).
Blumenfeld (2013) also interestingly notes that national level environmental
groups have not been big players in the sustainability plan process: “They’re not –
environmental groups are not playing in cities. The big ones. There’s lots of great,
especially in LA, and here too. There are a lot of great community groups that do
amazing work and push this agenda forward, but you know, there’s very very little
acknowledgement of this work by national groups.” When asked why he thinks this is, he
replied:
“I don’t know, it’s always…I think that the belief is that if you can somehow get
something through in DC, that then you’ll affect the whole nation, so let’s put all
our efforts in DC, as opposed to the more complex work of getting lots of cities to
do. But my take is, that if you can scale what the cities are doing, you create a
need for action in DC, which is...I was just at the consumer electronics show in
Vegas. And we were talking about electronic waste to all the largest
manufacturers, and their issue was, every city and state we go to has a different
regulation, we need a national legislation on this to harmonize. And so, that kind
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of a rationale to me makes more sense than the top-down, this is what we should
do” (Blumenfeld 2013).

Blumenfeld’s perspective is interesting in its focus on cities as the loci of moving
sustainability work forward at the macro scale. Federal and state level policy is and can
be further informed by the process of experimentation and doing on the ground at the
local level.
In all, San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan has a unique history. The Plan is
generally understood as a community-based plan that involved many stakeholders from
the start, and that currently serves as a guiding document to sustainability policy, rather
than something that is referred to specifically on a day-to-day basis. The Plan was
adopted as a policy advisory document, and has never been edited since, but the ideas
live on in programming through the San Francisco Department of Environment, as well
as through the Environment Code, which is a package of municipal codes designed to
carry out the City’s sustainability goals.
How is the Plan structured?
The Plan is divided into topics, and for each topic, it has: broad, long term social
goals, long-term objectives, objectives for the year 2002, and specific actions to be taken.
The Plan also has a separate section for indicators. The topics are divided into two
sections: Specific Environmental Topics (Section I) and Topics that Span Many Issues
(Section II). Topics in Section I include: Air Quality; Biodiversity; Energy, Climate
Change, and Ozone Depletion; Food and Agriculture; Hazardous Materials; Human
Health; Parks, Open Spaces, and Streetscapes; Solid Waste; Transportation; Water and
Wastewater. Section II topics include: Economy and Economic Development;
Environmental Justice; Municipal Expenditures; Public Information and Education; Risk
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Management (Activities of High Environmental Risk) (SF Environment, 1996).
Each topic comes with a fairly extensive written description, as well as a written
description of indicator movement. Each topic also includes a “strategy,” which includes
a number of goals, and each goal includes long-term objectives, 5-year objectives, and
actions. The plan also includes extensive resources, including books, articles, interviews,
forums, sites, local news, and organizations.
The authors note that the Plan is designed to be a means and not an end, and that
its core purpose is to be implemented. The initial baseline for the Plan is the 1994 report:
“Environmental State of the City Report” by the Commission on San Francisco’s
Environment (SF Environment, 1996). Scott Edmonston notes that the initial intention
was for the subcommittee members that co-authored the report would take on central
tasks for implementation in a volunteer manner:
“The idea was that once the Plan was finalized the various stakeholders that had
formulated the actions would take ownership for them and would go forward into
the neighborhood or into the city or into their business and take some leadership
and generate action to implement those. And accomplish those objectives”
96

(Edmonston 2012).

Edmonston (2012) notes, however, that after the large community process people were
tired, and momentum for continuing to volunteer for the effort waned. Raquel
Pinderhuges, who was also part of the formation process, remembers a sense of isolation
between the subcommittees, and a sense that the path toward implementation was unclear
as the formation of the Plan was finished:

96
Edmonston (2012) continues, “Curiously that is very similar to the strategic community sustainability
planning that The Natural Step - that has evolved under The Natural Step in Canada in particular. That
Natural Step format is a little more of a strategic component because they sort of filter actions through
strategic questions and it has a little more of a systems focus as well.”
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“Transportation, water, equity, these were big themes, but we also felt extremely
unsatisfied with the generability of the whole thing and the fact that we’d not had
an opportunity to talk to one another enough, and therefore each one of us was
proposing things that had an enormous overlap with the other. And from a
strategic point of view, there was no real discussion of how the thing was going to
be implemented, like what were we going to do with all this information?”
(Pinderhuges 2012)

Perhaps that lack of engagement led to the dissipation of volunteer enthusiasm and action
toward implementation at the same time that the Department of the Environment came to
be. As the community process came to a close, the Department of the Environment was
created, and implementation of the Plan became the task of the City’s new department
(Blumenfeld 2013). The Department of the Environment was officially created in 1996,
the same year as the Sustainability Plan, with Beryl Maglivy, former coordinator of the
Sustainability Plan, as the first Executive Director.
Program areas within San Francisco’s Department of the Environment currently
include: Clean Air, Climate/Renewable Energy/Green Building, Energy, Environmental
Justice, Environment Now, Outreach, School Education, Toxics Reduction and Urban
Ag, and Zero Waste (San Francisco, City of 2012).
Do other plans and policies change? What is the interaction with other plans and
policies?

The Plan was the direct inspiration for a group of linked, related policies called
the Environment Code, which were created and fought for through the Department of the
Environment under the direction of Jared Blumenfeld (Blumenfeld 2013). The
Sustainability Plan was also the inspiration for the early departmental program areas in
the Department of the Environment. However, the Plan itself is not linked directly to
indicators and used to guide day-to-day work as it is in Santa Monica. David Assmann
describes the relationship between the Department of the Environment’s current program
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areas, Strategic Plan, and goals, and the original Sustainability Plan:
“There have been a lot of changes over time. And obviously, when this Plan was
initially put together, it was a five-year plan going to 2002, we’re now 10 years
beyond that. So, it’s evolved an enormous amount since then. Though, some of
the actions that were proposed in 1996, we still need to do, and we’re still
working on them. Generally speaking, I would say that we’re in line with maybe
70 percent of what’s in here. 30 percent is either vastly different or not relevant or
we’re not even making any headway on. And some things we’ve moved way
beyond the plan…Our long term waste objective I think was like – we’re at 80
percent diversion right now, and I think our objective in here was like a fraction
of that” (Assmann 2012).

Assman also describes how San Francisco’s Climate Action Plan is related the
Sustainability Plan:
“It’s – some of the basic premises from here are in there, it’s a much more
detailed plan than what this is, because it takes the area of climate and then it
breaks it down by where we can get reductions in the area of transportation, the
area of energy, in the area of building, in the area of waste. So it has…in some
ways…they’re not…the Climate Action Plan is very measurable, I mean they’re
talking about, we’ll convert so many single occupancy vehicle trips to transit and
this is how much we’ll save in the way of emissions. This plan isn’t as specific as
that in the sense that it doesn’t give you reductions. In metric tons, which the
Climate Action Strategy does. So, yeah, so this was kind of a base document, if
you want to think of it that way. This laid the foundation for lots of other plans
that the City has and will adopt. And programs that it will adopt. And one of the
things we’re doing with our own strategic planning, is that, we’re actually in the
process of revising our latest strategic plan to really be very specific with metrics
so that we can measure as much as possible” (Assmann 2012).

I describe this process in more detail in the Implementation section of this chapter. The
Plan does not appear to be directly incorporated into the General Plan, as it has been in
Santa Monica and San Jose. When asked about interactions with other plans, no
interviewees stated that the Sustainability Plan had directly become part of the General
Plan.
How does the Plan define sustainability? Does the Plan affect all three E’s?

The Plan discusses the definition of sustainability in depth, and clearly states that
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it, “uses the UN definition of sustainability: A sustainable society meets the needs of the
present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (SF
Environment, 1996). The Plan states that the word sustainability is not in common use,
however clearly that is no longer the case. The initial Plan approaches the concept of
sustainability as driven by both a “self-interested and an ethical obligation to live in a
way that considers the rights to livelihood of future generations and of other living beings
on this planet” (SF Environment 1996). The authors begin their approach to sustainability
in terms of the physical survival of civilization in terms of physical resources, the health
of plant and animal populations, and the a social structure that is stable enough to
“capable of achieving the preceding two requirements” by achieving social equity (SF
Environment 1996). Raquel Pinderhuges discusses the role of the Brundtland definition
as well as its limitations:
“Not everybody who participated in the sustainability plan was an academic or a
practitioner familiar with the Brundtland report. That’s an elite perspective on
sustainability. However, there were enough of us, so that that was an important
framing for everybody. Some people understand the power of that definition and
build on it. Other people are critical of the limitations of that definition, which
certainly does not include any focus on equity in it whatsoever. And build on that.
But I would say that the Brundtland report has been a very important frame of
reference for everybody in the sustainability movement who understands and
thinks about it in that way. Again, that’s a very elite perspective, that’s elite
knowledge, and not everybody has elite knowledge, some people are participating
because their neighborhood is contaminated and they just want things to be better
at the street level. Other people are participating because they care about water
and that’s what’s on their mind. But yeah, I would say I don’t think it was thrown
in there out of nowhere, I think it was a reference point and I think the power of
the Brundtland Report, or the definition is that it helps you understand that natural
resources are scarce and that we need to be thoughtful about how we use them.
And, not just the natural resource base but also the way in which we make
decisions about the world and how we either contribute or do not contribute to
environmental degradation, and I think that’s a very important frame for
everybody. And certainly, the futuristic, future generations focus is a driving force
behind helping people understand that what we do today effects other people
tomorrow. So I don’t think it was thrown in there willy nilly, I think it was
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intentional and meaningful and a great starting point, however, everybody also
was smart enough to understand the limitations of that report. (Pinderhuges 2012)

The Plan has a section entitled, “Integrating Environmental, Economic, and Social
Concerns,” (SF Environment 1996) which focuses on equitable distribution of resources
and economic growth. It reads, “Society cannot be stable unless the basic human needs of
all its members are met,” and highlights the importance of cultural diversity,
environmental justice, and nurturing children and youth for a better future. However, the
authors later concede that the main focus of the plan is the environmental element of
sustainability, with the exception of the environmental development section and the
environmental justice section.
When asked about the language and role of the Three E’s, Jared Blumenfield
noted that the language is used regularly at the EPA (where he now works), but not as
much at the municipal level:
“And, in the City, I mean you kind of go through a transition from using these
words to describe what you are doing, to then that gets taken over by actually
doing the work. And making sure that those, when you’re re-thinking or
reframing an issue, making sure that you’re bringing in low-income groups as
well as the business sector and so. I don’t think we ever thought, I mean we
always thought about those three elements, but it wasn’t kind of in that precise
language. We talk about environmental justice communities and how to involve
low-income communities. And you know, we brought the business folks in early”
(Blumenfeld 2013).

The following is a chart of the breakdown of San Francisco’s program areas by
primary focus, according to the Three E’s. As with Santa Monica, the topics skew heavily
toward the environment leg of the sustainability stool. I chose to use current Department
of the Environment program areas in this chart, rather than topic areas in the original
Plan, since these are the areas currently being worked on today. Clearly, even though San
Francisco does have a strong Environmental Justice program area, equity proves more
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challenging to implement than environment and economy (although economy only has
one program area, a number of the environment-focused program areas are also heavily
economy-focused).
Table 26. San Francisco Three E’s
Equity Economy Environment

Environmental Justice Environment Now Clean Air

Climate/Renewable Energy/Green
Building

Energy

Toxics Reduction and Urban Ag

Zero Waste

(Biodiversity forthcoming)

General: Outreach, School Education

Interestingly, the San Francisco interviews reveal a strong history of grappling
with the issue of equity from the beginning of the Plan. During the formation of the Plan,
there was a strong equity contingent, and an argument ensued about the nature of the
Environmental Justice subcommittee. Some believed that Environmental Justice should
be present in every subcommittee, as an anchor (or one of three legs of the sustainability
stool) in the effort. Others were afraid that if Environmental Justice did not have its own
subcommittee, its concerns would be pushed aside and lost in the mix. In the end, a
specific Environmental Justice subcommittee was formed, in which two of my
interviewees participated. And ultimately their presence and findings fed into the creation
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of the Environmental Justice program area at the Department of the Environment, one of
the few of its kind in the nation. Raquel Pinderhuges, who served on the Environmental
Justice subcommitte notes, “I would say that one thing that I think distinguishes San
Francisco Sustainability Plan from some of these other cities, is that equity was a very
strong component of everything that we talked about across all the disparate groups. I
think in Seattle and Oregon we tend to get a lot of the environmental benefits, but not
necessarily the equity benefits.” Still, equity in general, and environmental justice in
particular, remain the subject of debate and concern in San Francisco’s sustainability
community and in the community at large. Pinderhuges discusses the process of deciding
whether environmental justice should be a separate subgroup, or integrated throughout
the subgroups during the formation process of the Plan:
“Environmental justice was not initially part of the framing that we came in with
as a group. We sat in a big room, and we insisted that an environmental justice
subcommittee be created, and we had a meaningful conversation about the value
of segmenting that off. So, we talked about, you know, maybe we should have an
EJ perspective and an equity perspective everywhere, great, let’s do that. And we
reminded every team of the importance of doing that, but then we also said, you
know what, where we are right now, if we don’t segment this out and formally
talk about it as a specific set of issues that need to be addressed it could easily be
lost. Again, within the more focused environmental initiatives. So I believe that
we required that, and we divided ourselves out of the larger group and created a
space for EJ. So that tells you something meaningful, because, that means that an
equity perspective was foundational to the initiative. How important it becomes
later is a different issue, but it was foundational” (Pinderhuges 2012)

Anne Bartz describes the experience of moderating the Environmental Justice
subcommittee for the San Francisco Sustainability Plan:
“So, what happened was the major shakeout of this environmental justice group
was a lot of, a lot of strong feelings about having ended up marginalized in the
process. So this was, you know I didn’t see any other groups up close. But this
was definitely where the people of color were concentrated. There may have been
a few here and there in the other groups, but they would have been outnumbered
and dominated by white participants because the majority of the people involved
205 
were white. And it was structured ahead of time – so this goes back to some of
your other questions – it was structured ahead of time with – as oh, we’re going to
have an environmental justice group, we have these people who want to be
involved in these organizations, and we’ll put them in the environmental justice
group. And there was a lot of strong feeling among the people in the
environmental justice group of, we’ve been herded off to the side, once again –
we’re not, we’ve been marginalized, we’re not central – we should be central to
the entire process. And speaking to the entire process through an environmental
justice lens, instead of, oh you’re a special thing off to the side. And, this should
have been set up differently from the very start, instead of, now we find out about
it and the train is down the track quite a ways” (Bartz, 2012).

Indeed, while the issue of social equity was indeed foundational to the process of
forming the Plan, it was not an easy process. Even finding a format to directly address
the issue was conflicted and rife with disagreement. Bartz continues to describe her
role in this process:
“So, my process of facilitation turned out to be a lot being somebody who was
kind of witnessing this, thinking about if there was anything I could do to keep
people from walking out of the process. Because they were that upset. And, trying
to think about how to keep people involved and engaged and feel heard and, you
know in the midst of the train moving down the track. And, you know, trying to
understand their concerns, because I don’t come from the same viewpoint. And
so, I mean I certainly understood what they were saying, but it’s not, I don’t have
the same excessively constant marginalization as they do in my life. So, you
know, trying to really understand what they were saying, trying to convey their
concerns to the leadership of the process. They’d give feedback on it” (Bartz,
2012).

Bartz continues to describe what she thinks her role was in the process:
“Well, nobody left. People did come up with recommendations, they completed
the process. You know I like to think that I had something to do with it. It wasn’t,
you know I don’t think I made it worse. I think I tried to listen well, and represent
them well, in the larger process, because I think we went back and reported as
facilitators – to the larger, to the leadership of the process. So when I think about
it, I think, you know, I’m happy with the fact that people didn’t pull out of it. But
it taught me a lot that I’ve carried over with me to jobs that I’ve done since then.
And the work that I’ve done since then, about set things up - if you want things
diverse and representative, of your actual community, set it up structurally, before
you get going” (Bartz, 2012).

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Indeed, the environmental justice subcommittee and its recommendations and goals
translated directly to the formation of the environmental justice program in the
Department of the Environment, which designs implementation around the goals. The
existence of the subcommittee at all, at the insistence of participating community member
volunteer stakeholders, and the fact that it held together and created recommendations,
unequivocally laid the foundation for concrete programming and implementation on the
ground in the future. Raquel Pinderhuges, who was on the Environmental Justice
subcommittee and later taught Anne Bartz, describes what happened after the formation
process:
“Everyone in that EJ group went on to be very important in San Francisco
sustainability work. Including myself. All of us. Annie’s done a good job. I’m
Annie has – she was the first person hired into that position, she came directly out
of our work group. We supported her, we wrote letters for her to get that position.
It was direct result of our group being in the Sustainability Plan. And I think we
have felt decent about her role. She’s gotten a pool of money from the very
beginning that she’s able to use to support initiatives that promote equity. She’s
been a voice for equity. She’s an attorney, so she’s been able to understand equity
from an implementation perspective. And I think she’s done a good job. However,
I wouldn’t say that Annie’s operating by herself. Jared Blumenfeld who was the
head of the DOE for 11 years and now is the head of Region 9, and now Melanie
share that vision. And now, certainly Jared was just as important in moving
forward that vision. And there were other people as well, who moved forward that
vision” (Pinderhuges 2012).

Pinderhuges continues on to talk about the importance of having an Environmental
Justice program area in dealing with the challenge of equity, and keeping equity
issues from being sidelined in favor of other issues. She also starts to address the deep
tension between environmental gains with social equity losses.
“So, but I think the EJ office is a very important office to have in City
Government. If you don’t have an EJ office, it’s going to be more difficult for
equity issues to be front and center. They will be left out in favor of the
environmental goals, or they will be less important. The environmental goals will
be prioritized. And people will make a lot of stupid mistakes. You know the
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primary issue here, and I don’t know whether this is important to you or not, but it
certainly drives, it’s the driving force behind my work, the primary issue for me,
and I think this is what distinguishes my career, is that I have spent my career
thinking about the way in which the Environmental Movement – the mainstream
Environmental Movement - and efforts at greening cities and sustainability often
have the impact of harming low-income people by displacing them through
gentrification. And also by not including them in the work that is rolled out in the
name of sustainability and greening. And so all of my work has been around that
issue. And I think, San Francisco has not succeeded in maintaining, at a
significant level, a high level of integrity around figuring out ways to keep low-
income people in the city but alleviating poverty at the same time” (Pinderhuges
2012).

Certainly, with some of the highest housing prices in the country, San Francisco’s
progressive liberal political leanings are at odds with the highly disparate reality on
the ground. Noting some real setbacks and challenges, however, she continues to
again note some of the progress being made through the City’s work:
“That said however, there are some really beautiful things going on, even now the
DOE with our R dollars (garbled) has the Jobs Now Program which we’re very
involved in, and they are trying to mentor and place and provide work, well-
paying work for people and I think part of that is the recognition that - the role the
community members can have in their communities independent of income or
race. But, how many people are rolling through that program? You know, 20, 40,
60, the numbers are tiny compared to the much larger numbers of people being
displaced” (Pinderhuges 2012).

She elaborates on the example of the Mission District’s challenges of gentrification
and displacement, particularly with regard to specific cases of environmental wins
leading to housing market changes and thus major displacement:
“With the Mission being a fabulous example. In 1996 when we started the work,
one of the biggest issues for us was lead contamination and air quality, in the
Mission. The issue of lead contamination and air quality in the Mission is
basically gone. And what you ended up with was a city that effectively dealt with
those issues. And as a consequence, the neighborhood and the greening initiatives
increased the quality of the Mission and more and more people came and moved
in at the police station, etc., now it’s impossible for low-income people to live
there. The same thing is happening in the Tenderloin. The expansion of Market
St. That’s where our lowest income people live aside from China Town. In 10
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years they’re not going to be there. Where are they going to be? That’s a big hard
question” (Pinderhuges, 2012).

She also notes that there are many other groups working toward social equity that
were not originally part of the Sustainability Plan process.
“So, but if your bigger question is sort of the history of the movement – the
sustainability initiative is not the only part of the sustainability work here. There
are many groups that were not part of our Sustainability Plan initiative, who either
were not part of it because – and were around then, or have come into being since
then, who are very important players in the environmental space, and in the
environmental/equity or triple bottom line space. And then I think every city is
responding to the popularity of sustainability post 1987 as a buzzword, and you
know the Mayor’s Council, and it’d be hard to be the mayor of a big city and not
talk about Sustainability issues. In California probably particularly. So.”
(Pinderhuges 2012)

Pinderhuges reflects on the significant changes in San Francisco since the time of the
Plan’s formation. She also emphasizes the role and importance of community groups and
pressure in moving equity goals forward within the context of a sustainability plan:
“San Francisco is a very different city today than it was before. Clearly, the equity
goals have not succeeded. I mean the Mission for example, which was, and the
Bay View which were critical places and spaces that we were talking about in the
80’s, are now heavily gentrified and becoming unaffordable for low-income
people. Bay View hasn’t become that yet, but the Mission is definitely. So, we’ve
achieved a lot of the environmental goals, that the Sustainability Plan – we’ve
probably gone way beyond the environmental goals that the Sustainability Plan
envisioned but we haven’t achieved many of the equity goals, which is not
surprising because that’s typically the way sustainability plans roll out, they
prioritize the environmental goals over the equity goals. But we’ve done a decent
job on the equity goals – not, you know, for example, when we rolled out our
recycling program at a very large scale, and when Recology which at that point
was called Sunset Scavengers eventually became our service provider of choice,
there were a lot of community benefit agreements that were associated with the
expansion of the recycling industry that had to do with local hiring and hiring in
the zip code area which had to do with where the recycling facility was located.
And we have a ton of programs that have been supported by mayor after mayor
after mayor which train lower income people for jobs in the environmental space,
and we have programs in the PUC certainly that affect all the cities that have to do
with ensuring that low income people get energy retrofits and solar installations
and – but that has much more to do with the pressure of organizations like
GreenLining and the like that does with the natural tendency of the political
209 
authorities. I mean, San Francisco, I don’t know about the other two cities at all,
but San Francisco is a city where community groups and advocacy groups are
constantly pressuring, at every level from the PUC down, to ensure that
environmental and social equity goals are met. They’re not successful all the time,
but, our ability to pressure is very strong” (Pinderhuges 2012).

While there was significant discussion and debate about having a separate
environmental justice subcommittee during the formation of the Plan, the fact that there is
a funded, operating Environmental Justice program area in the Department of the
Environment clearly indicates that the presence of the subcommittee did lead to the
development of the current program area. Indeed, had the subcommittee not existed, there
is some chance that the issues at hand could have been lost among the other
subcommittees. From the perspective inside of the current Department of the
Environment, David Assmann describes the current Environmental Justice program area
and its evolution beyond the formation of the Plan.
“One of the things that we’re actually very proud of is our Environmental Justice
program, which we were able to get a big chunk of funding to devote to the
Southeast sector of the City which is where our, it’s a low-income neighborhood
with lots of problems. Where all our manufactures are in that section of the City,
most of the pollution is in that part of the City. We were able to get through a
state settlement fund, actually, $13 million to put into multiple projects and
capacity building in the Southeast section of the City. And that came actually
back in 2000 as well. We’ve been able to use every dollar essentially of that $13
million to put into projects. We've raised additional money, which basically has
covered all our departmental costs. So all that money – because we ended up with
something like $15 million altogether, so $13 million went into projects. And
we’re still working on projects there, and some, and we’re really involved in, for
example, environmental health issues, in the community working with housing
projects right now for example on less toxic pest control, we have a grant from the
Center for Disease Control to do some IPM – integrated pest management work in
housing, in the Bay View. So, environmental justice has actually been an integral
part of the department since 2000. It’s, we've had a full-fledged EJ program, in
fact at one point, we were giving out more in grants, as a city, than the EPA was
giving out nationally. For environmental justice work. And at the same time, we
also are working very hard at integrating into our outreach program, peer to peer
work that is focused on people going door-to-door who are from the
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neighborhood, who can really feel at home there who are talking to their
neighbors there, and we have an outreach presence in the Southeast section that
I’m very proud of that focuses on issues that are not your typical environmental
issues. So, we really do consider environmental justice a critical part of what we
do as a department” (Assmann 2012).

It remains unclear whether the decision to devote the funding from the power plant
settlements to creating an Environmental Justice program area was based on the fact that
there was an environmental justice section in the Sustainability Plan, but it certainly
didn’t hurt. And the fact that the City had officially illustrated that environmental justice
was a priority before the funding came a long, probably went a long way toward
allocating the funds in such a way that the money went to the affected areas in an
organized way. The environmental justice program area within the Department of the
Environment also provided a platform for leveraging the funding for program expansion
over time.
Finally, David Assmann notes how the Department itself takes on equity work
within its own structure. The internal gender planning process that he discusses, indicates
a level of institutional self-awareness, and an intentional move toward harmony in
internal systems as well as systems external to the department and the City.
“We were one of the first departments to do a gender planning process. Which,
we did a gender study when the department was in its infancy, and gender study
in this context is not just looking at gender it’s also looking at ethnicity, and
looking at equity, and it’s under the, I don’t know if you’re familiar with
CEDAW? It’s a UN resolution, I can’t remember if it’s Commission or
Committee, to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women. And it was a
comprehensive, it was actually a treaty that was signed by many countries, not
including the US, but San Francisco as a city adopted it. And part of this,
CEDAW’s mandates were to do gender equity analyses. And we as a city adopted
that, the Commission on the Status of Women, then started with various
departments to do gender studies. And we were one of the first departments to do
that, and our equity work to a large extent, grew out of that analysis. And that
looked at a whole range of issues, including, we adopted a flexible time schedule.
We adopted a - what’s called a 9/80 schedule so people work in a two-week
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period, they have nine days that they work, they get the tenth day off. They work
extra hours. We have an emergency ride home program, which has both an
environmental and a social benefit, so if somebody who has a child at home and
needs to get home in an emergency, and needs to take a cab, that gets covered.
There are a whole list of programs that came out of that. That gender study to
begin with, and it all ties into our equity work as well” (Assmann 2012).

Overall, because of the presence of the group of people concerned with equity issues
involved in the formation of the Plan, as well as ongoing pressure from community
groups, equity has been dealt with more directly and explicitly in San Francisco than in
Santa Monica or San Jose. Environmental Justice is only a subset of the large social
equity picture, however the designation and commitment of having an active, funded and
staffed Environmental Justice program area in the Department of the Environment does
contribute to significant work being done that is focused on equity.
Still, the City faces similar challenges of gentrification, displacement, and
regional and state effects that Santa Monica faces. Laura Tam of SPUR, struggled to talk
about equity, saying, “Oh I think there’s some lip service, here and there,” noting that
some sub-fields, such as transit justice, are very serious about equity, while other
sustainability sub-fields, such as green building, may not me (Tam, 2013). She highlights
an example of a major equity challenge in the face of environmental policy in the City:
“Right now the City’s really trying to roll out a new program to get a certain
percentage of residents enrolled in a 100% renewable energy program. And you
don’t get to choose whether you’re opted in or not, and for many residents, you
can opt out, but you have to do something. You have to actively do that. Go in
and be like I do not want to be enrolled in this 100% renewable energy program.
So that’s not going to be easy for a lot a people. It’s something that, you know
you probably have to get on the internet, like not everybody’s going to act on that.
And it’s going to raise, everybody’s that’s automatically enrolled in it, their
electricity rate is going to go up by $10 to $90 per month. And, if you ask me,
that’s a serious equity problem, in the face of, like they’re trying to do something
green, but in reality, the way that’s it’s being implemented is, I have a lot of
problems with it. Personally, my organization has no position on this program by
the way, but I personally feel like it’s a really flawed approach, and it’s the only
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way that it will work is if they believe that enough people will not opt out because
they are willing to pay more for quote unquote green energy. But, like that’s a lot
of, on a household that’s a lot. Especially, the more vulnerable households that
have the least probably ability to figure out how to opt out. I don’t know whether
they’re going to do a good job of doing it in multiple languages, I just don’t know.
Whether people will just be like, well, my electricity bill went up and I don’t
know why and I don’t know what to do. Or they’ll just have to scrape together to
pay for it, I don’t, I just, ugh. Anyway, that’s my personal opinion. Maybe they’re
going to be amazing at it and succeed wildly, but I don’t know. I feel like at least
one person is going to get really screwed in that scenario” (Tam 2013).

While I do not have all of the information about this particular program, the conversation
itself raises a classic set of concerns about urban equity with regard to the environment.
Sustainability theory can fracture at points like this on the ground, and the challenge is to
design and implement programs and policies in such a way that, at the very least
environmental gains can be made without causing harm, but ideally that equity pressures
can push environmental goals forward and vice versa, which seem to be happening with
much of San Francisco’s environmental work. In this case, discord between
interconnected systems throws the entire system off balance. In other elements, conscious
efforts to create truly equitable and sustainable internal systems do move the city toward
greater sustainability overall. In all, San Francisco has certainly taken real steps toward
addressing equity issues, and several my interviewees were willing and able to directly
discuss the specifics, challenges, and progress in moving social equity forward within the
sustainability context. Solutions still remain a major challenge with regard to social
equity in San Francisco, and continued work toward balancing systems internally and
externally are required to move forward toward sustainability.
How is the Plan Implemented?
Implementation of San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan is complex to describe, and
tied in deeply with the development and evolution of the Plan. It has also been greatly
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affected by the evolution of politics in the City, and by the different leadership styles of
those involved over time. The Plan was adopted as a Policy Advisory Document in 1997,
and has never been altered since. Instead, implementation flows through the work of the
Department of the Environment, as well as through work in other departments. It stands
as a guiding document apart from the strategic plans and other plans in the City, rather
than having outcomes measured directly according to plan language. The Structure of
San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan is somewhat complex in terms of numbers of topics
and levels of goals, however the Plan structure itself has never been altered.
At what political and geographic level?

The Sustainability Plan for the City of San Francisco covers the 47 square miles
of the City and County San Francisco. The same is true for the reach of the Department
of the Environment, “As a city agency we really just cover the 47 square miles of San
Francisco. That’s our mandate and that’s what we work with” (Assmann, 2012). Mei
Ling, Urban Forest and Urban Agriculture Coordinator for the Department of the
Environment, explains in a little more detail the reach of the Department:
“The City and County of San Francisco is City proper, water, and then the bottom
border and then also Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Islands, they’re part of
City and County of San Francisco. We own – the City as an entity – owns
property outside of San Francisco, a lot of property actually. And the plans that
talk about how the City operations will be affected do affect those outside areas.
For example, Log Cabin Ranch is owned by a juvenile probation department and
the airport – the land the airport’s on is owned by the City. So when we do a
training, we invite, SFO gardening employees to come talk with us. We have an
ordinance about the type of pesticides, the IPM Ordinance, about the type of
pesticides that can be used on City property. And that’s going to affect any City
property, so not just City proper, but land that we own” (Ling 2012).

Sraddha Mehta describes the geographical focus of her particular program area, the
Environmental Justice program:
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“The Sustainability Plan covers the City and County of San Francisco. As does
our Department of the Environment Strategic Plan. Our Environmental Justice
program focuses on the environmental justice issues in San Francisco, so we’ve
done a lot of work with the Southeast sector of San Francisco – those
communities. Our work is not exclusive to those communities, however, the
original funding for the Environmental Justice program came through a settlement
related to the two power plants that used to be in the Southeast Part of the City.
And now they’ve been shut down, but at the time, the settlement earmarked $13
million for San Francisco in relation to those power plants. So our program
funded a lot of projects in the two neighborhoods, the two affected communities
that were named in that settlement, which was Bay View Hunter’s Point and
Portero Hill. And so, that’s why if you look at the work that our program, our
Environmental Justice Program has done, a lot of it is centered in those two
neighborhoods” (Mehta 2012).

Intriguingly, the Department of the Environment was originally funded by general
fund dollars, but these were cut off during and fiscal downturn, and the department
became an Enterprise Department, which raises all of its own funds (Assmann 2012).
“We get no money from the City’s general fund. We raise all our own funds.
Through designated funds for things like waste, to fundraising, to we have a very
large energy efficiency program that we get via a state allocation on people’s
utility bills. So we have a budget that ranges between $18 and $24 million a year,
and none of it’s from the City’s general fund” (Assmann 2012).

Assmann further describes the funding situation:

“I think it’s unique anywhere. I don't know of any other department that does
similar work to us that doesn't get money from the City’s general fund. And we
used to get money from the City’s general fund. It’s just we had – when there was
a fiscal crisis in 2004, they basically saw how successful we were at getting
outside money and they cut us off. And in the long run it’s actually proven to be –
first it was a hardship, but in the long run it’s actually proven to be a benefit to us
as a department because our budget is not subject to the vagaries of the City’s
general fund, which goes up and down, depending on the economy. Our funding
is more – ironically our funding ends up being more stable. We at any one given
time have 30 plus grants that help sustain the Department, so, from a few
thousand dollars up to $7 million I think is the biggest one” (Assmann 2012).

Mei Ling, who works on the ground in the Department of the Environment, explains the
limitations that funding can pose, as well as how being an Enterprise Agency that does
not have access to general fund money can affect the specifics of implementation:
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“So, and also as an Enterprise Agency, since we don’t get money from the general
fund, that creates some limitations, but it also offers some opportunities. So, an
Enterprise Agency doesn’t get tax money. The money that we get to operate, the
funding that we have to operate is fee for service, and grants. You know we
generate the income internally that we need to operate. And in some ways, that is,
like another agency that gets money to do a specific thing, that’s what they have
to do they have to carry out that mission. If you get funding to pave a street, you
pave the street, right? That’s what you’re doing. If you’re not getting money in
that way, and you’re getting fee for service, you’re getting grants, then you might
be getting money for a fee payer to collect the garbage, or to make sure that water
is accessible. That, in our case is it’s reducing garbage, reducing, increasing the
amount of composting and recycling in the City. And because we do have a lot of
grant funding, what is interesting to people, at a certain time, like urban ag is very
interesting to people right now. There’s more grant money out there for it, so
there are more opportunities for us to seek grant funding to move a specific grant
forward. So if we’re hearing something that might be interesting from somebody
we might be able to move something forward faster, and be more responsive,
because we don't get general fund dollars that direct our work in a very specific
way” (Ling 2012).

Within the Department of the Environment, the on-the-ground implementation plan in the
Department is called a Strategic Plan, which is updated every two to three years.
“Our Strategic Plan is really our implementation plan. And, the way that it is set
up is that each program area in the department has it’s own goals and objectives,
and specific action items related to those objectives, and so we try to make it as
measureable as possible, and the there’s a timeline for each of those actions, so,
when we’re going to complete each action” (Mehta 2012).

David Assmann describes the big picture of how the three-year strategic planning process
fits into the evolution of the Plan and the Department:
“Now what’s happened since then, this was in 1996, it really came out in 1997,
the Plan had, their long term at that point was 2002. And by the time we got to the
year 2002, the Department of the Environment in essence didn’t exist in 1997. By
2001 it was a rapidly expanding department. And the department took over
responsibility for many of these areas, and basically rolled in the elements of this
plan into our 3-year strategic rolling plan. So, we do a strategic plan that is a
three-year plan and we update it every year. And it didn’t cover everything that’s
in the Sustainability Plan, but it covered a good chunk of what was in there. The
other thing we did is we did an update, I’m trying to remember the year, that
looked at all the different actions and goals in the plan and measured where we
were with each of them. In a very simple way. Completed, still proceeding, or no
longer relevant. Because some of the things that were issues in 1996 turned out to
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be, for whatever reason, not something we needed to pursue, by the time we did
the update. I believe the update was done in 2009 I want to say. We have not done
anything other than that since this plan was put together” (Assmann 2012).

In addition to the direct work of the Department, a group of about 19 municipal
ordinances called the Environmental Code, which is enforced citywide and implemented
across departments, also were inspired by the Plan, and are another means by which the
Plan is implemented on the ground. Each “chapter” of the Environment Code is a legally
binding municipal ordinance (“Environment Code” 2013). The chapters of the
Environment Code are as follows:
Chapter 1: Precautionary Principle Policy Statement
Chapter 2: Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Ordinance
Chapter 3: Integrated Pest Management Program
Chapter 4: Healthy Air and Clean Transportation Program
Chapter 5: Resource Conservation Ordinance
- Construction and Demolition Debris Recovery Ordinance
- Green City Government Building Ordinance
Chapter 6: [Reserved]
Chapter 7: Resource Efficiency Requirements
Chapter 8: Tropical Hardwood and Virgin Redwood Ban
Chapter 9: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets and Departmental Action Plans
Chapter 10: Transportation of Aggregate Materials
Chapter 11: Cell Phone Disclosure Requirements
Chapter 12: Urban Forestry Council
Chapter 13: Arsenic-Treated Wood
Chapter 14: Construction and Demolition Debris Recovery Ordinance
Chapter 15: Green Business Program
Chapter 16: Food Service Waste Reduction Ordinance
Chapter 17: Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance
Chapter 18: Solar Energy Incentive Program
Chapter 19: Mandatory Recycling and Composting
Chapter 20: Existing Commercial Buildings Energy Performance
Chapter 21: Yellow Pages Distribution Pilot Program
Chapter 22: Safe Drug Disposal Information

So, while the Sustainability Plan is not legally binding other than as a Policy
Advisory Document, according to Jared Blumenfeld (2013), many of the goals and
intentions set forth in the Plan live on in through the Environment Code and the
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Department of the Environment Programming. Scott Edmonston describes the two-
pronged process of the community stakeholder formation process of the Sustainability
Plan, and the simultaneous development of the Department of the Environment:
“The Plan itself I think was pretty path breaking, just the content, etc. It had, you
know some kind of wild edges to it – which in my mind made it more authentic –
we didn’t try to edit all that stuff out per se, we figured it would just either move
forward or fall out on its own. And the process envisioned was really path
breaking as well. Unfortunately what happened was, as with many community
planning processes, they’re very time intensive and energy intensive to do. And
by the time it was done, people we pretty tired and the next phase and how to
organize and staff and motivate and energize and support the next phase, wasn’t -
was sort of a task yet to be done. And so, we didn’t come out of the plan with, you
know, a supportive process and infrastructure already conceptualized, and so it
did go in the direction of creating a small non-profit I think that got as far as being
a formal non profit called – Sustainable San Francisco I think it was – and I think
that’s one of the locations on the web where the plan exists. And they I think did
some work for a year or two years or so and then sort of energy petered out a bit.
And then, simultaneously, at the end of 1995, we had an election and there was a
referendum on the election – I think it was a referendum, to create a Department
of Environment. And so those were the two things that I think were at the top of
the environment group’s activist agenda, was to institutionalize a Department of
the Environment, with the mission of making San Francisco sustainable. And
then, and two, having a community based sustainability plan – and so, by the
beginning of 1996 or was it 97 – December 96, so yeah December 96 was the
election (or November) - so by the beginning of 1997 we had a new Department
of Environment which Beryl Magilvy actually directed for a number of months
and then she was just, I think she was either fatigued and/or frustrated with how
the politics of it were going, so she resigned at that point and we’ve had a few
different directors since then. And then we had the Plan, so both those things were
in place. I think the concept was at the time, was that the Department of
Environment would take over the stewardship of the community plan and be sort
of the leadership energy behind it. For whatever reasons, that didn’t happen”
(Edmonston 2012).

According to Edmonston (2012), the Department of the Environment did not take
on the principles of the Sustainability Plan as had been originally imagined, and instead
developed a related but independent set of program areas and goals.
“It just lives as a policy advisory document anointed by Supervisor – Board of
Supervisor approval. And so it just sits there, and like I said, it has had kind of
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this curious independent life. It hasn’t just collected dust I mean it’s not really on
anybody’s shelf in particular except for maybe mine…”(Edmonston 2012).

Because Beryl Magilvy directed the brand new Department of the Environment, it
may be reasonable to assume that the overall intent was to apply the principles of the
brand new Sustainability Plan to the goals and actions of the Department. However,
Magilvy was a controversial figure and, while she had been central to the development
process of the Plan, she retired from the Department of the Environment before long.
Jared Blumenfeld, who was not with the Department yet, describes what he knows of her
tenure as Executive Director:
“Yes, Beryl was the first, she was like a team of one. And then she was fired by
Willie Brown. And then the next person that did the job before I did was
Francesca Vietor. And so, when I took over there was like nine people. And so it
was just kind of beginning. And they did some great foundational work. But
Beryl…yeah…I mean the issue that I had with Beryl was that – the one audience
we haven’t talked about yet, which is actually one of the more complex ones, is
city government itself. So, in San Francisco, there’s 29,000 city employees. And
if you - a lot of these ordinances require that they do something different. And
they don’t really want to be told what to do by a different department. So, kind of
the, I’ve only met Beryl once, but, the word on Beryl was the she was asking City
departments to do stuff too soon, too fast that they didn’t want to do. And so they
went to the Mayor and said, we won’t be able to deal with this person”
(Blumenfeld 2013).

Unfortunately, Maglivy has since moved to France, and I have not been able to track
town her contact information. Blumenfeld (2013) also mentioned in his interview that she
basically disappeared without a trace after she left, even with regard to her presence in
the Department that she had so recently headed. By most accounts, Maglivy was an
activist seems not to have fared well in a bureaucratic setting, attempting to transition an
aspirational plan to municipal implementation on the ground.
However it played out, Maglivy left the Department of the Environment within a
few months. Jared Blumenfeld, who directed the Department from 2001-2010, was the
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central figure responsible for moving the Plan into the implementation phase. As he
describes it, the Plan was the foundation and had a very real effect on the development of
the Environment Code as well as departmental programming (Blumenfeld 2013).
Blumenfeld also explains the connection between Agenda 21 and how
international agreements linked to city-level sustainability planning, both to the process
of creating a sustainability plan as well as moving to implementation:
“Rio was kind of the first time to say, here’s a blueprint that goes – in their
technical language – to sub-national governments. And that was really,
completely outside the domain of what had ever been agreed to before. So you
had national leaders agreeing to things that would be implemented at the
community town level. So Agenda 21 was kind of the first sustainability
blueprint. And, you know the whole concept of sustainability grew out of the
1972 Stockholm Earth Summit. And that, you know the woman Gor Harlem
Brundtland kind of came out with this concept…So if you look at Agenda 21, it’s
broken in to categories that make some degree of sense. And had – it led to this
proliferation of national Agenda 21’s. And these national Agenda 21’s were
probably the most valuable thing that came out of Rio, because they could be
measured, and you know, you could actually say, this is a plan, these are the
timelines, are they being implemented? And that then led to cities around the
world adopting their Agenda 21 plans. So that is what San Francisco’s history
was, so, after the Rio Earth Summit, they had this sustainability planning group of
about 400 people, and it was very citizen based” (Blumenfeld 2013).

By this account, San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan sprang directly from the
international imperative in Agenda 21, and Blumenfeld’s work in implementation
through the Department of the Environment was a direct effort to bring the Plan to life on
the ground at the municipal level.
David Assmann, current Deputy Director of the Department of the Environment,
gives a general account what became of the Plan, once created:
“Well, in essence, once it was put together, the areas were given to the various
City departments that were responsible for those areas, like the Parks, Open
Spaces, and Streetscapes, went to the Recreation Department. The solid waste
section went to our Department because we were responsible for solid waste.
Transportation went to a couple of different departments because there was
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overlap. Water and wastewater went to the Public Utilities Commission because
that’s their area, so. So hazardous materials went to several different departments
because, unfortunately, it’s not centralized. Some of it’s Department of Public
Health, some of it’s Fire Department, some of it’s Department of the
Environment, some of it’s the Public Utilities Commission, it’s like, it’s spread
out. So the idea was that relevant City departments would take on the role of
making sure that this happened with a number of the program areas ending up in
the Department of the Environment, a number of the topic areas. It was initially,
after it went from the, it was the Department of the Environment that oversaw the
process, to get it out to the right players. After it became an official document of
the City” (Assmann 2012).

Blumenfeld describes how, through a process of assessing progress on the Plan, he began
to develop the Environment Code to codify and create legal legitimacy for as many parts
of the Plan as possible:
“The Commission on the Environment was actually created in order to report
on the progress of implementing this document. So my first job was to look at
this. And my goal was to try to give meaning and spirit to the document rather
than implement each and every word of it. But the Commission at some point
was like, Jared, we want you to tell us where you are on every single point in
the strategic – in the Plan, Sustainability Plan. So I’m not sure if you found it
online, but, we actually came out and we said, this is kind of in the process of
being done, this has been done, this will never be done. Like one of the goals
in the Sustainability Plan was to align the MUNI and the BART tracks. I don’t
know how well you understand San Francsico, but at the moment you have
two subways going on top of each other, and they wanted them to go parallel.
So, that’s never ever going to happen, so we’re not going to report on this
anymore. Anyway, so then, you know because there was a lot of energy and
enthusiasm, and what I tried to do was reformulate the Sustainability Plan into
– maybe because I’m an attorney – into an Environment Code. So, we
decided, let’s create an Environment Code. Because municipal government
has all kinds of different codes. And so we started it with something that kind
of came out of Agenda 21, which is the Precautionary Principle. And made
that kind of the overarching framework. And then, I think we ended up with -
I’m not sure how many there are now, but when I left there was about 19
different chapters to the Environment Code. So everything from green
building to mandating recycling, to transportation demand management
issues, so we’ve kind of tried to work with the community to come up with
pragmatic implementable, achievable targets that we would turn into
legislation and then hold ourselves to account with” (Blumenfeld 2013).

Accounts by interviewees vary on how much the Department of the Environment did, in
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fact take on the content of the Sustainability Plan in its programming. However, it seems
that few people had the power and the perspective that Blumenfeld had at the time with
regard to knowing what thought processes and intentions were involved in creating the
Environment Code and running the Department.
Edmonston (2012) describes how the Plan, when completed, was adopted by the
Board of Supervisors as a Policy Advisory Document, rather than as a municipal
ordinance or a formal plan of some other sort.
“The Plan was formally adopted by the Supervisors as a Policy Advisory
Document – that’s kind of how they got around it being a formal plan and so
avoided triggering CEQA and a bunch of other stuff. And you know, that was sort
of a two-edged sword I believe, because, on it’s own, that sort of status sort of
relegates a plan like that to - a side note somewhere, I mean I don’t really think
that is the way that you embed those ideas and that process, into – centrally into
the decision-making of all of the agencies in San Francisco. But nonetheless, it
provided a formal kind of anointing and platform, and then the big question mark
in my mind, was why the Department of Environment didn’t sort of embrace that
as, you know take over stewardship of the community plan, and really put the
energy behind it. And, you know, just a little institutional analysis would suggest
things like, you know, they wanted their own plan, they were their own
department, and they had their own ideas, and were not particularly trained or
sympathetic to a community planning process. I mean if it had been rooted in the
Department of Planning, planning as an institution is more centrally focused on
community planning processes and concepts, etc. and so it might have had a little
life there” (Edmonston 2012).

Indeed, viewed one way, the Plan was not absorbed directly word-for-word or even goal-
for-goal into the Department of the Environment. Memories are fuzzy, but many
interviewees thought that things like existing policy, funding, and organizational
reorganization provided the impetus behind the creation of certain program areas in the
Department (Mehta 2012; Ling 2012; Rich Chien, LEED AP 2013). Sraddha Mehta,
Senior Environmental Justice Coordinator at the Department of the Environment, who
was not present during the initial development of the Plan, but has been at the
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Department of the Environment since its early stages. She describes from her perspective,
the evolution of various program areas within the Department of the Environment:
“Actually, interestingly, when our department was first formed, before 2000, the
Integrated Pest Management Program was one of our first programs in this
department, and I think, I don’t think it was like, ‘oh that’s the most important
environmental issue,’ I think it had to do with what was going on at the time,
there was an Integrated Pest Management ordinance, and they needed somebody
to work with all of the City agencies to make sure that they were practicing IPM.
The zero waste team was part of a separate city department. It was a solid waste
management program, and interestingly, I used to be a part of that department,
before I joined the Department of the Environment, but they, I forgot what the
year was, but at some point there was a restructuring, reorg, and that whole
program came under our department. And, the energy team, there were some
people at the Public Utilities Commission that were doing energy conservation,
and they still have people working closely with our energy people on municipal
issues, energy-related issues. But, I’m not sure how it happened, but some of the
people in that program came to our department and I don’t know if that was
something official or if the just decided to leave that department and join our
department. I can’t remember exactly how that happened. And then, urban
forestry, there’s an urban forestry council, in the City, and originally they, when
that was, when that council was formed, they needed somebody to staff it, and so
there was a program person in our department that was staffing that council.”
(Mehta 2012).

Although the programs did not grow directly from the Plan, from Jared
Blumenfeld’s perspective, the Sustainability Plan was and indeed continues to be the
backbone and lifeblood of both the programming at the Department as well as the content
of the Environment Code, but in an implicit way.
“If you think about the Plan as kind of aspirational, these are things that the City
cares about. So, we care about climate change and the urban forest and, you
know, building pedestrian friendly, livable neighborhoods. So, I mean if you look
at each of the chapters, we kind of, they inspired and influenced how we
prioritized our work and how the Commission prioritized our work. So, there
were some areas that we didn’t get to do initially, like urban farming. That we
spent a lot of time in later years on. So, it was kind of a guiding document, that, it
was less about we’re going to implement to the letter of this requirement in the
Sustainability Plan and more, this is a really cool document that a lot of people
spent a lot of time on. How do we give meaning and life to it?” (Blumenfeld
2013).

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When asked if he thinks people in the Department of the Environment refer to the plan in
their work, Blumenfeld responded:
“No. I mean, it kind of like, it’s almost like, do you refer to, you know in our
conversation, to Webster’s English Dictionary? No, but everything we do is in
there, and it is a reference point to what we do, even in people aren’t explicitly
mentioning it. So, if someone said, if you asked anyone at the Department of the
Environment, is this what you think about when you’re making these decisions.
No, but the decisions that they are making are based upon that document”
(Blumenfeld, 2013).

While the Plan does serve as a foundational and inspirational document for the City’s
sustainability efforts and the work of the Department of the Environment, officially it
remains separate from municipal policy itself. Edmonston, who works in the San
Francisco Planning Department describes from his perspective the role (or lack thereof)
of the Planning Department relative to the Sustainability Plan:
“One of the other interesting, sort of, I don’t know what to call it – weirdnesses of
the legislation – of, yeah it wasn’t in the Plan so much but it was in the Charter, to
the Department of Environment, was that the sphere of their influence and activity
was defined as only environmental, so. And explicitly not land use, because they
did not want sustainability planning, environmental planning to get into the
formal arena of land use. It made some sense – division of labor, Department of
City Planning’s been doing it for 40 whatever years, but it creates, and you know
it hasn’t actually been fully formally tightly followed. For instance the Green
Building Ordinance for municipal buildings and now all buildings came out of the
Department of the Environment. So that’s kind of like this little gray area where it
sort of went over into the land use arena. You know now logically, sustainability
would have suggested much more of a collaboration and linkages – formally and
institutionally between the Department of Environment and City Planning – and
there have been a fair amount of informal collaborations over the years. But
nonetheless, you know I think the potential of the Sustainability Plan was not as
fully realized as it maybe could have been” (Edmonston 2012).

While the Green Building Ordinance is part of the Environment Code, which grew
generally from the Sustainability Plan, and came from the Department of the
Environment, it operates across departments and those implementing it no longer refer
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back to the original Plan.
Similarly, while Sraddha Mehta does refer to the Environment Code in her
interview, of my interviewees only Jared Blumenfeld overtly links the Environment Code
and the program areas within the Department of the Environment with the Sustainability
Plan. To other interviewees, the Plan is acknowledged as a guiding document, but the
history of the linkages between the origins of the Plan and implementation work on the
ground seem to have been lost, or was never understood as such by anyone other than the
original architects. The life of the Plan, rather than being directly translated into program
areas and jobs within the Department, lives a more abstract life, affecting a great deal of
work in the City, but not being implemented directly as a whole. Scott Edmonston
reflects on the role and life of the Plan:
“The Plan sort of had an independent parallel life and universe – separate from the
Department of the Environment – the Department of Environment I think started
off rooted in the Plan – and was really focused – I’m sort of interpreting here –
was really focused more on the content of the plan as opposed to the community
process ownership stakeholder involvement validation crowd sourcing
intelligence problem solving type stuff. And so I think they took an environmental
scientific kind of approach to sustainability and grabbed the content that seemed
relevant in the plan and then moved forward on their own agenda, and they’ve
gone through a number of cycles of three year strategic plans. I don’t know
exactly what they did in the very beginning, but the Department of the
Environment is also very savvy politically and they made some strategic decisions
I think, that it was better to be under the radar than above the radar, and you’d
spend a lot less time and energy and resources fighting battles as opposed to just
getting stuff done. And so I think they saw kind of the community dimension of
the sustainability plan some of the fringe stuff in the plan, and the more public
posture and position of a community based plan as something they just didn’t
want to take on and they thought it would be diversionary to some degree”
(Edmonston 2012).

Blumenfeld discusses the importance, role, and difficulties of moving from theory to
practice, from planning to implementation:
225 
“You know, there’s a lot of interest and excitement at many different levels when
you announce that you’re going to work towards achieving zero waste by 2020.
There’s a lot - there’s siginificantly diminished response when you say, here’s the
nitty gritty of how we need to spend the next 20 years implementing it. And so,
and that, so that was one element. A second element, which we dealt with is,
when you talk to Mayor Chuck Reed in San Jose, or Villariagosa in LA, they’d be
like, well San Francisco already did that. And so, not only is it less interesting the
second time, but then you also have to do the implementation. So cities were kind
of actually frustrated with us, they were like, you guys are just doing the first stuff
all the time, and our mayors want to get some recognition and sunlight and
attention. And so, why are you guys doing it? And we’re like, we’re just trying to
get it done. But, I think there is, that is kind of the initial stages, then what
happens is that, if you haven’t done it. If you’re a mayor and you haven’t done
something on green building, or you know, thinking about how to remove
pesticides, or – we haven’t even talked about energy efficiency, which is a huge
project that we did. But, if you haven’t done those things, then you’re kind of like,
why – people just would not understand now. So there’s enough critical mass, and
the club has grown big enough that those aren’t as big of issues. But, in terms of
your initial question on implementation, what’s getting done, that I think, many
cities don’t follow up on. So they set a goal, it’s ambitious, and then it’s like, if
you went and asked them, what have they done to implement it, they could send
you some spreadsheets but it wouldn't, you know, it wouldn’t be as much
emphasis on that. So, that’s the most important stuff, because anyone can make a
great bold commitment, but unless you’re willing to do the work to both follow
up and show that you’ve followed up, then you kind of get fatigue among your
constituents. They’re like, yeah, they said they were going to get to zero waste,
you can’t really do the next thing, until you’ve proven that you’ve kind of got
some way towards implementing the last thing” (Blumenfeld 2013).

Indeed, the challenges of moving the sustainability plan from theory to on-the-
ground implementation and practice were and are great. Executing a massive community
stakeholder process to create the initial plan was a monumental task in itself. From there,
volunteer fatigue, municipal politics and leadership styles came into play to determine the
life and course of the Plan. As things evolved, the Plan inspired the development of the
Environment Code and some of the Department of the Environment’s programming. It
lives on as a Policy Advisory Document, rather than a centralized plan, and most work
done with regard to it is now indirectly related, rather than referring specifically to the
Plan language.
226 
How do we measure sustainability?
San Francisco’s Department of the Environment does not specifically follow the
original goals set out by the Sustainability Plan. Instead, it measures outcomes by goals
and metrics set in the Department’s Strategic Plan every 2-3 years. Thus, San Francisco’s
outcomes are the most complicated to compile and present, because its original Plan
priorities do not translate directly to policies in the Environment Code and/or programs in
the Department of the Environment. However, existing programs and policies do
generally map to correspond to the original priorities identified in the Plan. The following
is a table illustrating the parallels between priorities, programs, and policies.
227 
Table 27. San Francisco plan priorities, program areas, and policies
Original Plan
Priorities

Program Areas in SF
Environment Strategic
Plan
Policies in Environment Code
Air Quality Clean Air Chapter 4: Healthy Air and Clean
Transportation Program

Biodiversity Coming soon Chapter 8: Tropical Hardwood and
Virgin Redwood Ban

Energy Climate/Renewable
Energy/Green Building

Energy

Chapter 7: Resource Efficiency
Requirements

Chapter 18: Solar Energy Incentive
Program

Chapter 20: Existing Commercial
Buildings Energy Performance

Climate Change and
Ozone Depletion
Climate/Renewable
Energy/Green Building
Chapter 5: Resource Conservation
Ordinance
- Construction and Demolition
Debris Recovery Ordinance
- Green City Government Building
Ordinance
Chapter 7: Resource Efficiency
Requirements

Chapter 8: Tropical Hardwood and
Virgin Redwood Ban

Chapter 9: Greenhouse Gas
Emissions Targets and Departmental
Action Plans

Food and Agriculture Toxics Reduction and
Urban Ag

Chapter 12: Urban Forestry Council

Hazardous Materials Toxics Reduction and
Urban Ag
Chapter 2: Environmentally
Preferable Purchasing Ordinance

Chapter 3: Integrated Pest
Management Program

Chapter 13: Arsenic-Treated Wood
228 

Chapter 22: Safe Drug Disposal
Information

Human Health Toxics Reduction and
Urban Ag
Chapter 3: Integrated Pest
Management Program

Chapter 22: Safe Drug Disposal
Information

Chapter 11: Cell Phone Disclosure
Requirements

Parks, Open Spaces,
and Streetscapes
Toxics Reduction and
Urban Ag
(also in Planning
Department)

Chapter 8: Tropical Hardwood and
Virgin Redwood Ban

Solid Waste Zero Waste Chapter 2: Environmentally
Preferable Purchasing Ordinance

Chapter 5: Resource Conservation
Ordinance
- Construction and Demolition
Debris Recovery Ordinance
- Green City Government Building
Ordinance

Chapter 14: Construction and
Demolition Debris Recovery
Ordinance

Chapter 16: Food Service Waste
Reduction Ordinance
Chapter 17: Plastic Bag Reduction
Ordinance

Chapter 19: Mandatory Recycling
and Composting

Chapter 21: Yellow Pages
Distribution Pilot Program

Transportation Clean Air Chapter 4: Healthy Air and Clean
Transportation Program

229 
Chapter 10: Transportation of
Aggregate Materials

Water and Wastewater (Public Utilities
Commission)

Economy and
Economic
Development
Environment Now Chapter 15: Green Business Program

Environmental Justice Environmental Justice
Environment Now

Municipal
Expenditures

Public Information and
Education
Outreach
School Education

Risk Management
(Activities of High
Environmental Risk)
Chapter 1: Precautionary Principle
Policy Statement

230 
What are the Outcomes?
San Francisco sets its goals and presents its outcomes every 2-3 years by
departmental program area, according to the structure of its Strategic Plan. Because San
Francisco collects and presents so much data, I am presenting their most recent data from
their 2010-2012 Strategic Plan. Each program area presents its outcomes differently, and
these differences are reflected here. The City notes challenges and future projects:
“Challenges facing the Department resulted in deferring the development of a
climate data management system due to lack of funding, postponing an ordinance
requiring an opt-in program for yellow pages delivery due to a lawsuit, revising a
cell phone information program due to a lawsuit, and postponing expanding urban
agriculture beyond EJ neighborhoods.

Future projects include passing and implementing a Commute Trip Reduction
Ordinance that will reduce single occupancy vehicle trips; developing and
implementing a city Biofuels Transportation Strategic Plan; setting up an
EcoDistricts Program; developing a Re-Roofing Ordinance; conducting site
assessments of up to 10 brownfields; and developing a residential toxics outreach
campaign” (San Francisco, City of 2012).

A note to the reader, when navigating SF Environment’s website, the pages and
links are not organized exactly by program area, and many overlap, so identifying clear
outcomes for specific programmatic priorities is difficult through the website. The
following is my assessment of how well the City is doing in each goal area of the current
Sustainability Plan.
231 
Table 28. San Francisco program areas and outcomes
Program Area How well is the City Doing?
Clean Air The Clean Air program area, which is focused on
transportation and greenhouse gas emissions, is actually a
sub category of the next goal area in terms of outcomes. The
GHG target for 2012 missed by a wide margin. However,
this goal area has a number of transportation indicators. The
targets have not been reached, but it does appear that
significant progress is being made, and the targets make a
difference.

Climate/Renewable
Energy/Green Building
This is a complex goal area with a lot of moving parts. It
includes a number a programs that appear to be moving
forward. The goals identify specific targets, however the
outcomes are reported by projects completed rather than
specific outcomes. Still, it appears that real and substantial
work is being done to move this goal area forward, and that
progress is being made. Evidence from in-depth interviews
also indicates progress.

Energy The energy programs seem to be robust, and most of the
sub-goals listed have been met, with the others explained.
Significant progress is being made in this program area.

Environmental Justice Not much reporting appears to be done with regard to
outcomes in this program area. However, in-depth
interviews indicated that a good deal of work is being done.
The grants awarded metric is positive, and the other work
being done may be difficult to quantify.

Environment Now Most of the sub-goals in this program area have been
reached. In-depth interview evidence reveals significant
progress as well.

Outreach This program area experienced a major overhaul in August
2011, as described in the most recent Strategic Plan. It does
not have metrics like the other program areas, nor is there
specific information on the website. Some progress is
outlined in the Strategic Plan, with the acknowledgement
that goals and metrics will be available in the next Strategic
Plan.

School Education In this program area, all of the stated sub-goals were met or
exceeded. Less specific programs seem also to be moving
forward, making this a successful program area.
232 

Toxics Reduction and
Urban Ag
This is a varied program area. Toxics Reduction has little to
do with Urban Ag and Urban Forest. The toxics reduction
goal doesn’t set out clear sub-goals, but does identify a
number of quantified achievements. Urban Ag and Urban
Forest also don't have quantifiable goals, but do identify
programs and achievements. Overall, this program area
appears to be successful, but without clear, quantifiable sub-
goals.

Zero Waste This is San Francisco’s oldest and strongest program area.
All sub-goals seem to have been met or exceeded, although
not all metrics are clear and quantifiable. In all, significant
progress in this goal area.

In each category, the indicators presented in the original Sustainability Plan are included
with arrows. There was never any initial baseline data established for these targets, and
the Department of the Environment did not take them on individually as indicators for its
work. Jared Blumenfeld (2012) and David Assmann (2012) did indicate that in 1996, the
Department went through and did a general assessment of how well the City was doing
with regard to these indicators, assessing whether things were improving, getting worse,
no change, or no longer relevant. According to the original Plan:
“An upward-pointing arrow indicates that the measurement should rise if the City
is moving in the right direction; a downward-pointing arrow indicates that the
measurement should fall. These indicators, sampled on a regular basis, will give a
bird’s-eye view of whether San Francisco is moving toward or away from a
sustainable future. Of course, none of the topics are completely covered by the
few listed indicators, and there are certainly infinitely more things that could be
tracked. These ongoing measures are meant to give an overall indication of
whether the City is moving in the right direction, and provide a way of measuring
significant trends without entailing major new expense for data-collection.
Baselines for these indicators have yet to be researched” (SF Environment 1996).

The following are program area outcomes as presented by San Francisco.
233 
Program Area 1: Clean Air

Description: “SF Environment improves air quality by making it easier for people to
walk, bike, and use transit or rideshare instead of driving. We also promote electric cars
and other clean vehicles and fuels and have made the City’s fleet one of the greenest in
the nation” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 29. San Francisco original Air Quality indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Air Quality
Number of existing buildings that join the Building Air Quality Alliance Program
(or similar voluntary programs).

Number of people going to clinics for respiratory problems.

Percentage of new cars registered in San Francisco which are alternatively fueled
(e.g., California Air Resources Board-certified, low emission vehicles, ultra-low
emission vehicles, or electric vehicles).

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 30. San Francisco original Transportation indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Transportation
Auto registration.

Parking-spot inventory.

Muni ridership.

Muni route running time on key routes.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goal: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in San
Francisco to 20% below 1990 levels.

Progress toward goal:
· City-wide carbon emissions in 2010 14.5% below 1990 levels
· Municipal carbon emissions in 2010 7.9% below 1990 levels (San Francisco, City of
2012).
234 
Table 31. San Francisco Clean Air outcomes
Objective/Action Description Metrics used to track success
& results
A/1:TDM -Commuter
Benefit Program
Continue to implement and expand the
Pre-Tax Commuter Benefits Program:
a. Promote and manage the commuter
benefits programs for employees of the
City and County of San Francisco.
b. Implement the City’s program for
education and outreach to motivate
compliance with the Commuter Benefits
Ordinance by San Francisco businesses.
c. Initiate direct outreach to commuters to
stimulate their request for TDM options by
their employers.

Number of CCSF employees
submitting an order on a monthly
basis
• June 2011: 3,282
• June 2012: 3,376
• Target: 5,000
Number of outreach events, business
consultations
• June 2011: 40
• June 2012: 50
• Target: 50-60
Number of businesses with a
commuter benefits program
• June 2012: 3000
• Target: 4,700 (estimated –
do not have a complete list
of all businesses that are
subject to Ordinance)

A/2: TDM -Emergency
Ride Home
Expand the Emergency Ride Home
program by conducting outreach to
San Francisco businesses and
commuters.
Number of businesses registered for
the program
• June 2012: 500
• Target: All San Francisco
businesses
Number of employees eligible
• June 2012: 93,000
• Target: All employees of
San Francisco businesses

A/3: TDM -511 Rideshare
Program
Coordinate with MTC’s 511 Rideshare
program to implement:
a. A promotional program for the 511
Rideshare Matching Services to San
Francisco commuters and residents to
encourage the formation of carpools and
vanpools
b. Expand consultation programs to
promote 511 Rideshare Employer Services
and other commute programs with San
Francisco employers.
c. Initiate outreach to public and private
schools in San Francisco to increase
participation in MTC's SchoolPool
program, a ride-matching service for
students.

Maintain and grow active business
contact database
• June 2012: 2,847
• Target: 4,700
Number of ridematch requests
• June 2012: 377 registered
• Target: 1,000 a year
Number of vanpool leads
• June 2012: 685 leads
• Target: 1,000 a year
Number of events
• June 2012: 19 events
attended
• Target: 30 annually

A/4: TDM – City Cycle
(CCSF bike Fleet)
Reduce vehicle miles traveled by
CCSF employees for work related trips
Survey CityCycle program users
annually
• 2010 Survey data: 14.7%
reduction in VMT
• Target: 20% reduction
235 

A/5: TDM - SchoolPool Reduce vehicle miles traveled by
families to and from schools, after
school programs
Number of single family
occupancy trips decreased
(project in progress, no data
currently available)

B/1: Clean Vehicles -
HACTO
Continue to implement the City’s
Healthy Air and Clean Transportation
Ordinance to assure that city fleets
purchase the cleanest vehicles
possible, and assist in instituting
departmental fleet-reduction reduction
requirements. (2011-13)

Evaluate annual Dept reports to SFE
(Departmental transit-first, fleet
reduction and green fleet #s) for rep
to BOS

B/2: Clean Vehicles –EV
Initiative
a. Plan and install public EV charging
infrastructure.
b. Conduct pilot and demo programs for
EV charging for residents of multifamily
buildings
c. Obtain grant funding for purchasing
plug-in vehicles for the City fleet
d. Assist SFMTA in implementing a
“neighborhood” EV taxi program; and
a demonstration battery-switch taxi
program

a. Annual reporting of a. # of public
chargers installed by City (50 to-
date; 34 in process); charger-use data
(on-going collection underway by
SFPUC); and # avoided gasoline
GHGs (on-going monitoring by
SFPUC).
b. # buildings participating in demo
(41), # chargers installed (~100 in
process); # residents affected (tbd);
use-data and GHG avoidance (to be
monitored); production of lessons-
learned/Best Practices for other
multifamily buildings (to be
completed)
c. # plug-in vehicles and chargers
obtained for CCSF fleet with grant
assistance (17 to-date; 19 additional
planned); GHG avoidance
(monitoring to be tabulated by
GSA/fleet and SFPUC)
d. Neighborhood EV Taxi: #EV taxis
put in service; # GHGs avoided; #
people served in underserved
neighborhoods. Battery-switch taxis:
# Switch stations opened for demo; #
battery-switch taxis in demo;
operational data; # GHG avoided.
Overall: make quarterly progress
reports to USDOE and other grant
sources.

B/3: Clean Vehicles – San
Francisco Clean Cities
Coalition EV Initiatives
Implement Clean Cities Coalition
education and outreach programs about
EV, including provide information to
consumers regarding the pros and cons
of replacing an existing vehicle and
other clean vehicle and clean fuel
options, directed to businesses, fleet
Annual reporting of petroleum fuel
replaced with alternative fuels and
GHGs reduced by SF Clean Cities
Coalition stakeholders

236 
operators and other stakeholders in San
Francisco area. (2011-2013)

B/4: Clean Vehicles –
Biofuels Working Group
Coordinate and manage an interagency
Biodiesel fleet working group to
monitor implementation and
attainment of the City’s policy for use
B20 by the municipal fleet, and to
move to a higher percentage blend as
key way of meeting City’s GHG
reduction target. (This action needs to
be re written.)

Complete City’s B20 Mandate for
fleet

Advance the Biofuels Planning Study
and Biofuels strategic plan

Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

237 
Program Area 2: Climate/Renewable Energy/Green Building Program

Description: “SF Environment’s Climate team develops and implements policies and
practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, focusing on areas that will have the
greatest impact--transportation, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and solid waste
management. We work with city agencies, businesses, and residents to develop
comprehensive strategies for tackling climate change.

San Francisco is committed to meeting its energy needs through energy efficiency
improvements and renewable energy resources while creating jobs and saving money. By
providing incentives and technical assistance to commercial and residential building
owners, we work toward energy self-reliance, improving air quality, and reducing
greenhouse gases.

By integrating planning, development, and green building construction efforts, San
Franciscans are aligning the built environment with the natural world. We’re minimizing
energy consumption and resource depletion, and improving air and water quality by
supporting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification
programs and other green building initiatives” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 32. San Francisco original Energy, Climate Change, and Ozone Depletion
indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Energy, Climate Change, and Ozone Depletion
Ratio of renewable to non-renewable energy consumption.

Energy cost per tax dollar.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Goals:

1) Reduce San Francisco’s greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2012,
25% by 2017, 40% by 2030, and 80% by 2050.
2) Develop and implement a climate adaptation plan.
3) Develop renewable energy resources in San Francisco to displace 30,000 mT of CO2e
annually by 2012 and achieve 50 MW of renewable energy generation.
4) Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings to 20% below 1990 levels by 2012
(330,000 mT from 2008 level).
5) Enhance environmental performance of buildings in San Francisco to reduce costs
while increasing efficiency and livability.

Progress toward goals:
238 
· 41% of San Francisco’s electricity now comes from renewables
· 3,187 solar PV systems have been installed in San Francisco, totaling 21 MW of power
There were 3,376 participants in the Commuter Benefits Program as of June 2012
· 3,000 Businesses now have Commuter Benefit Programs in place
· There are 50 EV Chargers Installed in public garages
· 55% compliance with existing commercial building ordinance energy use reporting
(San Francisco, City of 2012)

Table 33. San Francisco Climate/Renewable Energy/Green Building Program outcomes

Project Name Description Metrics used to track
success & results

Citywide GHG
Inventory
Citywide GHG Inventory Citywide emissions in 2010
14.5% below 1990 levels.
ICF verified data.

Municipal GHG
Inventory

Completed GHG inventory for 2010 and
obtained independent verification of data
and methodology.
Incorporated emissions from waste,
energy, and fuels, and sinks from urban
trees.
Mobilized and assisted city
departments to prepare

Municipal emissions in 2010
7.9% below 1990 levels.
ICF verified data.
41 city departments submitted
DepCAPs.
Climate and
Community
Relationships

Organized community meetings with
businesses, policy experts, and NGOs
to discuss SF climate programs and
get stakeholder feedback.

5 committees submitted
letters with climate policy
recommendations to Mayor
Lee.
Mayor’s Renewable
Energy Task Force

Completed task force report with 39
recommendations to achieve 100%
renewable electricity supply and
submitted to Mayor.
SF currently gets 41% of its
electricity from renewables.
24 MW of local generation
capacity (solar + biogas).

Solar Outreach Educated public on GoSolarSF and
other incentives. Site assessments
completed as requested for residents
and businesses. Shared best practices
with other cities through U.S. DOE’s
SunShot initiative.
3,187 solar PV systems installed
in SF, totaling 21 MW.
www.SFenergymap.org
launched.
SF Environment.org
renewable energy pages
updated.

Solar Permitting Worked with DBI to streamline
permitting process and shift to
electronic permitting.
Permitting process
benchmarked against U.S.
DOE criteria.
239 
Solar Group Purchases Developed and launched solar@work
and solar@schools programs,
providing attractive aggregated
purchasing and financing options for
businesses and private schools.

17 sites given solar@work
proposals, 5 signed contracts, 9
more proposals under
consideration.

SWH on Affordable
Housing
Worked with Mayor’s Housing Office to
install solar water heating at affordable
housing properties in conjunction with
Green Retrofit Initiative

2 SWH systems installed at
affordable housing properties.
Urban Wind Completed modeling and analysis of
wind potential in San Francisco.
Developed web-based interface for wind
resource data.
Supported SF Port and Randall Museum
in considering small wind installations.

__ pilot projects.
Wind map developed and
integrated into
SFEnergymap.org.
Oceanside Wave Power
Pilot
Environmental studies completed for
wave power pilot area.
Gray whale migrations study
completed.
Sedimentation transport study
completed

Green Building Code -
Municipal
100% of municipal projects >5,000 sq ft
(new or existing, owned or leased) must
be LEED Gold certified.
SF Green Building requirements
affect 2.3 million square feet of
municipal projects.

Green Building Code -
Citywide
All new buildings must be built green,
including:
• New large commercial must
meet LEED Gold (certification
optional.)
• New residential must be
GreenPoint Rated or LEED
Silver

Code updated to:
• Integrate CALGreen
with stricter San
Francisco requirements.
• Prioritize energy
efficiency, requiring
affected buildings to be
15% more efficient than
CA Energy Code.
• Prioritize renewables by
requiring new
commercial to have on-
site renewables, or be
an additional 10% more
efficient than CA
Energy Code.

SF Environment developed and
maintained all implementing
regulations.

Existing Commercial
Buildings
Enforcing ordinance for energy use
benchmarking, reporting, and auditing.
55% of affected square footage
compliant with benchmarking
requirement.

GreenFinanceSF Launched commercial PACE program
with $100 million in bonding authority.
__ applications received.
__ projects approved.
240 
__ investments made ($).
__ projected energy savings
Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Rich Chein, who works in the green building program area, describes the green
building approach:
“The LEED is, you know, the Green Building Ordinance for new buildings –
there are some baseline things that are meaningful – like you need to exceed the
state energy code my 15% for all buildings essentially. That’s a pretty big deal.
But then, you know, if you’re familiar with LEED the way it works is kind of a
menu of choices and you can do a bike rack, or you can, you know, do a lot of
solar and there’s a huge range of stuff in between with varying levels of impact
really. But, ultimately I think we have enough stuff that’s mandatory – we have
these mandatory measures that you need to do that or again go back to that task
force in 2007 of private sector building industry folks who said, we want this to
have teeth, and we want it to be meaningful, so let’s reference these third party
standards that allow the developer to be creative and, you know, do stuff that fits
their building. But we also want to have some things that you have to do. So that
includes, exceeding the energy code, and addressing water efficiency and, you
know indoor air quality and some things like that that need to be done” (Chien
2013).

Green Building proved to be complicated and evolving over time because of different
policy contexts and rating systems.
241 
Program Area 3: Energy Program

“San Francisco is committed to meeting its energy needs through energy efficiency
improvements and renewable energy resources while creating jobs and saving money. By
providing incentives and technical assistance to commercial and residential building
owners, we work toward energy self-reliance, improving air quality, and reducing
greenhouse gases” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Goal 1: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings to 20% below 1990 levels by
2012 (330,000 metric tons from 2008 level).

Objective A: Maximize the energy efficiency (EE) of commercial and residential
buildings, reducing 300,000 metric tons of eCO2 by 2012.

Progress toward goal:
Energy efficiency programs have reduced Greenhouse Gas emissions by 78,800 tons
since 2001

Table 34. San Francisco Energy Program outcomes
Activities

2 yr. Metric Success/Failure
1.Implement Energy
Watch to reduce 25,000
tons (3 yr goal) while
integrating projects with
demand response, boiler
retrofits, co-generation,
and renewables.
(On-going)

21,000 tons CO2e
reduced (in 2.5 years-
EW operates on
program cycle, not
fiscal year).

This program was coordinated with the
ARRA Boiler Retrofit program and is now
accelerating beyond planned. Will meet
25,000 ton goal. Receiving additional
funds to continue for 2013-14.
2. Implement the
Commercial Lighting
Efficiency Ordinance to
reduce 5,000 tons (not
additive, contributes to
#1). (Complete)

No tracking method
established. Only
intended to increase
Energy Watch
participation.
Anecdotal comments from EW auditors state
that the ordinance helps close deals.
3.Implement the
Commercial Energy
Benchmarking Ordinance
(Ongoing)

Passed. 55%
compliance on
benchmarking
Audit compliance just starting. Possibly
contributing to EW acceleration
4.Implement ARRA
programs to retrofit
residential units and
educate tenants on
energy efficiency, waste
reduction, safety, etc. to
1780 tons CO2e,
-1,261 retrofits
-3,309 tenants educated
(10% above goal)
4 programs closed out. Single family
retrofits at 20% of expectation due to
higher rebates required per retrofit, slow
market response, and other factors.
242 
reduce 3,500 t.
(Complete)

5.CCA: Advocate for
favorable state policy.
Develop program plan.
(On-going)

Yes/no In progress.
6. Work w/ SF Housing
Authority and
Redevelopment
(Terminate?)

Yes/no Housing Authority not responsive.
Redevelopment in re-org.
7. Zero Energy Path
analysis for single and
small multifamily.
Provide public access to
info.
(On-going)

Completed phase 1. Completed single family under grant. Started 2-
4 unit analysis. Started web portal to help
homeowners. Collecting more data.
8.Home Performance
Training
(On-going)

20 trained Put on one training Appx. 20. Included in
TrainGreenSF curriculum.
9.Upgrade Residential
Energy Conservation
Ordinance
(Not started)

Pass/not pass. GHG
reduction potential not yet
determined.
Amend to require home performance test based
on safety and health concerns.
10.Support Energy
Efficiency Task Force
(Terminate)

Yes/No Board never appointed members
11.Support PUC on
Electricity Resource Plan
(On-going)

Yes/No Report completed. In implementation.
11.Support PUC on
Electricity Resource Plan
(Terminate)

CPUC accepted the
proposal. Funding amount
pending.
Changed strategy to advocate for establishment
of local government regional energy networks
12.Advocate for a single
statewide independent
administrator as part of the
EE funding re-
authorization.
(On-going)

Increase distributed
generation (DG) capacity
limit to >25%.
Delayed start to this FY. Current limit is 5% of
peak load. Current NDA’s insufficient.
Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

243 
Program Area 4: Environmental Justice
97

“SF Environment’s Environmental Justice program addresses air quality, energy
infrastructure, and health concerns in low-income San Francisco communities and helps
build healthier, more sustainable neighborhoods. We provide support to local community
projects that improve air quality, reduce the use of toxic products, promote energy
efficiency and renewable energy, increase access to healthy foods and community
gardens, and create green jobs” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 35. San Francisco original Environmental Justice, and Ozone Depletion indicators
and desired direction

Original Indicators: Environmental Justice
Mean income level of people in historically disadvantaged communities.

Proportion of environmental pollution sources in historically disadvantaged
communities with respect to San Francisco's other communities.

Participation of historically disadvantaged communities as a whole and their
indigenous self-selected representatives in decision-making processes.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goal: Protect the environment and public health in Environmental Justice
(EJ) neighborhoods and support the capacity and education of local residents to address
EJ concerns.

Progress toward goal:
4 Environmental Justice grants awarded for a total of $164,503 – since inception the EJ
program has awarded more than $12 million in grants to the community

Table 36. San Francisco Environmental Justice outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to
track success &
results
Additional
Benefits and
Outcomes

SF Healthy Homes
Project
A.1. Address health
disparities in Southeast
area of SF by
convening advisory
groups and developing
a community-based
Complete MAPP
research and assessments
on local health system
Summarize and
disseminate information
to CBOs, City agencies
Supporting a group of
low-income residents
who are engaged in
health planning,
outreach and education
Contacted more than 20

97

244 
strategic plan using
Mobilization for Action
through Planning and
Partnerships (MAPP)
framework (required by
funder, CDC)
and stakeholders service providers and
community based
organizations
Contacted more than
400 residents
Developing partnership
with Department Public
Health

IPM in public housing A.2 Support public
awareness and change
consumer behavior by
identifying measures
within residents' control
that can reduce
exposure to indoor air
pollution, promote use
of environmentally-
preferred cleaning
products and Integrated
Pest Management
(IPM)

Develop a pilot IPM
project at Sunnydale and
Alice Griffith housing
sites
Provided safer cleaning
workshops and IPM
training to residents
Developing partnership
with SF Housing
Authority
EJ Grants Provide EJ grants and
al assistance to non-
profit organizations and
community groups to
promote community
resiliency
No. of EJ grants
awarded: four, totaling
$164,503
No. of residents
receiving garden
education and nutritional
information: 200

Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Sraddha Mehta decribes the environmental justice outcomes and some programs:

“For EJ, we have a variety of indicators, one thing I didn’t tell you about is the
San Francisco Healthy Homes program that I manage. It’s a grant that we
received from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But, how many
people from the community we engage, for example there are 22 public housing
residents that are really engaged in our project that we are employing with CDC
funding to help participate. And we’re, as part of that project we’re going into
public housing and trying to implement Integrated Pest Management, which is not
required by the San Francisco Housing Authority right now, but pests are a major
issue in public housing, so the number of homes that we’re able to implement
IPM in, for example” (Mehta 2012).

She continues to describe her sense of outcomes relative to the Plan:

“Yeah, so, like I said before, I hadn’t pulled it out of my shelf in a while, but after
I spoke with you, I did glance at the EJ section, and we’ve done a lot of the work
245 
that, you know people had outlined before so many years ago. And I look at it, it’s
amazing, I mean we shut down the Hunter’s Point power plant, not “we”
individually, but, you know, collectively got that one shut down and then the
Mirant power plant. We’ve had just some major victories. We’re at 80% diversion
now, in terms of our waste, so I think that, you know, just glancing back at it, I
mean we don't do it that often, but because I had the opportunity to look at it
today, I was like, “wow, we’ve done pretty well with meeting a lot of those goals”
(Mehta 2012).

246 
Program Area 5: Environment Now/Green Jobs

“SF Environment develops and implements programs and policies that support the
growth of a robust green economy. We prepare our local workforce for opportunities in
the green economy with Environment Now, a green jobs training program that provides
leadership development and on-the-job training to workers from the city’s most
underserved neighborhoods” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 37. San Francisco original Economy and Economic Development indicators and
desired direction

Original Indicators: Economy and Economic Development
Number of San Francisco enterprises adopting ISO 14000 standards.

Number of San Francisco neighborhoods with unemployment rates higher than the
government-defined full employment rate.

Difference between the highest neighborhood unemployment rate and the full
employment rate.

Number of San Francisco manufacturers using recovered secondary materials as raw
material.

Percentage of people employed in San Francisco who live in San Francisco.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goals:
1. Advance social equity in the environmental field through job training opportunities to
San Franciscans from diverse, multicultural communities
2. Engage and strengthen communities by providing access to citywide environmental
programs, projects and initiatives
3. Collaborate with outside partners to expand the Green economy in San Francisco by
promoting employment training and job placement opportunities

Progress toward goals:
· 180 Green Businesses have been recognized (to date)
· 50% of Environment Now graduates have found employment
· Environment Now has visited 10,606 businesses and talked to 18,989 individuals (San
Francisco, City of 2012)

247 
Table 38. San Francisco Environment Now/Green Jobs outcomes
Title Description Metrics used to track success &
results

G1, B.7, B.8
Job resources
Collaborated with OEWD and
JVS to provide resume
building and job placement
resources to participants

• Percent of graduates employed: 50%
G2, A.10
Grassroots outreach
Conducted grassroots outreach
to promote behavior change
amongst business owners and
residents of SF grassroots
outreach tactics

• No. of conversations: 18,989
• No. of flyers distributed: 17,985
• No. businesses visited: 10,606
G2, A.11
Underserved communities
Increased Dept’s reach into
underserved communities by
engaging residents and
business owners in SFE
initiatives

• No. of businesses and residents
reached in D10, D11, D9, and D2: 3,861
G2, A.12
Support other
City Depts and Non-
profits
Partnered with City
Departments and non-profit
agencies to support their
environmental initiatives
• No. of Projects: 6
1. Real Estate-Living Roof (1SVN)
2. DPW- Illegal Dumping Campaign
3. DPH- Idling Reduction, IPM
Sunnydale
4. FUF- Tree Planting and Maintenance
Support
5. Safe Routes To School- Idling
Reduction
6. MYEEP- Summer Employment Site

G2, B.13
ZW Residential
Compliance
Conducted zero waste curbside
audits of residential bins with a
goal of reaching 30,000
residences

• No. of residences audited: 29,965

G2, B.15
ZW Residential
Compliance
Introduced new compost
services to residences of
apartment complexes through
door-to-door outreach. Goal to
reach 150 apartment complexes

• No. of apartment complexes reached:
867
G2, B.14
ZW Commercial
Compliance
Supported business compliance
with Mandatory Ordinance.
Goal of reaching 3000+ non-
compliant businesses

• No. of businesses reached: 3,031
G2, B.16
ZW Commercial
Compliance- C&D
Ordinance
Audited construction sites for
compliance with the C&D
ordinance. Goal to reach 75
construction sites

• No. of construction sites audited: 223
248 
G2, B.18
EE- Energy Watch
(Completed)
Supported businesses with
energy upgrades by promoting
the Energy Watch program in
Districts 1,2,4,6,7,8,and 11

• No. of businesses visited: 5,153
• No. of businesses requesting audits:
1,047
G2, B.19
EE-SFHIP/Energy
Upgrade CA
(Completed)
Promoted residential energy
efficiency upgrades (SFHP) to
residents. Goal to reach 5,000
residences

• No. of residences reached: 5,565
G2, B.20
Toxics Reduction/ IPM
(Completed)
Supported the promotion of
IPM pilot project to SF
Housing Authority properties
by working with Pestec,
Sunnydale Property Manager,
and residents

• No. of units that received IPM
treatment: 18
• No. of conversations: 66
G2, B.22
Toxics Reduction/ Urban
Forestry
(Completed)
Supported Friends of the Urban
Forest in planting and
maintaining SF street trees.
Goal to plant 500 trees
• No. of trees planted: 700
Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Sraddha Mehta describes the work of the Environment Now program, which affects
economic, equity and environmental concerns:
“We have this Environment Now program, which is amazing, by the way.
Actually, that’s another program that I should have mentioned, it’s part of our
outreach program. But through the Federal Stimulus funding, we had hired, I
think there were certain income criteria to apply for the program but we’d hired a
bunch of people who met those criteria, if they were under a certain income level
they could apply. And I think originally, the rules were that they had to have a
child or something. I don’t remember exactly because it was whatever the
stimulus funding rules specified. So we hired a bunch of people through that
program and trained them. Did like eco-literacy training, and they have served our
department very well. They’re amazing. They do a lot of outreach, related to zero
waste, or energy, or just on a variety of issues. And so the jobs issue is a big thing
for us. In fact, when we no longer had the stimulus funding, we felt like this
program was just so successful and so important that we institutionalized it in the
department. And so now we’ve kept that program going and we’ve hired a lot of
new people and trained them, and they are part of our outreach team. They’re
staff. And the equity, I mean clearly because we have an environmental justice
program. It is part of our mission in fact, we try to integrate it into, not just the EJ
program but all the work that the department does” (Mehta 2012)

The program is noted as a success across the department, and might be something that
could be emulated in another city.
249 
Program Area 6: Outreach
Description and explanation:
“The overall goal of SF Environment’s Outreach Program is to further position the city
and Department as environmental leaders and to advance the Department’s program and
policy goals. We strive to deepen our relationship with the public through outreach
methods that are as cutting edge as the Department’s programs.

The Outreach Program has gone though a large makeover since August of 2011. Because
of this, many of the actions laid out in the Outreach section of the Strategic Plan never
manifested or were not tracked. The newly implemented team is looking forward to
revisiting the plan to update it to reflect new direction and intention. Nonetheless, there
were significant achievements that the outreach team accomplished, highlighted below.”
(San Francisco, City of 2012)

Current Goal:
Design and deliver outreach activities that will achieve the behavioral change goals of
Department programs
Key Projects
• Insight Campaign
o The Insight Campaign (ideas4sf.org) asked the question: How can we
make your home or neighborhood greener and healthier? The ideas
was to engage city residents in a way that gathered feedback on what was
important to them. Thousands of people participated. The top 5 responses
were
 Restore Sharp Park (187 Votes)
 More Car-Free Zones (167 Votes)
 More Bike Lanes (155 votes)
 Better Public Transportation (154 Votes)
 Restore Hetch Hetchy Valley (149 Votes)
• Checkout Bag Ordinance Outreach
• Over 9000 businesses have been reached during our outreach to merchants in San
Francisco in preparation for the amended checkout bag ordinance. 5 vendor fairs
were held to offer city businesses a chance to work with manufacturers of
compliant bags.
• Drug Take Back Campaign
• Promoted new drug take back program to throughout all participating pharmacies
in the city. Offered presentations to neighborhood groups on the program.
• New Website Launch
• New E-newsletter Launch
• Launched Neighborhood Composting Campaign (Richmond)
• Launched a composting focused campaign designed to communicate specifically
to local communities in San Francisco. To date, over 5000 homes have been
reached. The campaign started in the Richmond and will be moving east in the
fall.
250 
Program Area 7: Environmental Education Program

Description: “The School Education Program provides outreach and curriculum to all
San Francisco public and private schools and teaches K-12 students how to protect nature
through topics such as zero waste, urban gardening, and water pollution prevention”
(“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 39. San Francisco original Public Information and Education indicators and
desired direction

Original Indicators: Public Information and Education
Number of schools that integrate and progressively update environmental education
in their curricula.

Conservation and waste reduction as measured by volume of garbage produced per
capita and units of electricity used per capita.

Number of volunteers working on environmental projects as measured through the
largest volunteer clearinghouse that refers or mobilizes people to do community
service.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goal 1: Design and deliver educational activities for SF schools that will
achieve the behavioral change goals of Department programs, as well as partner agencies
(SPFUC, DPW)

Progress toward goals:
· 25,441 students, 1,000 teachers and 62 schools have been reached, and 10,000 tons of
organics diverted, in the school Food to Flowers Program
· 5,100 students have participated in field trips, 4,503 students reached through Stop
Litter assemblies, 3,600 through Save Our Bay assemblies and 2,695 through Our Water
Presentations (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Table 40. San Francisco Environmental Education Strategic Plan Goal 1 outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to track
success & results

Food to Flowers!
Lunchroom Composting
Program
Present Food to Flowers!
composting & recycling assemblies
to 40 schools reaching 18,000
students and 800 teachers.

• No. of schools reached: 62
• No. of students reached: 25,441
• No. of teachers reached: 1,000
• Tons diverted from schools:
10,000
251 
Field Trip Program Sponsor 170 pre-trip classroom
presentations and free field trips to:
· Transfer Station + Pier 96 Recycle
Central
· SCRAP (Scroungers Center for
Reusable Art Parts)
· Garden for the Environment
· Heron’s Head Park (LEJ)
· SF Botanical Garden

• No. of classroom presentations:
170
• No. of sponsored field trips: 170
• No. of students reached: 5,100
Stop Litter Assemblies Present assemblies to promote
awareness and actions to help stop
litter. (DPW)

• No. of schools reached: 11
• No. of students reached: 4,503
Save our Bay
Presentations
Give 120 classroom presentations to
3,600 5th grade students to promote
water pollution prevention. (SFPUC)

• No. of presentations: 120
• No. of students reached: 3,600
Our Water
Presentations
Give 30 classroom presentations +
assemblies to 1500 students about
water conservation. (SFPUC).

• No. of presentations: 30
• No. of students reached: 2,695

Strategic Plan Goal 5: Train future environmental professionals in order to promote
sound and effective environmental education that teaches students to protect nature.

Table 41. San Francisco Environmental Education Strategic Plan Goal 5 outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to track
success & results

Staff Hire and train 2 new Associates and
4 Aides

• No. of associates hired: 2
• No. of aides hired: 4
Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)
252 
Program Area 8: Toxics and Health (includes Urban Forestry/Urban Agriculture)

Description: “SF Environment provides information on environmentally friendly
alternatives to toxic products. We also offer a range of opportunities for residents to
conveniently and safely dispose of toxic products while ensuring the City itself uses the
least toxic products possible” (http://www.SF Environment.org/about)

“San Francisco fosters public awareness of the crucial importance of urban nature by
initiating community gardens and urban farms, the Landmark Tree Program, re-
landscaping projects, and park and recreational areas in densely populated areas of the
city” (“About SF Environment” 2013).

Table 42. San Francisco original Food and Agriculture indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Food and Agriculture
Number of public agricultural gardens.

Quantity of food and agricultural residuals recycled.

Number of school, vocational and community education and training programs about
sustainable agriculture and nutrition.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 43. San Francisco original Hazardous Materials indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Hazardous Materials
Difference between motor oil purchased in the City and the amount that is properly
recycled or disposed.

Equitable distribution of the hazardous material/waste exposure load throughout the
City.

Number of contaminated sites within City borders.

Public awareness of hazardous materials/waste issues (especially proper use and
disposal and knowledge of alternatives) as measured by annual survey (to measure
effectiveness of outreach).

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)
253 
Table 44. San Francisco original Human Health indicators and desired direction

Original Indicator: Human Health
New cases of asthma.

Number of people attending organized wellness classes.

Participation in organized youth programs at city recreation centers.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 45. San Francisco original Parks, Open Spaces, and Streetscapes indicators and
desired direction

Original Indicators: Parks, Open Spaces, and Streetscapes
Percentage of the population with a recreational facility and a natural setting within
a ten-minute walk.

Number of neighborhood green street corridors created annually.

Number of volunteer hours spent annually on maintenance of open space.

Annual municipal expenditures on parks, open space, and streetscapes.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goal: To safeguard human and environmental health from exposure to
toxic chemicals.

Progress toward goals:
· 1,463 tons of Household Hazardous Waste has been collected from residents
· 1,578 tons of e-waste has been collected from residents
· 200 events each diverted more than 50%
(San Francisco, City of 2012)
Table 46. San Francisco Toxics and Health outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to track success &
results

A.9 Nail Salon Program Completed health and
environmental assessment
• No. of nail salons registered: 16
• No. of salon technicians trained: 23
254 
of nail product
ingredients (polishes,
removers, thinners).
Recruiting salons to
implement safer practices
and use safer products.

• No. of nail salons reached: 223
B.40-42 Green Purchasing Developed specifications
for 4 product categories.

• No. of green specifications: 4
B.27 City awarded 3 new
green contracts
Added performance
rating feature to
SFApproved to enable
City users to share/rate
their experience
• No. of City staff trained: 790
B.27 Pesticide Products Continued trainings for
City staff to ensure
compliance with City's
Integrated Pest
Management Ordinance

• No. of events for City staff: 10
• Signed up 92 retailers to voluntarily
discontinue selling hazardous rodent baits
C.43 Green Business
Program
Businesses continue to
implement greening
measures set by the Green
Business Program.
Metrics are continually
collected from businesses
and inputted in our
updated state database.
New funding received
from DTSC.

• No. of GBs recognized: 180 (to date)
• No. of businesses coached: 138
• No. of events: 31
D.54 Safe Medicine disposal
Program
Launched safe medicine
disposal program through
collaboration with
producers, retail
pharmacies, and City
agencies (PUC, SFPD)

• Medicine collected to date: 3,555 lbs
• No. of sites: 13 pharmacies and 10 police
stations
D. Toxics Disposal Expanded network of
collection sites for
residents to recycle/safely
dispose of toxic waste
• Lbs HW from residents: 2,926,475
(excluding e-waste)
• Lbs e-waste: 3,156,333
• No. of home pickups: 3,653
• Gal of used oil recycled: 109,665
• Number of oil filters recycled: 34,779
• No. of oil filter collection events: 19
• Lbs HW from businesses: 315,330

E.62 Producer responsibility
for paint
Adopted regs for safe
medicine disposal
outreach.

Started negotiations with
paint manufacturers for
reimbursement of City’s
NA.
255 
paint recycling expenses
of 500K annually.

Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)
Strategic Plan Goal: Protect the environment and public health in Environmental Justice
(EJ) neighborhoods of San Francisco and support the capacity and education of local
residents to address EJ concerns

Table 47. San Francisco Urban Agriculture outcomes

Project Name Description Metrics used to track success &
results

B. Food Security and
Locally Grown Fresh
Produce
Promote community
gardens, school yard
gardens and urban
agriculture
Launched an Urban Ag program (COE
Approval in Jan 2011).
Directly supported ~200 local residents
interested in Urban Ag and created resources
for residents through:
• A feasibility study of Urban Ag in SF
through Presidio School of Management
• A toolkit for potential urban farmers.
• Alemany Farm Plan (to be adopted by Rec
and Park Commission on 8/16)
• A website with centralized information on
implementing urban Ag projects in the City
• A revised Planning Code to enable
commercial urban Ag in SF (fences and water
issues

Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Strategic Plan Goal: To promote a healthy and sustainable urban forest.

Table 48. San Francisco Urban Forestry outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to track success &
results

A Funding for urban forest
program
Explored long-term
funding mechanisms, such
as working with the
Climate Change
Coordinator to include
urban forest initiatives in
climate change goals and
programs such as the
Local Carbon Fund.

Urban Orchards program funded through local
Carbon Fund. Program has planted ~50 trees
with local CBO partners
B Urban Forestry Reported on citywide
256 
urban forestry activities
through the Annual Urban
Forest Report

· Completed annual report (In fiscal year
2009-2010: 3,717 trees planted,

C Outreach on city tree
management
Promoted UF through
special events that
highlight the importance
and value of the urban
forest.

· Organized and hosted SF Arbor Day Annual
Resource Fair – 350 attended/yr
· Partnered with Friends of Urban Forest to
organize annual Green Christmas program –
200-300 participants/yr, 100 trees/yr

Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

Mei Ling discusses the process of promoting urban agriculture, and the metrics used to
measure progress:
“We, um, so for urban ag we don’t have a really clear picture on how many
gardens are in the city, what’s the square footage of them. We’re actually working
right now – my intern is upstairs at this moment working on a master list that
we’ve been trying to put together from several different sources. For had a really
great starting point for jumping off. It’s a moving target since so many new things
are being developed all the time. So, that’s definitely a metric that we could look
at, I’m not sure if that’s the best metric because, in terms of square footage
because, you know a square foot of garden doesn’t really describe what’s being
produced, it doesn’t really describe co-benefits that we’re getting. So, if our goal
is increase the amount of gardening space in San Francisco, then we’re looking at
identifying - is there a garden that’s not being run very well? Is there something
that could be done to help them, so that that garden space is activated? Is there a
spot where we could put a garden? How can we help get that garden moving
forward?” (Ling 2012).

She continues to describe an example of how improvement of urban agriculture plays
is assessed on the ground:
“Alemaney Farm had operational challenges so we developed a new management
structure that Rec and Park, we hoped might employ at other sites that might be
communal and they told us two weeks ago that they’re looking at employing the
management structure that we developed through a really long community
process that took almost two years. But it’s being employed at Alemaney Farm
and it’s going to be employed elsewhere. So we see there’s an opportunity to
increase programming, and make that site better, and we’ve figured out what we
can do to help that, and move forward. People say that if we could provide
compost – so we get feedback – if we could provide compost, that would help us
garden at home more. So we try and figure out ways that we can get people
257 
compost. So, a big, broad range of solutions, based on the feedback, community
feedback and I mean everything that I identified earlier” (Ling, 2012).

Ling explains the Carbon Funded Program:

“I love this program. So, my colleague Calla Ostrander, she is in the climate
program. A couple years ago she conceived of this idea that we would fund
climate mitigation, carbon mitigation from, for some from city operations, from
city activities. So we instituted a sort of self-tax for city agencies, so any agency
that has air travel, and you know it’s not - dealing with climate issues and carbon
mitigation issues, these are things that take…(garbled)…but this is a really great
and innovative first start I think. So we’re looking at a self-tax on city funded air
travel. And so before this came in we didn’t have a separate category for air travel
vs. travel. It was all kind of just together. And so there was a little shuffling and a
little bit of growing pains figuring out how to separate these two categories, but
ultimately, any city that pays for air travel for city operations, pays in a portion of
that cost of what they paid for the ticket to our carbon fund that we use to - for
carbon mitigation projects within City and County proper borders. So that people
can see the changes. People who live here can see them” (Ling 2012).

She continues to describe the way that the Carbon Funded Program is providing some
funds for the Urban Orchards Program that she oversees:
“So my project that was accepted into the carbon fund is the Urban Orchards
Program, where we are planting fruit trees around the City with these carbon-
funded dollars. And we've been doing it for a few years now. We haven’t had as
much reach as I’d like to have because I don’t have staffing funding for it. I only
have – I had a small grant for the first year that help set up some stuff, but we’ll
work out, what are our policies around this going to be, what are our use
agreements, educational stuff, for our stewards, the people who are going to get
the trees. So, that paid for that, but I didn’t have any staff time that I could put on
going to look at the site, with the steward and walking with them and helping
them pick up the trees and examine the trees and make sure they’re ok and then
take them back to the site and plant them and then come back and take care of
them, and this is what our stewards really wanted from us. So we only had a few
projects that we were able to get off the ground with organizations that were
highly structured and organized gardening organizations where all they needed us
to do was give them the money for the trees. That’s really all we could do. But we
did have some really good success with those, they’re really great little projects,
but we want to be available to people who don’t have the expertise in house with
their organization” (Ling 2012).

Finally, she describes in more detail some of the logistics and challenges of
implementing these programs on the ground:
258 
“We want to really open the doors more, so we just recently put out a grant
announcement and Friends of the Urban Forest was awarded the grant, so we are
right now taking applications. This is ongoing, I have a call this afternoon with
them to work out some final stuff. But we’re going to be planting 200 trees in
January. We’re going to target school gardens first, and then we’ll be looking at
community gardens and other public spaces, maybe we can work with a hospital
for example. I don’t know if they’re getting our trees, but this is just an idea of
other spaces in the city that have gardens on public land. And then we’ll be
looking at private property that is publically accessible. Maybe, you know a
church that has a garden that’s right on the sidewalk, or – they’re not sidewalk
trees but right next to the sidewalk. Or, potentially houses that have a front-yard
setback, we’d put the tree right in the front yard, right where people could see it,
could use the fruit, don’t let them just grab it off, but for the trees health, we don’t
let them just grab it off, but it will have a visual impact when people who live
here to have that tree there that wasn’t there before. So it’ll be publically
accessible. We don’t think we’re going to get that far down the list though,
because we’re expecting to get far more people to apply for the trees than, that
will be distributed just within school gardens and community gardens, essentially.
So, friends of the urban forest is going to do all of this site walking, hand-holding,
that we can’t do, and then do some follow up care for the trees as well. So we
gave them a grant to do that” (Ling, 2012).

In all, urban agriculture and urban forestry are difficult to measure, but staff on the
ground are working to reach the City’s goals.
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Program Area 9: Zero Waste

Description: “SF Environment imagines a world in which nothing goes to landfills or
incinerators. We provide residents, businesses, and city agencies with the information and
tools they need to waste less and recycle more, bringing the city ever closer to the goal of
zero waste by 2020” (“About SF Environment” 2013).
Table 49. San Francisco original Solid Waste indicators and desired direction

Original Indicators: Solid Waste
Tons of waste landfilled annually.

Recycling rate as a percentage of material generated.

Percentage of residents, businesses, and institutions that participate in recycling
programs.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Strategic Plan Goal: Decrease disposal 9% (about 44,000 tons) annually to achieve zero
waste by 2020.

Progress toward goal:
· Composting has been set up in an additional 1,500 apartment buildings
· Recycling has been set up at final 1,000 apartment buildings
· Altamont disposal for 2011 was at an all time low of 367,332 tons

Table 50. San Francisco Zero Waste outcomes
Project Name Description Metrics used to track success &
results

1 Phonebooks Passed yellow pages opt-in
ordinance.

Stayed by court until hearing.
2 Grants Awarded and managed
grants.

Exceeded target of 4,000 tons per year
diverted with 22 grants for $1,170,212.
3 Apartments Continued ensuring
residential mandatory
recycling and composting
ordinance compliance.
Rolled-out composting to 1,500 more and
recycling at last 1,000 apartment buildings.
260 

5 Events Continued ensuring event
mandatory recycling and
composting ordinance
compliance.
Exceeded targets of ensuring 400 events
recycling and composting, and 200 events
over 50% diversion.
8 Businesses Continued ensuring
commercial mandatory
recycling and composting
ordinance compliance.

Rolled-out composting to 3,000 more and
recycling to last 2,000 commercial accounts.
9 Foodware ordinance Achieved foodware
ordinance compliance.

Ensured compliance at all 4,500 food service
establishments.
10 Debris Achieved construction and
demolition debris recovery
ordinance compliance.
Registered 400 transporters and 12 facilities.
13 & 14 City Recycled scrap metal,
managed the Virtual
Warehouse, expanded
recycling and composting,
and trained employees and
recycling coordinators.

Exceeded targets of recycling 3,000 tons of
scrap metal, expanding recycling and
composting at 100 locations, and training
150 coordinators. Trained over 3,000
employees and documented $2.6 M in cost
avoidance.
22 CA legislation Supported CA legislation
mandating recycling at
apartments and businesses.

Passed and achieved SF compliance with AB
341.
23 SF and CA
legislation
Supported SF bag
ordinance expansion and
CA legislation improving
labeling on compostable
bags and all other
compostable plastics, and
initiating carpet producer
responsibility.

Passed bag ordinance expansion, and SB 228
& 567 (labeling) and AB 2398 (carpet).
24 Landfill Aided in negotiating new
landfill agreements.

Board of Supervisors approved new
agreements
Projects actively in process: All
Source (exact quotes): (San Francisco, City of 2012)

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The following are original indicators that do not fit into current Department of the
Environment program areas (SF Environment, 1996):

Table 51. San Francisco original Biodiversity indicators and desired direction

Biodiversity
Number of volunteer hours dedicated towards managing, monitoring, and conserving
San Francisco’s biodiversity.

Number of square feet of the worst invasive species removed from natural areas.

Number of surviving indigenous native plant species planted in developed parks,
private landscapes and natural areas.

Abundance and species diversity of birds, as indicated by the Golden Gate Audubon
Society’s Christmas bird counts.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 52. San Francisco original Water and Wastewater indicators and desired direction

Water and Wastewater
Per capita water consumption measured by the San Francisco Water Department.

Mass of pollutants in wastewater.

Mass and frequency of combined sewer overflows.

Recycled water use.

Acres of habitat restored.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 53. San Francisco original Municipal Expenditures indicators and desired direction

Municipal Expenditures
Number of items of legislation adopted by the Board of Supervisors that advance

262 
sustainability goals.
Number of service providers and companies on the Green Vendors list.

Percentage of budget allocated utilizing sustainability criteria.

Percentage of budget that is devoted to facility maintenance.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)

Table 54. San Francisco original Risk Management indicators and desired direction

Risk Management
Number of businesses that train employees in the Neighborhood Emergency
Response Teams program.

Number of seismically upgraded buildings.

Number of hazardous materials incidents.

Source (exact quotes): (SF Environment 1996)
 
263 
Chapter 6: San Jose Case Study
This case study reveals significant differences between San Jose and the other two
cities, Santa Monica and San Francisco. San Jose stands out with regard to major
differences in its fiscal situation that are related at least somewhat to its status as a
bedroom community. San Jose’s predominantly immigrant and newcomer community
makes for real cultural and personality differences from other cities. And in general,
while San Jose has been a leader in sustainability language and policy since the 1980’s, it
has been growing rapidly since the 1970’s, and does not exude the cultural identity as a
sustainability leader the way Santa Monica and San Francisco do, in spite of its urban
growth boundary and more recent efforts toward smart growth. This case study reveals
some of the complex forces at work shaping that dynamic. Interestingly, in spite of all of
San Jose’s differences, many of the basic elements that make the Green Vision strong are
similar to those in Santa Monica and San Francisco. While the Green Vision has some
real weaknesses, such as moving social equity forward, City is working toward building
more sustainable, interconnected systems.
San Jose is a very different city than Santa Monica or San Francisco. Unlike the
other two cities, San Jose is a bedroom community, with a larger sleeping population at
night than visiting or working population during the day. This dynamic creates fiscal
challenges that San Jose and Santa Monica do not face. San Jose was hit hard by the
financial crisis in 2007, losing significant staff, where San Francisco did not lose any
staff and no interviewees in Santa Monica mentioned the crisis. San Jose also has more of
an immigrant and newcomer population than the other two cities, which interestingly
creates a certain amount of political freedom for progressive public policies because of
264 
the community’s openness to change. San Jose also does not face the pressures of
gentrification in the same way as the other two cities, so positive economic development
and neighborhood change is welcomed if not enthusiastically sought after, without as
much threat of displacement. However, the lower income level of the San Jose
community also limits some policy flexibility relative to the other two cities, such as
paying a premium for renewable energy. The following is a table outlining key findings
in San Jose:
Table 55. Key findings in San Jose

Key Finding San Jose findings
What makes a sustainability plan strong is
“The Three P’s:” people, programs, and
purpose.

The Green Vision, while not extravagantly
funded, has staff and programs attached to
every goal, as well as another layer of
implementation at the General Plan level.
The main cultural inclination toward
innovation drives outcomes.

Operationalizing “The Three E’s” of
environment, equity, and economy is
crucial, and while all three take effort,
equity is the most difficult.

The Green Vision does not incorporate
much with regard to equity. Also, the city
wants to attract more white-collar jobs to
become a center for the Silicon Valley
region, heightening tensions with blue-
collar workers.

The incredible absence of planning and
planners
The Green Vision was not created at all by
planners or the planning department,
however sustainability language that was
adopted by the City as far back as the
1980’s does run through the most recent
General Plan and one previous.

Because of some of the fiscal challenges in San Jose, significant staff turnover
made reaching people for interviews more difficult. Also, the degree to which City staff
is stretched thin limited potential interviewees’ willingness to spend time being
265 
interviewed. For these reasons, the data available for San Jose is less than for the other
two cities is less, and the chapter is shorter. Also, because of the limited number of
interviewees, the diversity of perspectives in terms of the history of the plan is more
limited in this case than in the others. Some important perspectives that could fill out the
story and the happenings around the plan were most likely unreached by this research.
Still, I included San Jose because of the interesting information that did arise from the
interviews, and because of the important lessons to be learned from San Jose’s lessons
and differences from the other case study cities.
San Jose’s Green Vision was adopted in October 2007, much later than the
sustainability plans in San Francisco and Santa Monica, and during the larger national
financial crash. Chuck Reed had just been elected mayor earlier in the same year. I
consider San Jose a first mover in sustainability because the City adopted significant
sustainability language as far back as the 1980’s, and included it as a strategy in its
General Plan in 1994. In August 1994, San Jose adopted San Jose 2020, the “Sustainable
City Major Strategy,” as a strategy in its General Plan (San Jose 1998). The history of the
plan actually began in 1980, with the presentation and adoption by City Council of a
report called “Toward a Sustainable City” (Church 1980; San Jose 1998) by John Church,
who at the time was a consultant to the City and served as the Manager of the Policy and
Planning Division of the Environmental Services Department in 1993 and 1994 (Church
2011). The report was eventually incorporated into the “Sustainable City Major Strategy”
in 1994 (San Jose 1994), which became one of seven major strategies in the San Jose
266 
2020 General Plan (San Jose 1994).
98
San Jose’s most recent General Plan, Envision San
Jose 2040, adopted in November 2011, includes a major strategy called “Measurable
Sustainability/Environmental Stewardship” (San Jose 2011a) among 12 major
strategies.
99

In subsequent years, the City Council worked to implement recommendations in
the report with regard to “Energy Systems, Land Use Patterns, Communication,
Transportation Systems, Water Systems and Waste Systems” (San Jose 1998). In 1998,
the City released the San Jose Sustainability Plan Status Report that outlines this history
as well as the status of the various polices and programs that had contributed to
sustainability within the City (San Jose 1998). Unfortunately, the City apparently has not
officially reported on progress since.
In 2007, though, San Jose adopted a sustainability plan called Green Vision which
builds on San Jose 2020: “a fifteen year plan for economic growth, environmental
sustainability, and an enhanced quality of life for its community” (San Jose). This plan
focuses on clean tech innovation, energy resources, waste, trees, and incorporating
standards for sustainable development into the General Plan. The Green Vision builds on
Sustainable 2020 by incorporating specific, measurable goals. The City has released
2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 annual Green Vision reports presenting progress, which
include indicators (metrics) for each of the ten goals. Each goal has a dedicated staff
member and programming through the City. The Green Vision is also incorporated into

98
The other major strategies in the San Jose 2020 General Plan are: Economic Development, Growth
Management, Downtown Revitalization, Urban Conservation/Preservation, The Greenline/Urban Growth
Boundary, and Housing (San Jose General Plan, 2020 http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=2094)
99
The other major strategies in Envision San Jose 2040 include: Community Based Planning, Form Based
Plan, Focused Growth, Innovation/Regional Employment Center, Urban Villages, Streetscapes for People,
Fiscally Strong City, Destination Downtown, Life Amidst Abundant Natural Resources, Design for a
Healthful Community, Plan Horizons and Periodic Major Review.
267 
San Jose’s current General Plan, Envision 2040. Through the General Plan, the Green
Vision is implemented on a second, less direct level.
Overall, all of the indicator metrics for the Green Vision are moving in a positive
direction, even though the plan was adopted in the year of a major national economic
crisis. The economic crisis loomed much larger in San Jose than in Santa Monica or San
Francisco, as the City lost a significant amount of staff from financial hardship. Major
differences in the financial situation of San Jose relative to the other cities emerged in the
process of research, along with significant cultural, personality, and identity differences.
These differences informed a great deal of San Jose’s story. At the same time, I found
that San Jose persevered through some very difficult times, and that the basic elements
that made the plans strong in Santa Monica and San Francisco were the same in San Jose.
People, programs, and purpose drove and continue to drive San Jose’s efforts. And in
spite of some significant challenges, San Jose continues to find a way to leverage its
resources and identify unique strengths that keep it moving forward in innovative and
creative ways.
San Jose’s Green Vision plan has measurably achieved movement toward
sustainability. As a much more recently adopted plan, its outcomes cannot be directly
compared to Santa Monica and San Francisco. Still, I found that San Jose’s Plan did and
does discernibly affect urban sustainability outcomes. The following are the most
important ways in which San Jose’s Sustainability Plan has affected outcomes:
1. Existence of Green Vision Implementation Team
2. Roles of Green Vision Implementation Team members
3. Existence of Green Vision Steering Committee
4. Positive movement in indicators linked to goals
5. Umbrella effect of getting staff to work together in a single direction

268 
First, the existence of a Green Vision Implementation Team and Steering
Committee reflects roles that directly follow the ten goals of the plan. San Jose does have
an Environmental Services Department, however unlike in Santa Monica and San
Francisco, it existed before the Plan was created. The Department does house the most
Green Vision goals of all the departments (four), however core oversight and
implementation of the Plan are housed in the City Manager’s Office because of the
number of departments the Plan reaches (Kantek 2012). Because the Green Vision goals
are very straightforward, the movement of outcomes is relatively clear. Of course,
influences other than the Plan itself, such as changes in the larger economy, cannot all be
definitively separated out from some of the goals. Still, most of the goals are fairly
straightforward and several are under the direct control of the City, such as number of
trees planted, amount of waste diverted from landfill, and number of City streetlights
replaced. Finally, the existence of the Green Vision Plan has served to bring a diverse
group of staff people from different departments together to work in a common direction
in a way that they would not otherwise (Kantek 2012). The Green Vision has also been
incorporated into the General Plan, and so is implemented on another level that is not
measured directly by the City.
People, Programs, Purpose
At the beginning of this research, it appeared that the community did not play a
major role in the Green Vision plan. And in fact, according to my interviewees, the Green
Vision plan was born mostly from city leadership. However, the plan is implemented
through engaged city staff, in combination with the community. Community stakeholders
also played a significant role in the General Plan update process, which incorporated the
269 
Green Vision goals. Indeed, the plan is brought to life and carried out by dedicated staff
members in various departments, constantly seeking ways to further engage and partner
with the community and the business sector. Also, community pressures that were not
recorded officially, or known my interviewees, likely has some effect on the creation of
the plan. The Green Vision, while not extravagantly funded, has staff and programs
attached to every goal, as well as another layer of implementation at the General Plan
level. And running through the most recent General Plan and one previous, is
sustainability language that was adopted by the City as far back as the 1980’s. While it
might be surprising to some, San Jose has been a leader in sustainability policy for a long
time, and is coming into its own through its Green Vision and General Plan.
Operationalizing the Three E’s: all three are hard, but equity is the hardest
As with all three cities, social equity is a real challenge to move forward for San
Jose. In fact, equity is not addressed in the Green Vision at all. While San Jose does not
face the gentrification and displacement pressures that Santa Monica and San Francisco
do, social equity is still a politically hot topic in a city that wants to attract more white-
collar jobs to become a center for the Silicon Valley region. The loss of jobs in the City
itself and the larger financial crisis probably did not make the issue of equity any easier.
Community and labor groups fought for social equity to be part of the Green Vision and
did not succeed. Tensions between labor and Mayor Reed existed from the time of his
election and as far back as his time on City Council. While San Jose’s equity issues are
not as stark in terms of disparity and displacement as the other two cities, the tensions
between labor activists and the City seem to be greater. Indeed, gathering the whole story
about San Jose proved to be difficult because of the real effects of layoffs, and
270 
community and labor leaders were also hard to find and reach. San Jose highlights this
dynamic. Altogether, San Jose offers a number of fascinating lessons, through its
struggles and triumphs, and its steadfast commitment to moving sustainability goals
forward in the face of adversity.
Planners and planning
San Jose’s Green Vision plan actually stood out as being more directly integrated
with the general plan than in the other two cities. Sustainability language from as far back
as the 1980’s has been integrated directly in general plan elements. And the Green Vision
is included and updated within the general plan elements currently. Still, for the most
part, the Green Vision was not created or designed by planners or the planning
department, and mostly non-planners are responsible for implementation. The following
is a list of San Jose interviewees, their title/role, and the date interviewed.
Table 56. San Jose interviewees
100

100
Would have liked to have spoken to: Dennis Church, Collin O’Mara, and John Stufflebean.
Name Role Date
Interviewed
Ashwini Kantek Assistant to the City Manager, San Jose October 10,
2012

Yves Zsutty Trail Manager, City of San Jose, Department of
Parks, Recreation, and Neighborhood Services

October 10,
2012
Ralph Mize City Arborist, San Jose Department of
Transportation

October 30,
2012
John Brazil Bike/Pedestrian Program, San Jose Department
of Transportation

October 30,
2012
Laura Stuchinsky Sustainability Office, San Jose Department of
Transportation
October 30,
2012

Michael Brilliot Senior Planner, City of San Jose, Envision 2040
Task Force
October 30,
2012
271 

Overall, San Jose has made significant progress with its indicator metrics since
the adoption of the Green Vision. Given that the Green Vision was only adopted in 2007,
and that there was a major national economic collapse that year that devastated the San
Jose City government financially, any progress at all is genuinely impressive. Not all of
the goals have moved much since the 2007 baseline, and some were closer to their final
goal at baseline than others. However, every single goal area has moved forward, and a
number of them require a significant amount of foundational work, such as research,
infrastructure investment, partnership-building, outreach, etc., before they can get
significantly off the ground. With regard to the ten goals of the Green Vision and its
quantifiable metrics, the City is doing quite well and is poised to improve over time.
San Jose interviewees talked significantly less about cultural and institutional
changes with regard to the Green Vision, and none of the interviewees knew much about
the existence and role of significant sustainability language embraced by the City Council
and adopted into the previous General Plan. The staff roles under the Green Vision seem
to have existed prior to the plan, and the Green Vision just coordinates and moves things
forward in one direction. So in some ways, major structural changes have not occurred in
San Jose the way they did in the other two cities, however if the older sustainability
language is considered, major changes have been folded into the City’s fabric over time,
even if institutional memory has been lost along the way.
Finally, the Green Vision goals, because they are embedded in the General Plan,
are also implemented on another level, which thus far has not measured specific
Michael Brilliot Senior Planner, City of San Jose, Envision 2040
Task Force

October 30,
2012
Laura Tam

SPUR Sustainable Development Policy Director February 26,
2013
272 
outcomes. Overall, in spite of significant challenges, San Jose has made real progress and
the Green Vision is moving goals forward. All in all, San Jose’s Green Vision is strong
and effective, especially when considered with its history of urban sustainability language
in the city, and the ongoing integration of these principles in to the General Plan. While
not all of the causal linkages between the outcomes and the plan itself are entirely clear,
as some of the indicators are affected by the larger economy and community behavior,
etc., many efforts are clearly linked to outcomes (for example, number of trees planted).
The Green Vision, as with the other two sustainability plans, has been created and made
strong by people, programs, and purpose. Although in a different form and with very
different challenges, these key ingredients still hold the plan together and move it forward
into the future. And as with the other two plans, equity lags behind environment and
economy, and is clearly the most difficult to handle.
San Jose’s long-standing commitment to sustainability, the relevant language
surrounding the concept, as well as implementation by embedding the language into the
General Plan may help in the ongoing process of moving toward greater equity. The fact
that equity advocates were at table in developing the General Plan, although they were
not successful in that effort, show that they are there and are politically active, and can
potentially move things forward in new directions for the City. As with all of the cities,
implementing the Green Vision, as well as the General Plan, is an ongoing learning
process that is continually evolving. The people working from the inside of the City are
continually working to innovate, improve, and creatively move the goals forward, to
create systems that are both internally and externally harmonious.
 
How was the plan developed?
273 
Plan history: what were the processes?
Ashwini Kantek, Assistant to the City Manager, who currently leads a major part
of oversight and implementation of Green Vision, describes her understanding of what
came before the Green Vision plan in San Jose:
“We didn’t have, I’m just trying to think, I don’t think we had like a tangible,
standalone plan. We have been doing a lot of stuff that’s kind of leading,
recycling, or wastewater recycling, but not because there was a specific
overarching plan. But really things we wanted to do to be good leaders in the
environmental world. We’ve always, again trails, we have a Green Print, which
kind of lays out our plan for parks and trails. So we’ve always, not always, but
we’ve had a Green Print for a long time. And that kind of lays out an envisioned
trail network. To connect recreational facilities, so the intent may be a little bit
different, you know, so not necessarily to provide alternative commute options,
but it’s, we’ve had that for a while. Green building we were one of the earliest
ones in like 2001 to have a municipal green building policy, when a lot of cities
didn’t have it yet. We have of course, strengthened it as time went by. So we
updated that for the municipal side in 2007 I believe. And raised the standards,
like raised the bar a lot more. But also in 2008 did a private sector new
construction policy… I just have to kind of go back in sort of the history of how
we were leading in some of these, even though there wasn’t the Green Vision. I
think those were the main – wastewater, waste, green building, where we were
already doing much more” (Kantek 2012).

None of the other interviewees mentioned the existence of the Sustainable City Major
Strategy before the Green Vision.
Because one of the Green Vision’s ten goals is to incorporate the Green Vision
goals in to the General Plan, it currently has been incorporated and even expanded within
San Jose’s newest General Plan, called Envision 2040. Micahel Brilliot, Senior Planner in
San Jose describes the link:
“In the Green Vision, I think it’s goal number seven, which is a sustainable,
measurable, General Plan update. So, because of that we created a general plan
that very much focused on environmental sustainability. Actually the other
sustainability that became actually a more important issue was fiscal sustainability
that it integrated. So the Plan addresses a lot of environmental issues. And, you
know the goals from the Green Vision were incorporated in and expanded out, but
274 
I don’t remember all the details of how we did that, it’s been a while” (Brilliot
2012).

Thus, both the early sustainability language in the city, which is no longer remembered,
as well as the current Green Vision, have been incorporated and live on in San Jose’s
current General Plan.
Who was involved?
All of the interviewees indicated that the Green Vision was primarily the product
of the Office of Mayor Chuck Reed. Ashwini Kantek notes that the City Council has been
very supportive of the Green Vision:
“It was – really the impetus was from the Mayor’s Office. And the interest in sort
of spurring economic growth and advancing environmental stewardship. They had
an interest in both. So they worked with a bunch of our staff and really developed
the plan, and Council unanimously adopted it. So it was like October 31, 2007.
And so Council’s really been, so we have a mayor and ten council members, each
with council districts. So, it’s a lot of people, and you know sometimes if you
watch the Council meetings, the Council’s very divided. But on this particular
one, they’ve all been really supportive” (Kantek 2012).

When asked who the key players were, Kantek answered, “Well so one of them doesn’t
work here anymore. And then actually would say both are – so Collin O’Mara, with
Economic Development, and worked with the Mayor’s Office. And then John
Stufflebean, who is with ESD [Environmental Services Department]. John works in
Sunnyvale, and Collin is actually, he works for the State of Delaware” (Kantek 2012).
None of the interviewees noted a community push for the creation of the Green Vision,
nor does there seem to have been stakeholder and citizen input or feedback into the
design and priorities of the plan.
Kantek describes the way that securing independent funding helps to bolster
ongoing City Council support:
275 
“We’ve also been, to date, we’ve been able to get about, it’s probably even more
new because this is a little older report, so $85-$90 million in grants just related to
things in the Green Vision. So think they’ve been really supportive because they
can see staff making progress even though there wasn’t specific funding allocated
to it. Staff’s been really creative about going out and getting into partnerships to
getting a lot of grant funding to do a lot of the projects. So, I think overall,
Council as a whole has been really supportive” (Kantek 2012).

In all, the evidence indicates that there was not significant community involvement in the
creation of the Green Vision. Currently, community outreach is an important element,
with an understanding that community buy-in and participation with the goals is
necessary for implementation. It remains unclear whether and to what extent the level of
community participation in the formation of the Green Vision affects specific
implementation of the ten goals. However, because the Green Vision is also part of the
General Plan, the community participation in the formation of the General Plan does
affect the City’s sustainability outcomes. Michael Brilliot, when discussing General Plan
outcomes, notes the role of community feedback in the implementation design of
Envision 2020:
“It’s too early to say in a way, but a lot of criticism was brought up by community
members and Task Force members, there were 36 Task Force members in the
General Plan update process...A lot of criticism has been made and continues to
be made about how the City may be great at plans, but we fail at implementation.
And the failure in implementation is often because the City Council does things
that are not consistent with the Plan. So, some developer comes in with a project,
it’s not consistent with the Plan, people don't feel that it is, I’m just telling you
what they tell us, and nevertheless they go ahead and approve it. When it comes
to these high and mighty visions and these strategies they’re all behind them, but
when it comes to actually making decisions every week, the decisions that they
make are actually contrary to what the Plan says. And that’s what people were
saying. And there’s some truth to that, I think” (Brilliot 2012).

He continues to describe the way that the community views the behavior of the City
Council, and how community members are pushing for the change they want to see:
276 
“I think one thing is San Jose tends to be kind of, not apologetic, but San Jose’s
not – members of the Task Force say San Jose needs to be San Jose and be proud.
And we’re not always that, we’re kind of like ‘Well, we’re San Jose, and we want
you to come here but we’re not going to push you too much, and ok, that’s ok.’
As opposed to ‘Hey, if you want to be here, this is what you need to do. You
don’t want to be here? Well that’s fine you can go somewhere else, we don’t
care.’ Well they, you know Council people are pleasers too, so that was really the
criticism of how the City has done business in the past, and too the concern that
they will continue to be that way” (Brilliot 2012).

The changes in implementation style ultimately called for by community stakeholders are
significant and will likely have significant impacts on the way the City Council behaves
and the way the General Plan is carried out in San Jose.
“And so one of the strategies or approaches in this Plan that’s different is that
there’s a major review of the General Plan every four years. In terms of what that
looks like, we don’t know, we’ll figure it out, but one thought is to have –
reconvene some kind of stakeholder citizen task force and actually go and look at
what’s happened in the last four years, and you know what decisions have been
made and are we on track towards our goals and our vision? Are we off track? Do
we need to make some course corrections? Do we need to modify some policies
or goals, or add some? So it’s kind of a time to really check in and really look at
how we’re doing and that’s new, that’s not been done before. And it’s also a
chance for – politically for people – that are engaged in the community for
everyone to just sort of almost hold the Council I would say accountable for
what’s going on, and saying, ‘Hey you guys, we need you to do better here.’ I
don’t know of other cities or communities that have done that, maybe there is,
but” (Brilliot 2012).

So, while the community does not seem to have been heavily involved, or perhaps
involved at all, in the creation of the Green Vision, it was active in the related General
Plan update process. In this process, community stakeholders had a major impact on the
implementation design of the General Plan into the future, which will most likely affect
outcomes in significant ways.
While at first, when researching San Jose, the community did not seem to be very
involved or to play a large role in sustainability efforts, except to the degree that they are
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needed to implement the Green Vision goals by using less energy, etc. However, further
research revealed a unique community personality, and a number of dynamics that affect
the situation and behavior of the City. As in Santa Monica and San Jose, the prevailing
mentality of the community drives the personality and behavior of the city government.
However, in San Jose, the community dynamic is very different than in the other two
cities. The in-depth interviews reveal throughout this case study that the financial
challenges of the City (due to its status as a bedroom community), the immigrant
population, and the non-radical, non-boastful personality of the City, all affect the
dynamics that drive municipal behavior. When discussing a move toward urbanism in the
most recent San Jose General Plan, he says, “But surprisingly, the community people,
most of them are not…they’re embracing this. They’re either neutral or they embrace it. I
mean the community meetings we have, these workshops, they’re placing towers on
properties in their neighborhood. So, it’s kind of not what you would expect” (Brilliot,
2012). He further explains why he thinks this might be the case:
“Well a lot of the plans we’re doing are areas where people would really like to
see change. This is not Palo Alto or Beverly Hills or whatever. This is like –
people see change as if done right, it will make their community better. It will
create more of a market for type of businesses they want, maybe they want more
money for parks, it’ll create more vibrancy, it’ll make the area more attractive.
And a lot of the areas around here are either kind of dull, or kind of run down that
we’re working in, so it’s interesting. I mean there’s always a few people that are,
want it, want San Jose to stay the way it was in 1950 or 1972 or whatever, but a
lot of people, we were kind of surprised, they were just piling building towers
here. And it’s not everywhere, it’s – oh no there’s houses here, let’s make it
smaller here, but over here, let’s put a tower. It’s just like wow. A lot of people in
San Jose, especially the ones in the areas we work in regarding new development
or are in engaged or are civically involved, really embrace the future and change.
And see that the City could become a better place, because of it, if it’s planned
right and implemented right. So they’re not, I always say that Berkeley want to be
Berkeley 1968 forever, but you know, here they really embrace all the changes. I
guess maybe it’s because so many of the people here are immigrants. This is
mostly an immigrant community. I think 40 some percent of the people don’t
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speak English at home. And even the immigrants, there’s a lot of immigrants from
the United States from other states, but they’re not, they’re coming here to work
and Google or whatever and they’re not, they’re not wedded to the way things
were and want to see it better” (Brilliot 2012).

In spite of San Jose’s financial troubles, Brilliot identifies a perhaps unexpected
advantage in implementing sustainability-oriented programs and policies, in the desire for
positive change in the City’s community. I interviewed SPUR Sustainable Development
Policy Director Laura Tam, for an outsider’s perspective. Tam works in the Bay Area and
is familiar with both San Francisco and San Jose’s plans, but focuses on San Francisco.
She made an few interesting observations about the Green Vision:
“All I know is that the Green Vision – it has a lot of targets in it that are really
high, that make me skeptical that anybody is actually trying to implement them,
because they’re so high, that it just seems like, wow, really, I don’t believe it.
That was my first read of it, but also think that, from knowing people who work
there, in the City, that they’re really committed to the idea of it, so maybe it’s
possible. Maybe they don’t have the same, like challenging politics that we have
around everything. Trying to do something sustainable there, maybe people will
allow you to do it. Here you get a lot of NIMBY’s being like, ‘but that windmill is
affecting my view.’ So, maybe you don't have that there, I don't know” (Tam
2013).

On the one hand, the personality of the citizenry is actually open and receptive to change.
However, the counter force in San Jose’s personality is, as Brilliot puts it, a lack of
radical people that could really push things forward, as the other two cities, particularly
San Francisco, have in their populations.
“You know San Jose’s kind of weird, it’s just kind of – we don’t have a lot of
people who are opposed to the environmental sort of, movement or goals, so
that’s really positive. And we don't necessarily have all the people that are really
hardcore environmental either. But there are a lot of people that are
environmentally and sustainability conscious here but maybe just because, I don’t
know why, maybe just because, maybe they’re older, I don’t know why, but they
tend to be a lot more, sort of balanced, in a way. I don’t know, I can’t say for sure.
San Francisco’s full of like, there’s probably more radical – we don't’ have a lot
of radical people in this town, let me just say that. I wish we did in some ways.
Like for example, San Francisco, I don’t know if LA had this, they had the
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CicLAvia, so San Francisco has Critical Mass, you know Critical Mass? Yeah, so
it’s a little more confrontational political. In San Jose we have San Jose Bike
Party. It’s just a bike party, you know. So that’s kind of like that sort of thing –
let’s go party and ride bikes! You get 4-5,000 people doing it, but they’re not like
banging on cars” (Brilliot 2012).

Brilliot touches on the important point that the makeup of a city’s population at a given
time affects how committed those people are to things as they are: those new to a city
may be more open to change, while those that have established themselves somewhere,
perhaps even those that were once more radical, over twenty years may become attached
to the status quo. The populations and their levels of wealth have certainly changed in
Santa Monica and San Jose over the last 15 to 20 years, perhaps affecting their
relationship to change in general. Brilliot continues to discuss the challenge of resources
and money, and the practical disadvantages that can come with not having a big
personality like San Francisco:
“There’s always going to be the challenge for this city of resources and money.
That’s a big challenge. I’m sure that’s a challenge for most cities. And some cities
have been really successful just generally I think with grants, like San Francisco
and getting money from the outside. I don’t feel that this city is politically
connected. I don’t operate in this realm, but my sense is this City’s not as
politically connected and so when resources come from the state and feds it’s
probably more likely to go to place like San Francisco than here. Because once
again, San Jose’s kind of, somewhat overlooked I think. Isn’t always the best
cheerleader for itself. Plus we also – we are in the paper a lot now, but it’s
because of all the pension mess and fiscal health of the city and the Mayor is not a
mayor that’s sort of pumping up San Jose as a great place in Silicon Valley. It’s
sort of playing up the disaster – financial disaster and so it doesn't help” (Brilliot
2012).

The role of urban personality in San Jose actually illuminates the importance of this
amorphous thing in all three cities. Brilliot notes, the perception of a city by funders can
greatly affect the city’s level of political connectedness and the amount of grants
awarded. And the city’s relative wealth affects the way the city deals with funders, as
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well as developers and other entities that affect the ability to implement plans. Kantek
describes her perspective on San Jose’s municipal culture and how it affects the work the
City does:
“We’re not very good at advertising. We are very much – and we talk about it a
lot – our culture is very much, get it done, and we sometimes view San Francisco
as sort of doing a press release before they worry about how they’re going to
implement something. We don’t go forward with policies unless we have a really
strong sense of, it’s implementable, we can be successful, you know like, we
don’t want to just put it out there and figure it out. I think, I don’t know, it’s just
different cultures because we have, like I said, we have been leaders in a lot of
different policies. Like we did the bag ban, and now people are doing it, and
they’re sort of making a much bigger splash about it than we did. So, in some
ways it’s just our culture. Everybody sort of doesn’t like to do too much in terms
of press releases. The Mayor is not like that either. So it’s much more about let’s
get it done, than let’s talk about it. So I, I mean I do see San Jose leading in a lot
of different areas, but at the same time, again, so there’s that’s one piece that
we’re maybe not so good at publicity and PR on that” (Kantek 2012).

She continues on to describe the role of the community, its wealth, culture,
personality:
“The other piece is also, in some areas, we may not be leading as much because it
is a different community as well. But, you know, increasingly you see more
support for some of the things you want to do, we see more advocates coming
forward. You know, like, not wanting plastic bags, Styrofoam, whatever. Wanting
to be more green. But, it is a different community. It’s not, you know, we’d love
to add a community choice aggregation as an option, and we looked at Marin.
And we realized as we did the analysis, that as much as it may make sense in the
long run…like in Marin people were willing to pay a premium for green energy.
In San Jose we didn’t feel like that would necessarily fly. It’s a very diverse
community, it’s you know, one-third Asian, one-third Hispanic, one-third
Caucasian. A lot of immigrants, I mean the majority are born outside of the
country, including me. I don’t live in San Jose, I work in San Jose. So it’s a little
different, but I think more than anything I think we just tend to keep a more – a
lower profile than San Francisco” (Kantek 2012).

Brilliot also discusses the importance of getting recognized for their work and its
relationship to funding:
“I don’t know if it’s so much we want to fly under the radar, were trying to get
more recognized for the work we do, and maybe we need to do a better job. But I
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just think that for whatever reason, everyone looks to San Francisco, or maybe
even Oakland sometimes, or LA or other places, and San Jose is just not on
people’s mental landscape of the Bay Area or California, even though it’s what
the third largest city. It’s just not. It’s not just, it’s all kinds of stuff. People aren’t
even really fully aware sometimes it’s in Silicon Valley, they don't associate those
two things. So, I think it’s just sort of the, it’s a dilemma that San Jose is always
trying to overcome. But in terms of, yeah I don’t know, I mean we do apply for
awards and we try to get acknowledged for our work. A lot of government
agencies, like ABAG and MTC, which are the regional transportation planning
agencies. I mean, they’re starting to recognize the importance of San Jose and
what we’re doing. For a long time they really didn’t. Everything was focused on
the East Bay and San Francisco. I mean they’re up there, and it’s just kind of the
center of the Bay Area. And even Silicon Valley in a way, was kind of off over
there. It’s where all the money is, and all the high tech” (Brilliot 2012)).

In all, the personality and culture of San Jose came up more than in the other two cities,
and perhaps more distinctly. In Santa Monica and San Francisco, interviewees mostly
talked about the prevailing mindset of the community, council, and mayors in terms of
wanting to be leaders in sustainability. Although San Jose has had sustainability language
on the books and had it incorporated into their general plan earlier than the other two
cities, they are not recognized as being leader in progressive sustainability policy. This
observation certainly highlights the role of the perception of a city and how it affects
funding, implementation, and outcomes.
How is the plan structured?
The report, “Toward a Sustainable City,” noted by the United States Department
of Energy as “the cornerstone of San Jose’s sustainability efforts” (Church 1980), focuses
on natural resource management. It breaks down eight consequences of inadequate
resource use and outlooks for each: inflation, fiscal problems for governments, public
health and safety problems, the growing threat to peace and the growing drain of military
budgets, the incremental loss of community control, the increasing gap between the rich
and the poor, decline in the availability fertility, and productivity of agricultural land
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(Church 1980). It also includes sections about solutions, including: 1) a shift from non-
renewable to renewable resources, 2) a shift from remotely located resources to locally
available resources, 3) a shift from production of goods to be used up to production of
goods to be used, reused, and recycled, 4) a shift from living on capital to living on
income, 5) maximum reduction of waste in the use of resources, 6) maximum reduction
in the production of poisonous and otherwise harmful by-products in the use of resources,
7) protection of natural resources from destruction by the spread of man and his
technology, 8) preservation of the social fabric--community and social life (Church
1980). The “Sustainable City Major Strategy” lived on through the 2020 General Plan,
however the City did not have specific goals or indicators until the 2007 Green Vision
Plan. The Green Vision (San Jose 2007) lays out the following ten goals:

Goal 1: Create 25,000 Clean Tech jobs as the World Center of Clean Tech Innovation
Goal 2: Reduce per capita energy use by 50 percent
Goal 3: Receive 100 percent of our electrical power from clean renewable sources
Goal 4: Build or retrofit 50 million square feet of green buildings
Goal 5: Divert 100 percent of the waste from our landfill and convert waste to energy
Goal 6: Recycle or beneficially reuse 100 percent of our wastewater (100 million gallons
per day)
Goal 7: Adopt a General Plan with measurable standards for sustainable development
Goal 8: Ensure that 100 percent of public fleet vehicles run on alternative fuels
Goal 9: Plant 100,000 new trees and replace 100 percent of our streetlights with smart,
zero-emission lighting
Goal 10: Create 100 miles of interconnected trails

The Green Vision also contains a strategic framework of five areas that coheres
and guides the process of implementing the ten goals. According to the City, “The
strategic framework helps connect the goals, implementation strategies, and project-level
day to day actions to the broader intended outcomes of driving economic opportunity and
growth, eliminating the structural budget deficit, demonstrating environmental
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leadership, and improving the quality of life throughout the community” (San Jose
2011b). The following are the five areas:
“Leading by example – Policies and practices that the City can modify or establish to
advance the Green Vision priorities

Advocating policies at the regional, state and federal levels – Advocating legislative
action and positioning the City to partner with other agencies on policy changes and
development

Financing mechanisms – Exploring new financing mechanisms such as grants, modified
fee structures, and improvement districts to supplement City dollars

Forming strategic partnerships – Partnering with other entities, such as schools,
universities, non-profits, and private corporations to work towards common goals

Communications and engagement – Communicating with key audiences to bring about
awareness, acceptance, and action on all of the goals” (San Jose 2011b).

Ashwini Kantek describes the five areas and what they mean to City staff on the ground
in layman’s terms:
“So these are the five areas. So it’s leading by example, things that the City
controls – you know policies, priorities we can establish, practices, to advance the
Green Vision goals. Then, the second piece is advocating policies, at the regional,
state, and federal levels. So it’s really what do we need to do to advocate
legislative change. Again, either at the state level, federal level, or with some of
the regional agencies. And it may be for policies, but also for funding. And the
reason we’ve done this is so we can see it’s not just goal but goal, but like maybe,
for three goals, we need to do something. You know, so this helps us sort of bring
them together. The third thing is financing mechanisms. Again, exploring new
financing mechanisms such as grants, modified free structures, improvement
districts. We recently did a new markets tax credit financing, which was a first for
us for one of our buildings that will be a green building, have renewable energy,
etc. Then the fourth area is forming strategic partnerships – partnering with
schools, universities, non-profits private sector, how can we work with them
toward some common goals. And then the fifth is really communications and
engagement” (Kantek 2012).

Kantek then describes the importance of community engagement and participation:

“And just so you understand, a lot of these goals, without community
participation, can’t really make a whole lot of progress. So, something like say the
fleet, is very much a City controlled thing. Most of the energy ones, green
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building, they’re really, you everybody needs to sort of buy in. And partly we can
do it through policies, like we have a private sector green building policy for new
construction. So partly we can do it through that. But partly it’s also about
behavior change and educating people about energy use” (Kantek 2012).

Like Santa Monica, community engagement and outreach is an overall approach, whereas
in San Francisco it is a program area unto itself. All of the cities note the importance of
community participation to implement beyond what each city can do on its own through
municipal operations.
Each year as the Annual Report for the previous year is presented and reviewed,
the work plan for the next year is approved by Council (Kantek 2012). The work plan is
assessed through the lens of the strategic framework as well as three other criteria.
“As directed by Council in March 2009, the Green Vision Work Plan continues to use
three major screening criteria:

1. Does the initiative result in cost savings or additional revenue
generation, especially in the General Fund?
2. Will the initiative generate investment from the private sector or from the
Federal or State government?
3. Will the initiative make measurable progress on one or more of the 10 Green
Vision goals?” (San Jose 2011b).

These criteria have an explicit and unique focus on financial viability and practicality.
While Santa Monica and San Francisco surely consider cost savings, revenue generation,
and measurable progress, these considerations are not included prominently in the main
reports as they are in San Jose.
The 2011 Annual report also describes the role of the Green Vision Steering
Committee:
“A Green Vision Steering Committee of senior and executive staff members
convenes on a regular basis to provide direction on key issues and ensure
alignment with City priorities. Dedicated goal leads continue to lead the
implementation efforts and advance the individual goals, with the City Manager’s
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Office overseeing overall implementation and facilitating interdepartmental
coordination. The Council is kept apprised of progress on the Green Vision
through the Annual Report and the Green Vision website
http://greenvision.sanjoseca.gov/ which provides updates and highlight key
strategic opportunities and challenges” (San Jose 2011b).

The structure of the Green Vision is fairly straightforward; the main body of the plan is
the ten goals, informed by the strategic framework and the three screening criteria.
Implementation is carried out primarily by staff goal leads in different departments,
which form the Green Vision Implementation Team. The Green Vision Steering
Committee meets to oversee and guide implementation, as well as to report to City
Council.
Do other plans and policies change? What is the interaction with other plans and
policies?

Concurrently, because the Green Vision goals have been incorporated into the
General Plan, implementation is occurring at that level as well. Michael Brilliot discusses
the larger scale implementation through the General Plan:
“So the big, I think environmental aspect of this General Plan is really, that I
worked on, is the Land Use and Transportation part of it. So, this Plan really looks
at focusing growth inward and reinventing suburbia. And creating much more
what we call urban villages. Focusing the growth downtown or San Jose, some
other defined areas but also creating urban villages around San Jose that would be
more mixed use, kind of places. Higher density, you know, there’s places where
people could do their shopping and they could work and they could live and they
could go hang out. And part of all of this is creating – the larger goal is to reduce
vehicle miles traveled per capita by 40% by the year 2040 so it really is looking at
reducing the amount that people drive. And creating and environment that’s more
walkable and bikeable. And doing that by creating a land use fabric that focuses
more on accessibility, and then a Plan that focuses less on mobility. Instead of,
getting people to be able to drive quicker at longer distances, it’s focusing on
what if they don't hardly have to drive at all, or if they do drive, they can just take
a short drive, or they can walk or ride a bike by moving things closer together, so
things are more accessible. So that really is an important part of that…Which is
meant to meet our global greenhouse gas emission reduction, our energy
efficiency sort of goals, all the sustainability goals, and also our public health
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goals, which is to try to give people the opportunity to be more physically active
in their day-to-day life” (Brilliot 2012).

Most of the interviewees discussed implementation specifically with regard to the ten
goals, however, the Green Vision does have further reach through implementation of the
General Plan. Ashwini Kantek discusses the City’s process of thinking about developing
a parallel greenhouse gas emissions plan:
“On the greenhouse gas emissions, we’ve sort of been a little challenged with that
because of we did have sort of a draft climate action plan that we developed. But
really as we looked more at the Green Vision we felt like it was providing us with
a road map to 2022. Because as we looked at the GHG emissions, most impact
was through the energy stuff. Right, I mean that was what really created. If we
were able to really reduce energy consumption my 50% that would be huge in
terms of emissions. So, and then were also going through our general plan
amendment. And so that, also builds in greenhouse gas emissions reductions as
targets. So, and that would take us to 2040. So we sort of felt like we were on a
path already. I don’t know that it addresses adaptation that much, like a climate
change plan would do. But we also, like I mentioned you know with cap and trade
kind of legislation moving forward and stuff, we’re trying to see where the
funding is going to be. There’s probably going to be funding available to develop
climate action plans. Again, in the past two to three years, where we’ve cut so
much staff and stuff, we’ve had to really focus and prioritize in where we could
spend the you know our effort on and get the biggest bang for the buck. So, if
there is, funding becomes available, there’s a separate kind of, resources set aside
to develop a climate action plan, then I think we would go that way and develop
as sort of - build upon what we already have. I wouldn’t say we’d start from
scratch, I’d say we’d build upon what we have. But that would be sort of an ideal
scenario” (Kantek 2012).

Ultimately, the City has decided thus far not to create a separate greenhouse gas
emissions plan unless more funding becomes available, because of the overlap with the
current Green Vision plan. Because the Green Vision also overlaps with the General
Plan, which is also designed to lower greenhouse gas emissions, the City will wait until
there are resources to create a separate GHG plan.
How does the plan define sustainability? Does the plan affect all three E’s?
In “Toward a Sustainable City,” the concept of sustainability is not directly
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defined. The core focus is the utilization of natural resources. While the Three E’s are not
addressed directly, the topics covered in the document do include significant economic
and social concerns as well as environmental. In the “Sustainable City Major Strategy,” a
sustainable city is defined as, “a city designed, constructed, and operated to minimize
waste, efficiently use its natural resources and to manage and conserve them for the use
of present and future generations (San Jose 1994). The concept of sustainability is also
noted as “a means of encouraging and supporting an stronger economy and improving the
quality of life for all who live and work in San Jose,” however economy and equity are
not addressed anywhere else in the document (San Jose 1994). In “Green Vision,”
sustainability is not defined or addressed as a concept directly, but the document focuses
on “energy efficiency, renewable energy, green building, water conservation and
recycling and waste reduction” (San Jose).
According to Ashwini Kantek, “The Green Vision is intended not just to be like
an environmental vision, but it’s an economic, environment, quality of life vision. So
really those are the three cornerstones” (Kantek 2012). Equity is not listed directly as a
priority of the Green Vision. Kantek describes how the three cornerstones interact, with
quality of life as the third corner, rather than equity.
“So, we definitely see a connection – all the energy related stuff, I mean, that
creates a lot of jobs as well. You know, not only do you – so we’ve been
launching all these community-wide programs as well in different neighborhoods,
and we’ve partnered with – it’s a program called Green Energy Match. And we’ve
partnered with this company, again that’s a demonstration partnership called
What’s On. And they sort of work with the neighborhood, and you, it’s a little bit
involved. You kind of have to upload your energy bill and then you do certain
things and then lower your energy usage, and then for that, they partnered with
local businesses and so you sort of get incentives and coupons and things for
doing – basically rewards for lowering your energy consumption. We’ve done
these solarthons, we’ve done solar tours, but also solarthons, where again with
grant funding and partnering with other entities we’ve been able to go to some of
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the more low-to-moderate housing areas and install solar panels there to address
their energy needs. So a lot of savings” (Kantek 2012).

The City has made a number of efforts to leverage the assets they have and partner
with organizations in order to reach the Green Vision goals. Kantek also notes how
the goals were designed to incorporate the three cornerstones. She notes,
“So I think, we definitely see a very strong tie between all three, and you kind of
see it in action. You see the economy growing in the clean tech sector and as it
grows and there’s advances in the technology you sort of see how it advances the
goals and in that way be better stewards of the environment. And then you also
see how it’s translating in to a better quality of life, not only for our residents
now, but sort of for the future generations. So, yeah I don’t see it as a theory, but
really in action” (Kantek 2012).

Kantek (2012) also notes that the Strategic Framework also serves to pull the ten goals
together. The following shows the ten goals broken out by primary focus according to the
Three E’s.
Table 57. San Jose Three E’s

General: Adopt a General Plan with measurable standards for sustainable development
Equity Economy Environment

25,000 Clean Tech jobs

Energy use
Electrical power from clean renewable sources

Green buildings

Waste

Wastewater

Public fleet vehicles run on alternative fuels

Plant 100,000 new trees and replace 100 percent
of our streetlights

100 miles of interconnected trails

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Clearly, there are no Green Vision goals that fall directly under the equity
category, and only one in the economy category, although a number of the environmental
goals do affect economy as well. Like Ashwini Kantek, Michael Brilliot highlights the
importance of the economy in the context of major fiscal crisis and economic distress in
the City:
“The economic part was a huge part of the Plan, and it’s for a couple reasons. One
is that, well one is San Jose aspires to be a regional job center. San Jose is the
largest, is the only bedroom community in the United States over 500,000 people.
So, meaning that the population at night is greater than the daytime population. So
people sleep here and they get up and they go to work somewhere else. And that’s
a real issue for the City; it’s partly the reason why the City organization is pretty
much, always on the verge of collapse. So our Planning Department went from
about 80 people to about 25. The decline started, probably in early 2009 when
they started laying people off, although people started leaving in 2008 and they
just cut their positions. So, that's one of the reasons is that houses suck up money
from the City and jobs either are neutral or bring in money. So, in the General
Plan update, there was a lot of focus on being an employment center, because of
the issues with the City’s finances. And also people just wanted jobs because they
needed jobs and people were unemployed” (Brilliot 2012).

Further, he notes that economy plays a major role in San Jose’s aspirations as a City
in the region:
“But the bigger picture is that San Jose really has the capacity and the
infrastructure to become the regional job center. And oftentimes it’s been sort
overlooked. Especially MTC and ABAG focus everything in San Francisco – all
the projected growth goes to San Francisco. Because everyone can ride transit and
BART into San Francisco. But we actually have a lot more land. And we have,
and will have, even really good transit infrastructure. So, ABAG and MTC, the
big transportation and land use agencies are starting to recognize San Jose as a
regional center for job growth. And the importance of San Jose now on the region.
So that’s kind of a shift” (Brilliot 2012).

Brilliot then discusses the role of equity, which did not seem to play a major role in the
Green Vision formation process or goals, but which did apparently come up through
community feedback during the Envision 2040 General Plan update:
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“In terms of equity, we didn’t get into it a lot. I think there was a lot of - it was, it
is in our Vision, it is talked about a bit. It’s really a hard one to address, and then
there was kind of a, part of the task force included, like neighbor representatives,
and then there was also more business representatives, and it became a real hot-
button issue, and so we kind of actually stayed away from getting into much detail
on that one. Just kind of left it at a high level, because it was not even like – for
example labor wanted to talk about having goals related to creating jobs for all
different skill levels and income levels, so it wouldn’t just be a high-tech center,
but there would also be opportunities for blue-collar jobs. The other side of the
table was like, ‘we’re not going to talk about that.’ Anyway, I don’t want you to
think that they were opposed to it, they just didn’t want to get into a whole, you
know, it just opened up a can of worms with the labor advocates” (Brilliot 2012).

Unfortunately, although labor advocates were at the table, the City did not feel equipped
to directly address some of the equity issues at hand. This does, however, highlight the
fact that labor and perhaps other equity advocates are indeed present and politically
active in San Jose. Brilliot continues, describing the degree to which he understands
equity to be a priority for the City.
“So, in some ways, we, yes, the Plan’s vision includes, equity is one of the key
vision elements, but we didn’t get into a lot of policy level stuff on that. I mean
we do in terms of services, so I can say that. In terms of the government providing
services, the Plan continues to be very much about equity and making sure
everybody, you know, gets an equitable amount of City resources: parks, police,
whatever it is. And the City’s been very good about that over the last 15 years.
There was a whole thing called the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative that focused a
lot of money into lower income areas that had been disinvested in for many years.
So that’s still there, in terms of providing services and things like that. But that’s
about the extent of it” (Brilliot 2012).

As with San Francisco, at least one interviewee in San Jose was able and willing to
directly address some of the real challenges in tackling equity in the City. What was
highlighted, however, was the fact that even though equity advocates were at the table in
the formation of the General Plan, equity still was only handled at an abstract level for
what appears to be political reasons. The political thorniness and riskiness of directly
dealing with equity at the level of forming specific goals appears to have been more than
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the City was willing to take on at the time. In San Jose, unlike in the other two cities, the
Green Vision was not created in the same holistic sustainability context as it was, at least
with regard to the language used in Santa Monica and San Francisco. The structure of the
Green Vision, without even an eye toward equity, reflects this, and may speak to the
value of starting at the very least with language identifying equity as a priority. Brilliot
does note the important point that San Jose, like the other two cities, does have a number
of human services available that are certainly relevant to equity. Also, economic
development in San Jose does not necessarily relate as closely with gentrification as it
does in Santa Monica and San Francisco, and so the conversation may be a little
different. Still, as reflected in Brilliot’s account, the draw of white-collar jobs is attractive
to San Jose, while attracting blue-collar jobs seemed politically unattractive to the City.
At the same time, San Jose’s immigrant and newcomer nature is what provides room for
some progressive environmental policies around things like land use, but the lower
income level of the city makes things like paying a premium for renewable energy less
viable. In all, equity proves to be as challenging to grapple with in San Jose as it does in
the other two cities, only with a different set of specific dynamics.
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How is the plan Implemented?
The Green Vision plan is implemented by staff leads in several departments, and
overall implementation is guided from the City Manager’s Office. While the City only
has 10 goals linked to individual indicator metrics, even these pose significant challenges
to implement. In San Jose, the Green Vision also has a layer of implementation occurring
at the General Plan level. Causal linkages between things like land use changes and
vehicle miles traveled and emissions are difficult to pin down, and are currently not
developed in San Jose. Implementation actually stretches over several departments and
require a certain amount of coordination, even though the goal areas are relatively simple.
Ashwini Kantek describes:
“It touches almost every department. And so that’s why it’s kind of housed, the
overall implementation is housed in our office, just because it’s hard, which
department would really take the lead? Because I mean, Environmental Services
definitely plays a strong role, you know right now I’m also in an acting role in
Environmental Services as their Assistant Director. So definitely, Green Vision is
a big part of, because four of the goals are really housed there. But at the same
time, they’re not really responsible for like trails, so you kind of need that central
body” (Kantek 2012).

She further describes the breakdown of roles with regard to implementation:

“So I work in the City Manager’s Office, and basically because these goals span
so many departments, we’ve sort of taken on more of a citywide approach to it.
So, the oversight, coordination, direction, happens from the Manager’s Office, so
I lead that, and then Amy works for me and sort of does a lot of the heavy lifting
on coordinating the report, annual report. We go to Council every year with that.
And the website, and you know all of the information that goes on it” (Kantek
2012).

Kantek continues to describe the general structure of implementation of the Green Vision
at the staff and committee levels:
“And then again, like I said, it was late 2007, so we’ve been into implementation
mode for a while. So we have what’s called the Green Vision Implementation
Team, which is actually meeting right now. And, more and more, Amy’s been
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leading that as I’ve taken on other roles and duties. And then, we also have a
Green Vision Steering Committee, which I lead. So the implementation team is
really the different goals leads getting together. And we used to meet fairly often
and now we feel like we’re sort of in a mode where everybody knows what they
are doing, initially we kind of had to get the group together” (Kantek 2013).

Kantek describes the funding challenges that the City has faced over the last several years
and how it has affected and continues to affect implementation:
“So you know there’s all these broad goals, but they didn’t really come with a
whole lot of money. And I don’t know if you’ve been following San Jose in the
news, but we’ve had budget deficits for like 10 years, we’ve had a significant
amount of cuts. Our staffing levels now are like what they were in the late 80’s,
when the population was three quarters of what it is now. So the resources have
sort of shrunk, and then again, these are stretch goals. So we’ve been really told
by Council, like, go get this done, but really find creative ways of getting it done.
And so we had to figure out how to organize the team so that it sort of gets, I
guess incorporated into the way we’re doing things. So that it’s not like one
separate add-on, that as we find time we do. But it kind of gets incorporated into
our work plans. And going after grants becomes part of what we do every year”
(Kantek 2012).

The main story of implementation of the Green Vision in San Jose is creative problem
solving. Each of the ten goals is complex in its own way and requires a good deal of work
without a lot of staff or funding behind it.
At what political and geographic level?
The Green Vision covers the City of San Jose, but does have some elements that
directly reach beyond the City Boundaries.
“San Jose, basically. Well, I’ll take that back a little bit, just because, I mean it
really is San Jose, it’s the San Jose Green Vision. But the beneficial use, the 100%
beneficial use of waste water, it does affect some other cities, because we have the
water pollution control plant, which not only serves San Jose, but it also serves
Santa Clara, and a bunch of other cities, call them tributary agencies. So decisions
we make on the recycled water sort of affect others as well. And recycled water
does serve Santa Clara. So even though we own the system it does serve Santa
Clara and Malpetas. So that's the only one I would say, sort of, it kind of spills
over. The other ones are really San Jose based. I mean obviously that doesn’t
mean we don’t work regionally on things, but the Plan itself just covers San Jose”
(Kantek 2012).
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Like all of the plans, it also touches and is touched by regional effects.
Kantek describes some of the details of how decisions get made with regard to
City Council. While Council is generally supportive and signs off on each year’s work
plan, every five years or so the Green Vision team and City Council have an in-depth
conversation about how to move forward.
“We’ve just been given direction, so again we go in March, in 2009, or 2010, no I
think it was 2009, we did a study session. So a study session is a much more
substantive discussion at Council meetings. So we have Council meetings every
Tuesday. And, the last two years we’ve had the report just accepted as part of a
regular Council meeting. So we’ve done a presentation, but it’s a shorter item. It
just adgendizes one of the items. When you do a study session, it’s a much more
substantive discussion about issues and wanting some policy direction certain
things. So we’ve just actually be directed, now that it’s five years almost, in
October, five years since its adoption, next March we’ll be going with a more
detailed study session, or a special session, where, not only will we talk about
progress and some key issues and opportunities, but they also want like us, to tie
it to what’s going with cap n trade, what are the funding opportunities related to
that that could help us advance the Green Vision” (Kantek 2012).

The Green Vision is definitely a living document insofar as it informs the jobs of
all staff leads, and also with regard to discussion and ongoing assessment at the
City Council level.
Kantek explains some of the specific challenges and opportunities that have arisen
in the learning process of implementation of the ten goals. Particularly, she notes that
some of the goals require research and infrastructure that require ramp-up time, so the
indicator metric may not reflect progress right away, but may grow exponentially toward
the end. She also notes, in a way particular to San Jose, that technological developments
are as of yet unknown, and will play into the progress of these goals over time.
“Where we’re leading, like on the streetlights, we’ve really been a leader in terms
of the LED streetlights and not just LED but smart lights. So that you can control,
and again we used some of that grant funding to be able to install. I mean we have
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62,000 lights in the City so the grant funding gives us money for 3,000. So it’s
still a lot more to go. But then, it allowed us to test out, see which ones work. We
have the Lake? Observatory here so we have to be careful about the night light
and how bright it is. So how can we control it and…I think that allows to build
on, ok so is it a regional effort that we can do, or is there a different financing
mechanism that we can look at? Should we do an infrastructure bond? This may
not be the time to do it, but maybe two years from now, that’s what we can do. So
it allows us to sort of use this money to test out different things and then at least
be able to take the first few steps, you know” (Kantek 2012).

Kantek also notes that some of the goals require strategic problem solving and potentially
political changes, as well as significant information gathering to even get off the ground:
“On the trees, we already have an ordinance in place that basically requires
residents or business owners to be responsible for the tree right in front of their
house, the street trees. But a lot of them don't do it, it’s vacant. They’re supposed
to plant them, maintain them, all of that. A lot of them are vacant. So we’ve talked
about, and then a lot of them…a city funding situation, I mean the maintenance is
on them, it’s not our responsibility. But ideally it would make sense, for
everybody to pay a little bit into something, so like property assessed, right, and
then we take care of it all. And you get the amount you would spend with that
kind of volume would be a lot less than if everybody’s just getting a tree trimmed
for a couple of thousand or whatever. But for us to be able to do that, we have to
first do a street tree inventory. So, on the graph, you may not see a lot of progress
in terms of net new trees because we really don’t have the money you we partner
with a non-profit to get some grants and plant trees, but that’s about it. But we
have been able to use grants to, like advance our street tree inventory. Once we
have that, that gives us the basis to even look at property assess fees. So some of
those you’ll see for some of the goals. Like some of the foundational stuff is just
taking longer, and we hope to see an exponential progress in later years” (Kantek,
2012).

With limited resources, the City has to be creative about implementation. Kantek
discusses the clean tech jobs goal, and how the City strategically partners with startup
companies and leverages its resources such as building space to move goals forward:
“One thing that we did do, as I talked about, what can the City do, policies. One
thing that we did do is we created a demonstration policy framework. So, basically
adopted a policy that would allow us to partner with people that have emerging
technologies. And allow them the use of City facilities, or properties to test out their
technologies. And so we’ve had some – just across the street – I don’t know how
aware you are of public contracting code and all of that, but you know we’re in the
public sector, so it’s very different from the private sector where you can just go
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sort of, you don’t have to do public bids, right? So, if say somebody wanted to
come and install something in the City, in a City property, normally you would
have to go through a formal bid process, go through all those steps, right? So we
said, how can we make this, how can we be more nimble and sort of be able to
respond to requests. And so we developed this policy which allows us to basically
partner with companies for short projects to again test out emerging technologies,
like they have unique product” (Kantek 2012).

She goes on to describe some of the problem-solving and decision-making process
required to sort out these partnerships and make sure they are fair at the business level:
“You know, we don’t have to go, like, do an ask. One of the ways we do like,
because you’re always open to, well you’re not fair, and you gave it to this
company, we do the same thing and why couldn’t we use City facilities to test our
product out? So what we did two years ago was we did like a general request for
information. Actually, not for information – RFI, but a request for interest. And
we basically said, if you have anything that you would like to propose that would
help advance our Green Vision goals, and you know, obviously listing them out,
proposals. And we got like 44 proposals. Out of which, maybe half the propoals –
they weren’t really demonstration partnerships, they would be like how we
procure services for something. Which would have to go through a bid process.
There’s nothing unique or emerging about their product. But the other ones, we
sort of, you know… And it has to, it can’t be like, oh we’d love to partner with
you, and can the City put in $5 million? I mean we just don’t have that kind of
money. So, we did come with, so our first demonstration project actually was the
Coolon charging stations. Right across the street on Santa Clara St. So that was
the first use of our demonstration policy. Then, and we did a partnership with
Armageddon energy to do - they had some unique solar clover-leaf panels, which
they are testing out on City Hall’s roof, one of the lower roofs. And I know we
did a bunch of others and I’m just blanking out. So we did maybe about 4 or 5
different demonstration partnerships” (Kantek 2012).

As in Santa Monica and San Francisco, even the most straightforward seeming indicator
metrics, such as planting trees, are actually very involved. In Kantek’s account about city
trees, a parallel emerges around the development of an urban forest database, master plan,
and an urban forester position in Santa Monica, as well as the limitations of funding and
the practical challenges of keeping trees healthy in San Francisco. San Jose clearly tries
to do as much as it can to leverage resources and to utilize the start-up culture of
innovation and technology in the Silicon Valley to implement the Green Vision goals.
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How do we measure sustainability?
The Green Vision goals are measured with fairly straightforward individual
indicators that represent the goals themselves. Several of the goals also have one or two
secondary indicators. Progress in the goal indicator metrics are reported upon each year
to the City Council. Ashwini Kantek describes the reporting process:
“What we do for our annual report – so we have to wait until about the March
timeframe because we have to get all the data based on that calendar year. And
then we kind of report on some of the – sometimes we have to wait a little bit
because some of the data we may get may be from the Water District, or from PG
&E or something so we just have to wait for that. And then what we do is we sort
of – so these are some of the reports and they’re all online. So you can just access
them all. I don’t know if you talked to Amy already about the website and all the
resources. We have fact sheets for each goal so you can sort of look for each goal,
what is it that we have accomplished, what are some of the key things. So when
we go to council we basically talk about key achievements in the last calendar
year, what have we done and then where are we at with each of the goals, related
to the 2022 targets. Some of the awards, recognition we may have received. And
then work plan highlights for, you know, kind of the next year. So we’re always,
the 2011 report goes to Council in March of 2012. And at that point they sign off
on the 2012 work plan. You see the executive summary and then the highlights,
but then you’ll actually see the entire work plan, as to what we’re doing in each of
the goals. And the way we’ve sort of been organizing this, because there’s just
been so much going on that we felt like we would look like a strategic
framework” (Kantek 2012).

The benefit of having a small number of goals with single indicator metrics attached, is
that the whole Green Vision can be reported upon annually. In Santa Monica and San
Francisco, reporting in full depth is a major process that can only realistically be done
every few years.
Do indicators change?
When asked whether the indicators have changed, Ashwini Kantek responded:
“They’ve been consistent. You know, we’ve talked about – besides, if you look in the
report you’ll see, besides the main goals, there are also some sub-performance metrics.
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And those have been tweaked, you know, over time. We sort of felt like they were
important to track, so besides just the overall number. But we haven’t really changed the
key things” (Kantek, 2012). Because the Green Vision is relatively young, and also
relatively straightforward and compact, it makes sense that the indicators have been
relatively consistent. Changing the metrics did not seem like a topic of consideration
among interviewees. The following are the outcomes for each goal area as provided by
the City of San Jose.

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What are the Outcomes?
The following is my assessment of how well the City is doing in each of the
Green Vision goal areas.
Table 58. San Jose goal areas and outcomes
Goal Area How well is the City Doing?
Create 25,000 Clean Tech
jobs as the World Center of
Clean Tech Innovation

Clean Tech jobs have been increasing steadily since 2007,
with the greatest gains from 2011-2012. If trends
continue, San Jose will be more than half way to its goal
before the 10-year mark of the Plan. Given that these
gains were made in the wake of a major economic
collapse, these gains look promising for the future.

Reduce per capita energy
use by 50 percent

2011 and 2012 data are not available for this indicator,
and per capita energy use only decreased 4.5% by 2010.
This goal relies a great deal on individual behavior outside
of the municipal government, making it more challenging.
However, if the City increases its outreach and
partnerships as planned, significant gains could be made.

Receive 100 percent of our
electrical power from clean
renewable sources
San Jose has only improved from 13 to 17 percent
renewable energy from 2007 to 2010. 2011 and 2012 data
are not available. This indicator requires a good deal of
initial investment and infrastructure, and so this indicator
could improve a great deal in a short time still.
Technology advances could also affect this indicator a
great deal.

Build or retrofit 50 million
square feet of green
buildings
While San Jose has developed 4.4 million square feet of
green buildings since the baseline 2007, the 50 million
square feet seems daunting. Still, with the economic
recovery since 2007, significant progress is possible over
the next 15 years.

Divert 100 percent of the
waste from our landfill and
convert waste to energy
The percentage of trash diverted from landfill has
increased from 63% to 71% since 2007. Reaching zero
waste is an aggressive target, but the City has made real
progress and could realistically come close to or reach the
goal by 2022.

Recycle or beneficially San Jose has increased its average daily use recycled to
300 
reuse 100 percent of our
wastewater (100 million
gallons per day)

10.6 million gallons per day, up from 10.1 in 2007.
However, this amount dipped in the intervening years, and
then increased again recently, indicating that the City may
be back on track to reach this goal.

Adopt a General Plan with
measurable standards for
sustainable development

The City’s General Plan does include the Green Vision
goals, as well as other relevant sustainability standards.
The City does not provide any direct data about the
amount of goals, but in-depth interviews indicate that this
goal is already very successful.

Ensure that 100 percent of
public fleet vehicles run on
alternative fuels

The percent “green fleet” rose from 34% to 40% from
2007. This goal is within the City’s direct power, so may
be relatively attainable by 2022.

Plant 100,000 new trees and
replace 100 percent of our
streetlights with smart, zero-
emission lighting

The tree-planting goal is the only goal that started at 0 at
baseline. Since 2007, 6,617 have been planted, which is a
major achievement, but is far from the 100,000 goal.
Interviews revealed that a large-scale count of existing
trees needs to be done to really get this goal underway.

Only 297 streetlights of the 62,000 in the city have been
replaced. However, this goal requires a great deal of
research and testing prior to wide-scale implementation,
so large strides could likely be made at one time.

Create 100 miles of
interconnected trails

San Jose has increased its trail mileage from 39.1 miles in
2007 to 53.7 miles in 2012; increasing consistently each
year. According to the City, San Jose has an award
winning trail program. It seems to be a robust goal, and on
its way to being met in 2022.

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San Jose provides a comprehensive graph of progress toward the goals:

Figure 2. San Jose progress toward Green Vision goals

Source: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=2737

This graph, however, reflects overall progress toward goals, rather then progress from a
2007 baseline (for example, trash diversion was already at 63% in 2007).
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Goal 1: Create 25,000 Clean Tech jobs as the World Center of Clean Tech
Innovation

Description and Analysis:

“It will take significant creativity and innovation to move the cities and countries of the
world toward a more sustainable environment, just as it did to move the world from the
industrial age into the age of silicon and high tech. More so than any region of the
world, San José and Silicon Valley are defined by the ability and willingness to
innovate and change. From the defense technologies of World War II, the
semiconductors and computers of the information age, or the evolution of the Internet
and the virtual world, our local innovations have changed the world.

As the world's most competitive knowledge economy and home to more than 1,500 of
the world's largest technology firms, San José is positioned to become a world center of
Clean Tech innovation. Numerous Clean Tech companies are already benefiting from
the region's unrivalled access to venture funding, highly skilled workers and
entrepreneurs, world-class research institutions, supportive government policies, and
cutting-edge technology incubators like San José's Environmental Business Cluster and
the San José BioCenter.

In this tradition, San José, the Capital of Silicon Valley, will inspire the next wave of
innovation: the Clean Technologies that will help the world face the growing climate
crisis and meet unprecedented global energy needs. These technological innovations
will harness the power of renewable energy sources, manage natural resources more
efficiently, and reduce the environmental impacts of human activity.

San José companies are inventing, demonstrating, and producing the innovations that
will serve communities, businesses, and residents around the world. As a result, local
residents are already seizing the emerging economic opportunities to find well-paying
jobs that are unlikely to be outsourced” (San Jose 2012b).

Table 59. San Jose Clean Tech outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
Clean Tech Jobs 25,000 jobs 10,176

Clean-Tech Ready Workers Trained 2,000 Participants

769
Cumulative Venture Capital
Investments Locally
$25 Billion $8.1 Billion
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)
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Figure 3. San Jose Clean Tech Jobs outcomes

Source: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?nid=2743

Ashwini Kantek describes some of the strategy behind the clean tech jobs goal:
“Intentionally, clean tech jobs was placed as the first goal. And it’s, so it’s 2,500
clean tech jobs is sort of the target. We have our Office of Economic
Development there on this floor itself. They are very focused on, not just
encouraging and wooing businesses to come, but also specifically in this clean
tech area we have already a great talent pool and company pool in the Silicon
Valley” (Kantek 2012).

She continues to describe some of the innovative approaches the City is taking to
secure partnerships to move the goal forward:
“And now we are building, like I told you, we go this new market tax credit
financing for a facility which is called the Environmental Innovation Center.
And part of it - so the Center kind of serves different purposes, but one part of
it, it’s going to be, it’s called Prospect of Silicon Valley. And it’s really clean
tech Silicon Valley. So part of Prospect is CT, Silicon Valley. So, and it’s really
about again being sort of a demonstration, incubation kind of place. So we are
already getting partnerships and sponsorships for that, for business to come and
test out different things. And it’ll be sort of partnered with Habitat’s Restore
store as well. So you know there’s some synergy, there’s a household hazardous
waste dropoff facility” (Kantek 2012).

And she describes the role of the economy in the Green Vision priorities, noting the
304 
strength of clean tech jobs even in a down economy, which is very relevant to the City
given their recent history of fiscal turmoil.
“So there’s a lot of things happening there. But it’s, the economy part, I mean
we’ve, even when they were in the middle of a recession, the clean tech jobs
were still growing. And there’s a Next 10 report that done by a group that talks
about clean tech jobs. And we’ve always struggled a little bit with the definition
of clean tech jobs. We sort of go with that industry report, because, is it just
R&D, is it a construction job that works, somebody who works on a green
building. Not necessarily, so we’ve sort of struggled with that a little bit, and
made some adjustments. You know, it’s definitely R&D, but it is also when it’s
a company that does renewable energy or does something that’s really changing
the technology for one of our areas of clean tech, then count all the jobs in
there” (Kantek 2012).

Jobs in general, as mentioned by Michael Brilliot, are a major priority for the City,
which is trying to move away from being a bedroom community to improve its overall
fiscal situation. Even with the financial crisis since 2007, the number of clean tech jobs
has climbed in San Jose, indicating that the City’s efforts are likely having at least some
effect, if not a strong effect. Kantek’s account adds some depth to the process of the
development of this goal and the movement of its indicator metric.
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Goal 2: Reduce per capita energy use by 50 percent
Description and Analysis:

“We've set a goal of reducing per capita energy consumption by half and receiving 100
percent of our electrical power from clean renewable sources by 2022. The City of San
José will lead the way, but we can't achieve this goal alone. Residents and businesses
will play a significant role in this effort. Doing so will help cut consumption, reduce
costs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels to help reduce energy consumption and
operating expenses. Energy efficiency saves money and is worth the upfront
investment.

The City of San José will partner with residents, private sector entrepreneurs, and civic
organizations to become more efficient by encouraging the adoption of energy saving
products such as, lighting, energy monitoring systems, smart cooling systems and green
roofs.

The City will also partner with the United States Department of Energy, the
Environmental Protection Agency, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, and other
organizations to measure its energy consumption and to develop new implementation
strategies for efficiencies. As a result of these efforts, we believe that the San José
community will reduce its electrical energy consumption by 50 percent per capita by
2022” (San Jose).

Table 60. San Jose Energy Use outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
(2011)
Per Capita Energy Use

50% Reduction (4,249 KWh) 8,109 KWh
Municipal Energy Use

50% Reduction (191 KWh)

339 KWh
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 4. San Jose Per Energy Use outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2947/GOAL%202%20Per%20Capita%20Energy%20Use.jpg

Kantek briefly notes, “And we’ve had a lot of success on the energy front. Though it’s a
long ways to go, but we’ve been, you with the stimulus funding, Recovery Act, we got
about a $109 million for the City, and a lot of it, well, in different areas. But we got about
$10 to 12 million for energy related stuff. And so that really helped us do a lot with it.
Some in the community, and some on the municipal side” (Kantek, 2012). She adds,
“I’d say for us, one of the biggest challenges is not having a utility. You know, if
we had our own power utility, we’d have a lot more flexibility on how, what our
priorities are, how we’d want to price power, how we’d want to use it to attract
businesses. How we’d want to use it to reward green businesses. We could do a
lot. Right now it’s just PG &E. So we try our best to work with them, but it’s
challenging. And you know, like San Francisco has their own utility, and Santa
Monica I’m not sure actually. But like Santa Clara does, and they have a lot more
flexibility with what they can do. And that’s we looked at the community choice
aggregation. But it really wasn’t penciling out for us to pursue at this point at
least. So I’d say that’s one of the big challenges. And you know money is always
- having money dedicated, so a plan coming well-funded would always be much
better than not. But I would say that it has forced us to be more innovative, be
more creative about how we go look for funds and get things done. That maybe if
money was just provided, things wouldn’t be that way” (Kanetk, 2012).

307 
This is a tricky indicator, because energy prices, as well as the larger economic picture
that can drive consumer behavior, is outside of the City’s control. Clearly, more work
remains, but some significant progress has been made, perhaps because of the federal
stimulus funding.
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Goal 3: Receive 100 percent of our electrical power from clean renewable sources

Description and Analysis:

“Currently, only 17 percent of the electrical power used in San José comes from
renewable sources. At 5.3 billion kilowatt hours a year, switching to 100 percent clean
renewable energy sources will drastically reduce San José's carbon footprint. Providing
affordable renewable options to all electricity users in San José is an ambitious goal,
and it will require both innovation and investment.

One means of achieving this goal is through solar energy. We have the sunshine, and
the solar technology innovations being developed here. The City of San José can save
money and help the environment by installing solar on our City facilities, and we can
make it easier for individuals and business to do the same. We will support power
purchase agreements, helping homeowners and businesses to facilitate the procurement
of solar energy technology.

Through partnerships with residents, private sector leaders, and civic organizations, San
José will become a national solar showcase with cutting-edge demonstration projects,
residential and commercial bulk purchasing arrangements, and solar-powered public
buildings. In addition to harnessing solar power, San José will also support the
development of innovative technologies and evaluate the use of other clean energy
sources, such as wind, water, geothermal, hydrogen, biomass, electrochemical and fuel
cell technologies” (San Jose 2011d).

Table 61. San Jose Renewable Energy outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
(2011)
Renewable Energy Generation

100% 17%
Solar Energy in San Jose

TBD

44.4
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 5: San Jose Renewable Energy outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2948/GOAL%203%20Renewable%20Energy%20Generation.jpg
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Goal 4: Build or retrofit 50 million square feet of green buildings

Description and Analysis:
“Ensuring sustainable construction and promoting green building practices are an
essential component of our Green Vision. An estimated 70 percent of the community's
total energy use and 16 percent of its water goes to buildings. We can change this by
building green or retrofitting our existing buildings to reduce energy and water use and
incorporate sustainable construction materials. This will significantly reduce our carbon
impact. Our goal is big: In 15 years, San José will be home to 50 million square feet of
green buildings - the equivalent of nearly 100 buildings the size of San José City Hall.
Whether new construction or retrofitted structures, these buildings will meet high
environmental standards, such as achieving a U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design (LEEDTM) certification. These energy efficient
buildings will provide a showcase for local Clean Tech products as well as innovations in
green building materials, local commitment to sustainable practices, and the fiscal
benefits of building green. The City of San José has already started at home. This City
has its offices in the first LEED Platinum City Hall in the nation and has opened several
LEED certified buildings including Happy Hollow Zoo and Park (the first LEED certified
zoo in the nation) and the West Valley Branch Library (the first LEED Certified library
in the world). The City has adopted aggressive green building policies for both, the public
and private sector.

In addition to facilitating new green construction, we will work towards reducing energy
use and carbon emissions of existing buildings by encouraging owners to upgrade air
conditioning, heating and ventilation systems, retrofit lighting systems, and adopt other
green operating practices. We will also support innovation in green building materials
and systems technology, raise awareness of the benefits of green practices, and provide
incentives for individuals who want to build green and use Clean Tech products” (San
Jose 2012e).

Table 62. San Jose Green Building outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
(2011)
Certified Green Building Space

50 Million Square Feet 5.4 Million Square
Feet
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 6: San Jose Green Building outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2949/GOAL%204%20Certified%20Green%20Building%20Spac
e.jpg
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Goal 5: Divert 100 percent of the waste from our landfill and convert waste to energy

Description and Analysis:

“We want San José to become a zero waste city. Zero Waste is a systems approach to
eliminating the impacts of products and packaging, resource use and reutilization through
the implementation of modern materials management and greenhouse gas reduction
programs. Impacts are designated as upstream impacts (e.g., pre-consumer, resource
extraction, and production of goods) and downstream impacts (e.g., post-consumer, end
of life, and waste management).
Instead of sending 569,000 tons of garbage to our landfills annually, we are working to
divert 100 percent of the waste we generate. Currently, San José has one of the highest
recycling rates in the nation. We recycle over 71 percent of our garbage and trash
citywide. San José residents recycle 293,000 tons each year through the curbside Recycle
Plus program alone.

First, we start by reducing the quantity of waste we create. We will increase the amount
we recycle, and we’ll reuse more products. In addition, San José will become a world
leader in adopting cutting-edge technologies that transform waste into usable energy.
Through partnerships with innovative companies, San José will convert solid waste and
biosolids into biodiesel, methanol, biogas, and electricity that will power municipal
facilities” (San Jose 2011f).

Table 63. San Jose Zero Waste outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
Trash Diverted From Landfills

100% 71%
Waste Converted to Energy Tons

TBD 18,205
Waste Converted to Energy (KWh)

TBD 31.9
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 7: San Jose Zero Waste outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2950/GOAL%205%20Trash%20Diverted%20from%20Landfills.
jpg
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Goal 6: Recycle or beneficially reuse 100 percent of our wastewater (100 million
gallons per day)

Description and Analysis:

“As California grows, the value of a reliable water supply becomes ever more important.
We must lead by example by utilizing our precious resources wisely and efficiently.
Recycled water has proven to be a valuable resource for irrigation, cooling and
manufacturing, and there are many more opportunities to expand these uses.

Today, South Bay Water Recycling recycles about 10.6
101
million gallons per day,
reaching customers through 130 miles of dedicated piping, pumps, and reservoirs. By
connecting new users to the recycled water system, San José can double the amount of
recycled water delivered to major businesses, City parks and landscaping, and school
grounds.

Over the next 15 years, we will achieve our Green Vision Goal No. 6 by beneficially
reusing 100 percent of wastewater that would have otherwise been lost to the Bay - 100
million gallons per day - through a combination of water conservation, expanded use of
recycled water, and habitat protection. By making the most of this reliable water source,
we will ensure that San José and surrounding communities have a sustainable water
supply for future generations” (San Jose 2011g).

Table 64. San Jose Wastewater outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
Average Daily Use Recycled

40 Million Gallons Per Day 8.1 Million Gallons
Per Day
Average Daily Use Potable Water

40% Reduction (90 Gallons Per
Capita Per Day)

121 Gallons Per
Capita Per Day
Number of Recycled Water
Customers

1,000 Total Customers 622 Total Customers
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

101
This was previously written and read “8.1” when published.
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Figure 8: San Jose Wastewater Recycling outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2951/GOAL%206%20Average%20Daily%20Use%20Recycled%
20Water.jpg
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Goal 7: Adopt a general plan with measurable standards for sustainable development

Description and Analysis:

This goal area does not have performance metrics like the other goal areas. Instead, San
Jose provides the following description:
“The Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan is a blueprint for the future of the city,
identifying a land use and transportation network plan and establishing land use and
municipal service policies to guide the City’s achievement of its sustainability goals
through the year 2040. The Plan is community-based, directly rooted in the values and
goals consistently expressed by community members throughout the Envision General
Plan Update process. Several thousand community members participated to varying
degrees in the mix of traditional and innovative community engagement activities that
were a part of this award winning 4-year planning process. Environmental leadership and
environmental sustainable land use planning practices were consistently identified as one
of the community’s top priorities.

Accordingly, the Plan includes progressive policies to promote alternative modes of
transportation, foster the development of green industry, protect natural resources,
mitigate environmental hazards and achieve other environmental leadership goals. The
Plan addresses the all areas of city life, including policies for the quality of new
development and the provision of critical services, such as police and fire protection,
parks, libraries, etc., to ensure a balanced and well-functioning city.

The Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan incorporates measurable standards for the
established Green Vision goals (e.g., reduce per capita energy consumption 50% by 2022,
replace 100% of the City’s streetlights with smart, zero emission lighting by 2022, etc.)
and establishes additional measurable standards for other areas of environmental
leadership (e.g., recycle or beneficially reuse 100% of the City’s wastewater, achieve 50
Million gallons per day of water conservation savings, support installation of 200,000
solar roofs by 2040, provide all residents with access to trails within 3 miles of their
homes, achieve 70,000 Clean Technology jobs by 2040). The Envision General Plan
Land Use / Transportation Diagram supports a mix of land uses that encourages greater
transit use, increased bicycling and walking, and more efficient use of existing
infrastructure as part of the City’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions” (San Jose
Green Vision General Plan Page: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=2952)

“As noted above, the Envision San José 2040 General Plan policies include performance
measures for a wide range of sustainability indicators, incorporating the Green Vision
and other goals related to land use planning and the delivery of City services. Land use
related performance metrics could include measures such as the percentage of City
residents living within a “complete community” as defined by a certain walking distance
of transit and various services. This metric is the starting point for determining reductions
in Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and Greenhouse Gases (GHG). Actual VMT on a year-
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to-year basis is difficult to measure, but associated indicators such as changes in transit
ridership, census journey-to-work data, and other information can provide a measure of
progress.

Periodic modeling to assess the effects of land use changes and development over a four-
year timeframe of the Major Review of the General Plan could provide benchmarks in the
reduction of GHG emissions. The first Annual Review of the new General Plan is
scheduled for 2013. Over the next year appropriate key standards will be developed to
determine the City’s progress in implementing the General Plan and its sustainability
goals” (San Jose 2012h).

Michael Brilliot, a lead urban planner working on Envision 2040, describes how the
Green Vision and the General Plan interact. When asked about the Green Vision in
relation to the General Plan he says:
“I think the Green Vision is much more of like a work program of immediate
goals that we’re trying to achieve. And being kept on task, checking in, you know
how are we progressing on trails? Amy Chan could probably answer some of this.
The General Plan is a much larger plan that looks at a longer time frame. And we
do have implementation, I don’t know if you call it a program, but there is
measurable goals and things in there, and we are going to be tracking
implementation. That hasn't totally been figured out yet. But I think the Green
Vision is a lot more sort of discrete, measureable tasks that people are working on
right now. That, I guess there’s a question of what will happen to it after the,
when there’s a new mayor, but it is incorporated into the General Plan, so. But a
new mayor, given the way this place is, a new mayor’s not likely to go backwards
on this stuff, they might just add to it” (Brilliot 2012).

In all, the Green Vision is quite thoroughly incorporated into the General Plan, Envision
2040.
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Goal 8: Ensure that 100 percent of public fleet vehicles run on alternative fuels

Description and Analysis:

“Green Mobility must also focus on transporting people from place to place with the
express intent of reducing carbon emissions by decreasing dependency on fossil fuels to
operate our vehicles and reducing the environmental impacts created by the vehicles we
must use. We must expand the use of public transportation by creating more Bus Rapid
Transit lines, encouraging more people to ride light rail and participate in ride-share
programs, developing subscription bus service, building BART, and bringing high-speed
rail to San José.

San José is leading by example by developing a “Green Fleet” policy to guide the
transformation of the City’s fleet. The City has implemented the use bio-diesel fuels with
the existing fleet and has made positive strides towards acquiring green vehicles while
providing support for alternatively fueled vehicles throughout the entire fleet inventory.
Work is currently underway to expand the inventory of public EV plug-in stations and
access to alternative fueling depots including Compressed Natural Gas.

We encourage the development of smaller, lighter, and alternative fuel vehicles for mass
and private transit to reduce adverse impacts on our environment. The City of San José is
establishing a center to stimulate the development of such clean, alternative fuel vehicles
using Silicon Valley technology” (San Jose 2012i).

Table 65. San Jose Green Fleet outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
Alternative Fuel Vehicles

100% of Public Fleet 40% of Public Fleet
Annual Fuel Consumption
(Gasoline)

750,000 1,134,279
Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

13,000 CO2 Tons 15,900
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 9: San Jose Green Fleet outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2953/GOAL%208%20Alternative%20Fuel%20Vehicles.jpg
320 
Goal 9: Plant 100,000 new trees and replace 100 percent of our streetlights with smart,
zero-emission lighting

“Trees provide shade, reduce energy costs, capture greenhouse gases, filter air pollutants,
reduce erosion, and boost property values. San José is committed to the growth and care
of our Community Forest which includes trees on streets, in parks and open spaces, and
on private property. 36% of plantable sites in neighborhoods are currently vacant.

San José pays $4 million each year to power our 62,000 streetlights. We are currently
piloting more energy efficient and longer-lasting lights which will help us significantly
reduce our energy use and costs.”

“San Jose’s Community Forest
San José’s previous efforts to protect and grow its forest have been fruitful. Since its
founding in 1994, Our City Forest has planted over 50,000 trees. The City’s tree policies
have significantly reduced the number of healthy, large canopy trees that have been
unnecessarily topped. Residents are generally more aware of their responsibilities
regarding the care and maintenance of trees. Still, the City’s community forest is at risk.

Changing weather patterns, dwindling water supplies, poor pruning, inappropriate tree
selections made years ago, and limited City funding to maintain the City’s trees all
threaten the immediate and long-term health of San José’s community forest. Ironically,
in part because of the changes our climate is undergoing, the need for valuing an
investment in the City’s community forest is even more acute.

Protecting and nurturing the health and growth of San José’s trees, expanding their
number, and extending their reach into all of the City’s neighborhoods will require a
concerted effort by the City, its community forest partners and its residents. By
expanding the urban forest, we will cool our streets and sidewalks, clean our air, improve
water quality, and help convert carbon dioxide emissions to oxygen.

Smart, Zero Emission Streetlights

From traffic signals to streetlights, we can make San José streets smarter and
environmentally friendly. We will adopt advanced technology such as light emitting
diode (LED) lighting equipped with network control and monitoring systems that will
allow the City to dim its lights in the late evening hours when there is minimal to no
traffic. This will enable us to reduce our energy consumption, eliminate wasted light, and
protect the night sky.

We will test new ways to pave streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and trails. New pervious
surfaces, which allow water to penetrate the surface, offer great promise for being better
for our environment. By expanding the urban forest, we will cool our streets and
sidewalks, clean our air, improve water quality, and help convert carbon dioxide
emissions to oxygen.

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We must encourage more pedestrian and bicycle travel. One option is to install attractive,
covered facilities along City sidewalks that will make it more convenient and comfortable
for residents to walk and cycle. These cooling stations would serve as bike lockers or
benches where people can rest or wait for a bus. At the same time, the stations would
collect solar power to run adjacent streetlights” (San Jose 2011j).

Table 66. San Jose Street Trees and Smart Streetlights outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
New Trees Planted

100,000 6,617
Smart Streetlights

100% of Streetlights (62,000
lights)

297 lights
Streetlight Energy Use

50% Reduction (17.0) 33,900
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

Figure 10: San Jose Street Trees outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2954/GOAL%209%20New%20Trees%20Plant
ed.jpg

322 
Figure 11: San Jose Smart Streetlights outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2954/GOAL%209%20Smart%20Streetlights.jp
g
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Goal 10: Create 100 miles of interconnected trails

Description and Analysis:

“San José has over 53 miles of trails and 200 miles of on-street bikeways developed
throughout the City. By 2022, the City seeks to further develop and interconnected trails
in order to provide a 100-mile network and a 400-mile on-street network to support
commuting and recreation. In its current state, a trail or bikeway is within 2 miles of all
residents.

This well distributed network of trails and bikeways is one reason why over 50% of
persons using the Guadalupe River Trail are commuting to and from work by bicycle.
San José’s trails and bikeways offer every resident an opportunity to enjoy nature, travel
by bike, avoid automobile traffic, save money on gasoline and reduce pollution.

San José trails are recognized by the Federal Highway Administration for transportation
planning excellence. Prevention Magazine annually surveys the nation’s best walking
cities and recognizes that San José has the most urban trails. The League of American
Bicyclists ranks San José as a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly Community. The great
weather, access to nature and the high quality of life are primary reasons for businesses to
consider locating in San José. The City's well developed trails and bikeways provide a
great means for employees to take full advantage of the city's resources as part of a daily
commute” (San Jose 2012k).

Table 67. San Jose Trails outcomes

Performance Metrics

2022 Target Current Amount
Trail Miles (Off-Street)

100 Miles 53.7 Miles
Bikeway Miles (On-Street)

400 Miles

260.0 Miles
Source (exact quotes): (San Jose 2011b)

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Figure 12. San Jose Trails outcomes

Source:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/images/pages/N2955/GOAL%2010%20Trail%20Miles%20Off
%20Street.jpg
325 
Chapter 8: Lessons Learned
Upon embarking on this research, the practical question I sought to address was:
do sustainability plans achieve measurably movement toward sustainability? I have found
that, yes, absolutely sustainability plans do achieve measurably movement toward
sustainability, on more than one level. Through my in-depth case study approach, a
complex and interesting story about why and how urban sustainability plans affect
outcomes has emerged. A close look a the processes within three cities reveals a great
deal about what makes sustainability plans, and what makes them strong. The three key
lessons that run throughout my study highlight the ways that cities can create more
sustainable systems, both internally and in harmony with external systems. I argue that
these lessons can be, in fact, transferrable to other cities. While these cases are indeed
unique, every city is unique, and even the extent to which these cases are similar serves to
reveal how different the history and personality of each city is. While some cities
certainly have advantages in moving forward plans like these, the basic building blocks
of a plan that can positively affect outcomes can be found in many cities. Certainly, the
lessons will have to be applied with an eye to the unique nature of each city and its
strengths and relative disadvantages. However, I do believe that most cities could benefit
from a sustainability plan, and can successfully create and implement one that can bring
measurable benefits in a relatively short time. Cities can also help each other by sharing
information and resources, and organizations such as ICLEI can be a great help in
providing resources to cities of all sizes, political persuasions, and levels of wealth.
In all three cities, I found significant evidence that sustainability plans do, indeed
matter. In Santa Monica, a number of important tangible goals have been accomplished
326 
in the last 17 years, including path-breaking progress in water self-sufficiency and urban
forest planning. Santa Monica’s Plan also inspired the development of a robust Office of
the Sustainability and the Environment, situated in the City Manager’s Office, and
committed to implementation of the Plan. In San Francisco, enormous amounts have been
accomplished within in the same time frame. San Francisco’s Department of the
Environment was created the same year as the Sustainability Plan was adopted, its staff
growing from 3 to currently over 100. The City has nearly accomplished some aggressive
and also path-breaking goals like citywide zero waste. In San Jose, success is harder to
measure all the way back to the time when the initial sustainability language was first
introduced, however significant progress had been made since the adoption of the Green
Vision in 2007. San Jose has made strides in creating clean tech jobs, even in the face of
a major nationwide economic downturn. The City is also a leader in some environmental
goals, such as smart streetlights and urban trails, even though the indicator metrics do not
yet reflect all progress made. In every case, other plans and policies are directly affected
and changed by the presence of the sustainability plans, while this manifests differently in
each city. All of the cities also engage in outreach and education that is difficult to
quantify in terms of outcomes. While not every casual linkage between the plans and
quantifiable outcomes can be nailed down, the case study approach reveals the depth and
complexity behind the formation and implementation of the plans. In all three cases, the
human side of the plans’ stories emerges, illuminating the cultural and institutional
importance of each of the plans within the municipal governments and throughout the
cities. One thing is clear: these plans are not merely for show. While they may have their
public relations elements (which are legitimately important), all three of the plans have
327 
very real effects that run deeply through the cities and affect behavior and outcomes on
several levels. While these plans do require major investments of time and money, the
time and money are well spent, as these plans serve their purpose, rather than sitting on
the shelf.
In Santa Monica, there was certainly a learning curve in the first ten years or so of
having a plan, and initial investments may not have shown up in the indicators right
away. Still, over the course of 17 years of having its Sustainability Plan, significant
successes in Santa Monica are obvious. In general, all interviewees in Santa Monica
viewed the Plan as successful. Most mentioned the movement of indicators as evidence
of success, but also mentioned “soft” successes such as community education and a
cultural shift within the municipal government itself. When asked if she thinks the Plan
has been successful, Josephine Miller mentions both hard and soft successes in the City:
"Absolutely, I mean I think – this isn’t my area, but just the awareness of the
effect of what our fleet, and what kind of vehicles are in our fleet and the impact
that has on the environment, and anybody that drives a City car – just without
having any knowledge about the environment learns from the car they’re driving.
So there are little things like that that are you know – seeing our City forest
develop and 1,000 trees being planted I’m trying to think of facts in our city
which have an impact on the environment that a normal person would not make
that relationship" (Miller 2012).

Miller also mentioned community planning occurring around the future light rail stations in
Santa Monica, inspired with a citywide awareness of sustainability. Brenden McEneany,
green building specialist, also discusses soft successes and success that are not immediately
captured by the indicators:
"You know I think the Plan has been – it’s definitely been successful in that it
gives us kind of a driving purpose, and a directive for the programs that we do. I
would say it could be more successful and will be more successful as we focus on
more outcome-based measurement of what we’re trying to accomplish. You know
it’s tough to – I mean take for example our Solar Santa Monica program where
328 
basically what we provide is information for residents, and so one of the
arguments for that is that instead of just taking the money to create programming
and giving homeowners cash to do solar as an incentive, there’s kind of this soft
marketing or indirect education of the community that needs to happen before
people will adopt say green practices. That’s another tough one where I think
we’ve been really successful in a lot of the education and outreach, and that
doesn’t always show up as direct, you know gallons of water saved or energy
efficiency. But even on those metrics, I think we have been successful. Certainly
on the water side, we’ve had a lot of water programs. I think on hazardous waste
too, it’s great to see how much diversion we’ve been able to achieve. And
recycling has been one of the keystones of environmental issues and Santa
Monica was a leader in it. And so still to this day, waste diversion is an important
part of what we do” (McEaney 2012).

Russell Ackerman notes reflects on the importance of Santa Monica’s role as a leader among
cities:
"I think if you look at Santa Monica, it’s kind of a barometer for things that are often
replicated in other cities and also by the state because we put a lot of staff time, of
money, energy and committed effort into implementing this Plan and it’s a – this is
also what the residents of Santa Monica have asked for – so when the residents ask
for it then we’re doing our job as a municipality and we’re here to serve our
community so if the community wants there to be more sustainable effort in the City
than we will work toward those efforts and make the Plan – implement it as
effectively and reasonably as possible” (Ackerman 2012).

Overall, the interviews revealed that Santa Monica’s Plan serves as an accountability tool
for the municipal government, as well as an organizational tool that encourages City
departments to communicate and function in a more coherent way. The structure of the
its umbrella nature makes it so different departments are moving in the same direction
consistently, while the feedback mechanisms allow for adjustment and improvement over
time. This process feeds into overall accountability so citizens can understand the
direction and goals of the government.
San Francisco’s Plan is also very successful and important to the City, but in a
different way than Santa Monica’s. San Francisco took a community-first approach, and
while its Plan is deeply embedded in the existing institutions, it is not thought about or
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referred to on a daily basis. The policies of the Environmental Code stemmed directly
from the Plan, and all of the work of the Department of the Environment is informed by
it. David Assmann comments on the nature of the Plan’s success:
“Well, it has been successful in that it was a good blueprint for a lot of different
actions. I mean, there’s no shortage of things to focus on as a result of the Plan.
Which is what some agencies and some cities have a hard time with, is where do
you start? This tells us more than what we need to know as to where we can start
and what needs to happen. And it’s been successful in that a number of these
things have been implemented. But it’s been unsuccessful in that a lot of them
haven’t, too. So it’s been both, yeah” (Assmann 2012).

Jared Blumenfeld, when asked whether the Plan has been successful in its intention,
responded:
“Yeah! I think it’s been a resounding success. And it was really important to do. It
provided political impetus to do more. So we had a document, we needed to
implement it. Let’s work out how to do that” (Blumenfeld 2013).

Mei Ling, who works on the ground with the Department of the Environment notes,
“I think it’s good to have it. While it might not be a daily reference document,
because it has helped build programs as far as I could see. And we do reference it
in some other ways. I know other programs reference it in other ways, like the
Climate Action Team and zero waste goals that we’re trying to meet for the City.
We’re exceeding our zero waste goals for the City. When you put, when we put
stretch goals into a plan, and then we stretch and try and reach them, and then we
do reach them or we reach further than them, I think that does help. I think – I
think I’m more of a person that likes to have a clear road map though, and so, but
I would say, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I think it helps. Absolutely” (Ling 2012).

Laura Tam of SPUR, when asked how the City is doing with regard to sustainability said,
“Good, I think. I don’t know who to credit for this, but when I look back over the
list of options that we evaluated in 2009 in terms of climate actions that could be
taken, a lot of them have been taken. It’s pretty awesome. Not necessarily for that
reason alone, but because they were probably good ideas anyway. But also
because, you know, we’ve made a lot of progress in certain areas. We’ve done,
we’ve tightened, we have a really strong green building ordinance. We’ve gotten,
we’ve got a program to deliver energy efficiency to existing homes and
commercial businesses. We’ve gotten an energy reporting requirement for
commercial properties. We’ve got mandatory recycling and composting. We’ve
got, oh, everybody’s trying to work on the transportation, to make it work better.
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That’s not moving forward as quickly but people are really trying and they are
very earnest and serious about it, and it will probably happen. So I would say that,
like a lot of things that we - we’ve got the solar incentive program, we’ve got,
what else, I’m trying to think of other categories of things. Anyway there’s been a
– I think there has been a lot of progress” (Tam 2013).

Overall, although nobody really refers San Francisco’s Sustainability Plan on a regular
basis, it is the foundation of the City’s sustainability efforts on several levels. As with
Santa Monica, it put San Francisco on the map as one of the first cities serious about
sustainability in the 1990’s. And it lives on as the basis for San Francisco’s current
sustainability-oriented programs and policies, which continue to boast a number of
significant successes.
San Jose’s sustainability planning has been successful in different way than the
other two cities. San Jose’s early sustainability language was adopted into its General
Plan in 1994, actually earlier than the other two plans were adopted. However, San Jose
never had a full-scale sustainability plan until the Green Vision was adopted in 2007. The
Green Vision is considerably more limited in scope and scale than the other two plans,
however it still plays an important role in the City. The Green Vision is also fully
incorporated into San Jose’s new Envision 2040 General Plan, which expands its
potential implementation reach. Overall, in spite of the fact that San Jose suffered
considerably more in the financial crisis of 2007 and subsequent fallout than the other
two cities did, the City has still made very concerted efforts and real progress in its Green
Vision goals. Ashwini Kantek discusses the plan goals, as well as its role as a unifying
umbrella document for the City:
“So we are still a long ways from, you know, and again, we are still ten years out
and we don’t know how technology’s going to change and stuff. So, but and you
may have already looked at it, but this sort of gives you a snapshot of where we
were at the end of last calendar year, right? And you can see that some of the
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ones, like renewable energy generation – we’re a long way away, but again we
don’t know how technology going to change. And in some ways some of these
really were stretch goals. You know, so, I think if we didn’t quite get to that 100%
we’d be ok because we’d still be at a pretty good place. I would say the only thing
in the formation may be that there isn’t a lot in terms of vehicle miles traveled.
Again, it was supposed the big umbrella of the General Plan, but there aren’t
specifics, about transit, that sort of stuff in here. So that was like a missing area,
but overall, I think, I feel like the plan provides us with direction to sort of move
toward common goals. Because so many people are involved and if we didn’t
have some like overarching plan that brings it all together, we would still be doing
good things, I think but it wouldn’t necessarily be so incorporated into our work
plans. Wouldn’t have buy-in form the Council unanimously, wouldn’t allow us to
sort of all move towards achieving these goals. We’d probably be a little more
siloed” (Kantek 2012).

The Green Vision is a living plan that plays a significant role in the City of San Jose, and
affects real outcomes on the ground. Perhaps the most important overall finding is that all
three plans live on in very significant ways unique to each city’s history, as many as 17
years after adoption, rather than being put aside and collecting dust.
People, Programs, Purpose

Through these three case studies, I’ve found that people, programs, and purpose
make a sustainability plan strong. People include the local community and their
prevailing supportive mindset, as well as community and civic leaders. Programs include
measurable goals linked to policies, with funding, staff, and legal legitimacy. And
purpose is the driving intention that gives a plan meaning and propels it forward. People
bring a plan to life and keep it alive, programs provide the structures for implementation
and accountability, and purpose defines the goals and path of a plan.
The evolution and implementation of plans vary across cities, but there are some
key factors that seem to affect importance and overall effectiveness. Mayoral support,
dynamic leadership, community involvement, existence of goals and indicators, funding,
and legal legitimacy of the plan are all important factors in the existence and relative
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effectiveness of the plans. Overall, city mentality plays a role in the development and
aggressiveness of the plans. A plan itself only lives on if that city, both through the local
community and the local leadership, follow through on the original intention set. This
requires actual goals with measureable outcomes to be developed, to which the city and
the community hold themselves accountable. To actually follow through on the initial
intention set, policies and programs funding and staff also must uphold and support the
plan.
In Santa Monica, from the very beginnings of the Plan, people have cultivated it
to life. It was the brainchild of a few community and civic leaders who believed that
something without much precedent could, in fact, be done. And further down the line, the
point at which the Plan really took shape and took off was when the larger community
came together to express its priorities. Since then, the civic leaders, including council
members and mayors, community members, and staff members have kept the Plan alive
by supporting it, implementing it, improving it, and by spreading the ideas and intentions
included in it. The link between the Plan and its programs is strong in Santa Monica. The
structure and central placement of the Office of Sustainability and the Environment flows
directly from the Plan and its indicator metrics. Across City departments, programs that
move the Plan forward are well supported by Council and funded to the degree possible.
James Velez, with regard to his role as an implementation specialist around hazardous
materials, describes the importance of the Plan to his work and to the City:
“But as far as the Sustainability Plan goes – it’s you know – it’s how – it’s the
founding document. It's the umbrella document for how all the programs that our
Office of the Sustainability and the Environment developed. So we’re always
going back to the Plan and making sure that somehow our programs tie into the
overall Plan, and it sets a lot of the principles for how the City makes decisions
and where it decides to spend some of it’s money. And when it comes down to the
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economy and the overall sustainability of the City, it’s a pretty important
document” (Velez 2012).

Sustainability oriented policies are continually being adopted in support of the Plan by
the Council, and the Sustainability Plan is being integrated into the General Plan over
time. And the City takes reporting on the indicator metrics seriously, doing so
transparently on a regular basis. The purpose driving the Sustainability Plan has been
increasingly adopted by the City, shaping a major part of the City’s identity as a
sustainability leader. The municipal intention set by the creation and adoption of the Plan
now runs through the entire city government and beyond.
In San Francisco, the Sustainability Plan was completely brought into being by
people. Through the initiative of civic leaders, a public vote on a ballot measure created
the community process. The Plan, which has served as the foundation and inspiration for
San Francisco’s sustainability efforts since, was the result of a major community
discussion. While most people today do not know it, San Francisco’s sustainability
programs and policies were inspired directly by the Plan and the priorities set forth within
it. Jared Blumenfeld notes,
“I mean, stepping back, sustainability plans are really to enshrine a city’s values
around that issue in a document, and different plans have different avenues to
implementation. So some are – this is going to be the letter of what we do, and
we’re not going to write more legislation after it, those are very specific, detailed
plans. Ours was kind of more a document of principles that we wanted to further
articulate. So in terms of your question, the answer is, it continues to live through
everything that the City is doing. Because if you make it tangible, and
measurable, and set benchmarks, it will live. If you just say, wouldn’t it be great
to have a green city where the people are happy and the flowers continue to grow,
it’s unlikely to live past that” (Blumenfeld 2013).

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The purpose that was laid out in the community planning process has lived on in the 17
years since the Plan’s adoption, even though Plan no longer has a daily presence in the
City.
In San Jose, the genesis of the Green Vision came from the mayor’s office.
Although many today are unaware, it was the successor of much earlier sustainability
language that had been adopted into the General Plan more than 10 years prior. While all
of this was mainly municipally driven, San Jose’s community has played an interesting
role in the sustainability planning process. The community is open to change in a way
that allows for and sometimes promotes progressive sustainability policy and programs.
Community stakeholders have also played a major role in the General Plan update, which
included the Green Vision goals. Still, San Jose’s Green Vision could potentially be
stronger with more support and involvement by the community, lifting up the role of
people in the plan. Much of the Green Vision’s strength lies in the programs attached to
the plan, along with its strategic purpose. Even in the face of significant financial
hardship, the City of San Jose has remained committed to moving the goals forward, and
the staff has continued to create innovative solutions to meet the goals. The purpose of
the Green Vision is to move San Jose forward environmentally and economically, and the
original sustainability language adopted by San Jose lifts up equity. While much remains
to be done in San Jose, the City’s commitment to the Green Vision as well as its General
Plan illustrate the power of even a limited plan against challenging circumstances.
While each city is unique, the core elements that make a plan strong are people,
programs, and purpose. Lifting up any one or all of these makes a plan stronger. My
research reveals that the key ingredients for a strong plan are fairly straightforward, but
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nonetheless extremely important. These elements are what make the difference between a
plan that sits on the shelf and a plan that is a living document over time, affecting positive
change. Most cities have the potential to bring these elements together, and understanding
what makes a sustainability plan work and last over time is crucial for any city. Even
cities facing challenging circumstances can identify and cultivate the elements to create a
plan that fits the city’s situation and needs. Overall, these case studies offer a great deal
of insight into what makes a sustainability plan, and what makes it strong, resilient, and
lasting over time.
The Three E’s - Equity is hard
From the three case studies, equity obviously lags behind environment and
economy of the Three E’s of sustainability. Each city had the hardest time planning for,
moving toward, measuring, and talking about equity. With regard to the sustainability
concept, even when a city includes the language of the Three E’s in its written plan, it
tends to lean toward the environment in the minds of both staff and community. This was
explained in terms of resources and priorities as a place to start in Santa Monica (Perkins,
2012), and was not very well explained in San Francisco and San Jose. For most people,
the knee-jerk reaction to the word sustainability tends toward the environmental. Not
everybody is well versed in the Three-E’s, although most people have some notion that
the word, ‘sustainability,’ is more complex and multifaceted than just environmental
concerns.
Indeed, the equity question was generally a point of real internal conflict with the
institution of the city itself. The hard lesson I’ve gathered from these three case studies is
that the equity really reminds people that sustainability is actually about all of society and
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its systems, and that race and class inequities are at the heart of this matter. Also, that
cities as entities can promote policies hoping for economic growth through high-revenue
development, and the same policies can be the driving force behind significant upheaval
and turmoil in neighborhoods. In my particular case studies, particularly in Santa Monica
and San Francisco, changing demographic and political climates underpin the reality of
very high rents and increasingly wealthy neighborhoods.
This section is devoted to exploring why equity is so difficult, why we do not
have good ways to measure equity, and what some relevant models may be that could
help cities approach this issue. While a truly in-depth exploration of this issue could take
up many books, I have identified a few major challenges that emerged from the case
studies as major challenges to equity on the ground. Regional effects (particularly
housing), the degree to which equity issues cross municipal departmental boundaries, and
the politically fraught nature of social equity, all complicate the creation and
implementation of equity goals. While not discussed directly by interviewees, I also
found that because greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction plans currently seem to be
more prevalent (or at least more sought-after) than sustainability plans, even the language
of equity may be losing ground, as GHG plans generally focus on very specific
environmental outcomes. Perhaps one important role of sustainability plans is to keep the
equity conversation moving forward, despite the challenges it brings to light.
In all three cities, regional effects, particularly of housing, deeply affect the cities.
In Santa Monica and San Francisco, the effects of high housing prices, gentrification, and
displacement loom large in the equity question. Policies and development driven by the
cities themselves in many cases exacerbate these regional effects. In San Jose, the City’s
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status as a bedroom community actually harms municipal income, which leaves the city
in a position of cutting staff and nearing collapse. Somehow both situations leave the
cities struggling to address equity issues.
The degree to which equity issues also cross boundaries with other city
departments was brought up in interviews as also an issue, although a number of
environmental goals also cross departments and still pose less of a challenge. This to me
reveals the deep internal conflict within cities about priorities and competing desires.
Several interviewees referred to the social services in their cities as the main vehicle for
addressing equity. In Santa Monica, police and safety were also mentioned with regard to
quality of life and the Human Dignity goal area (Kubani 2012). Equity is also relevant in
terms of larger issues, such as education, public health, and really the equitable
distribution of all resources, including park access, trails, trees, and so on (Brilliot 2012).
All in all, interviewees generally did not feel personally responsible for addressing equity
issues, nor much departmental responsibility, aside from the Environmental Justice
program area in San Francisco.
Along with the internal municipal conflict, a major part of the equity problem is
that it breaks open the much bigger societal systemic picture and the larger global
context. In discussing the history of the plans, Scott Edmonston in San Francisco
highlights the importance of centralizing sustainability as a concept in a city, because of
the centrality and inherent interconnectedness of equity, the economy, and the
evironment:
“Until sustainability gets elevated to the executive suite, you know, it has a
tendency to be defined as an environmental thing and to be focused on
environmental issues and of course we know that the problem with that is that
defined that way you’re only addressing kind of the multitude of downstream
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impacts, you’re not really addressing the source of the issue, which is always
upstream in the economy and really needs to be rooted out through a variety of
innovation and design processes” (Edmonston 2012).

The political nature of equity is significantly more difficult to grapple with than
the environment. While not everyone is politically pro-environment, the notion is
increasingly well established, and is culturally alive in all the three cities. In contrast,
issues of poverty and social inequity are less politically popular to discuss and address,
particularly because they are rooted in the thorny and painful issues of race and class.
One challenge for cities in this regard is that any plan that reaches many departments and
has policy teeth must have middle-class buy-in, support, and participation over time. And
while many people do genuinely want a good quality of life for all people, they to not
want to face, talk about, and address the real heart of structural injustice, particularly with
regard to race and class. Perhaps because of this, more universal goals that fall under the
category of quality of life, such as public health and education, may be more appealing to
a city, as I found in the case of San Jose. Julian Agyeman, a leading scholar in
environmental justice studies notes, “The relationship between environmental justice and
sustainability groups has traditionally been uneasy,” primarily because the cultural
history of environmental justice is as a, “local, grassroots, or ‘bottom-up’ community
reaction to external threats to the health of the community, while sustainability, “emerged
in large part from the ‘top-down’ international processes and committees, governmental
structures, think tanks, and international nongovernmental organization (NGO) networks”
(Agyeman 2005). As was illustrated in the San Francisco case study, the cultural
challenge of aligning the classic cohort of wealthy, white, liberal, well-intentioned
environmental elites with the political and social realties of urban structural injustice
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rooted in race and class struggles is an enormous challenge in the actual implementation
of the sustainability concept. And environmental justice is only a subset of the larger
equity picture.
These political challenges, and the inclination for city governments to pull back, if
not punt on equity, also clash with the urgent and substantial demands of global
sustainability. Despite some genuine good faith efforts, each of the cities certainly punts
on equity to some degree: San Jose uses quality of life language, Santa Monica focuses
on housing and human dignity (which entails a number of things like public safety and
crime), and San Francisco focuses on environmental justice in particular parts of town,
but none of the cities focus on the structural inequities of race and class. Some of these
efforts do include poverty and spatial injustice, and to be fair, I recognize that tackling
the larger societal structure is a tall order for any individual staff person or finite
department within a municipality. I, myself, am punting somewhat here. Rather than
tackling the entire theoretical discussion of equity in sustainability, I hope instead to
contribute to the conversation on a practical level by linking the specific problem of
incorporating equity in urban sustainability plans on the ground with relevant examples
that most cities can actually utilize. Perhaps this is precisely what makes equity so
difficult: from the perspective of a municipality with inherently limited resources, the
questions that sustainability and equity beg are large to the point of being deeply
overwhelming. Scott Edmonston, for example, reminds us that economic and social
sustainability are intrinsic to any notion of ‘success’ in sustainability, both at the local
and the global level:
“I mean if you pursue what success would be – success would be reversing
climate change in the first instance and in the second instance, it would be
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creating an economy that not only doesn’t have the negative impacts on the
environment but in fact has restorative and natural value wealth-expanding
impacts. And there’s also a community dimension of sustainability success
around equity issues and fundamental human needs being able to be met, which
they aren’t now – in any individual community or in the planetary community,
and given what we know now the best information available now, by the IPCC
the challenge is to do what it takes to reverse climate change and increase the
productivity of the economy so that the nine billion or so people that’ll be here by
2050 are having all their needs – are able to meet their human needs sufficiently
in ways that doesn’t crash the biosphere” (Edmonston 2012).

The challenge is extremely daunting, and while the battle will be fought at the local level,
municipal governments are fairly meager enterprises in the face of something like global
catastrophe. Equity poses as significant of a challenge at the local level as it does at the
global level. And while the sustainability language and plans in all three cities were, in
fact, inspired by international discussions and doctrines established to reach the local
level, even cities working in good faith are still struggling quite a bit to even try to
implement these large-scale ideals.
With the increasing threat of global climate change, greenhouse gas emissions
reduction plans are also being created with haste at the local level to also try to address
these challenges. GHG emissions reduction plans seem to be taking precedence over
sustainability plans, and generally do not face the same complications with regard to
equity that sustainability plans do. This may make GHG plans more accessible and
palatable for cities to adopt, however it may also lead to the sidestepping of important
equity issues that sustainability plans keep in the conversation, if not bring to the fore.
In the face of these complex issues, and believing in the centrality of equity to
sustainability, Agyeman, calls for a move to “Just Sustainability,” arguing that,
“Our present green or environmental orientation of sustainability is basically
about tweaking our existing policies. Transformative, or just sustainability implies
a paradigm shift that requires sustainability to take on a redistributive function. To
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do this, justice and equity must move to center stage of sustainability discourses,
if we are to have any chance of a more sustainable future” (Agyeman 2005).

My, perhaps meager, contribution to this task, is to present a few models of successful
solutions to measuring and beginning to directly address exiting inequity within the
context of an urban sustainability plan. These are examples that any city could emulate
on some level, and if utilized, could significantly strengthen an urban sustainability plan
and lift the conversation to a new level. Perhaps, given regional challenges, it comes as
no surprise that successful models of measuring equity outcomes exist at the regional
level. Two of the strongest models for measuring equity that I have come across are
regional equity indicator projects, Portland’s Regional Equity Atlas and Jacksonville’s
Race Relations Report. Portland utilizes equity mapping as its major tool, something that
could and should be emulated by cities. Jacksonville’s report is linked to a general
community indicators report, and its strength emerges from disaggregating indicators, as
well as creative problem solving stemming from the specific problems identified by the
indicator data.
In the Portland Regional Equity Atlas, the authors specifically mention the Three
E’s of sustainability (using ‘ecology,’ rather than ‘environment’), and highlight the often-
neglected role of equity:
“According to the literature on sustainable development, there are three pillars
upon which sustainability rests: ecology, economy, and equity. Yet, as in most
other places, the third pillar – equity – has been largely absent from Portland
metropolitan area discussions about sustainable development. Even when equity
issues have made it to the decision-making table, they have been mishandled or
neglected. In part, this is due to who actually sits at the table – typically white,
economically well-off individuals. But this is also due to the lack of a shared
understanding about what equity is. To embark upon a path toward greater equity,
we must first understand it – what it means, what it looks like in the context of our
region, and which people and places are most affected. In other words, we must
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learn our geography of regional equity before we can productively take action”
(Coalition for a Livable Future and Portland State University 2007).

The one of the most critical strengths of the Portland Regional Equity Atlas is the use of
mapping to understand patterns of equity and inequity in space and over time. Using this
method, the authors are able to investigate general quality of life categories including,
demographics, housing, schools, transportation, health and design, and parks and nature,
but within the context of access to resources broken down by race and income (Coalition
for a Livable Future and Portland State University 2007). This mapping technique also
allows an audience to see and understand the movement of people and the
interconnections between people and places that might otherwise be obscured by more
general data. With regional equity mapping, a richer story of the state of the region and
its people can emerge. While a small city like Santa Monica would probably not be
inclined to map the entire region that it is a part of, it could certainly utilize this technique
to see and understand the movement of people and interconnections of issues within the
City. By looking directly at equity on the physical plane, solutions for specific places and
neighborhoods could perhaps be created through greater understanding of the data
already available. And all of the cities could coordinate with other cities in their region to
facilitate a regional mapping project that illuminates important interconnections that go
beyond the city’s political boundaries.
Jacksonville’s Race Relations Progress Report (JCCI 2012) is unique in that it
looks at general quality of life issues: education, employment and income, housing and
neighborhoods, health, the legal and justice system, and civic engagement and the
political system, specifically through the lens of race. In each of these categories, the
year’s progress is broken out and presented by race. To examine equity through
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indicators, Ben Warner encourages the disaggregation of indicators, noting that, “When
things get aggregated to a certain level, the real heartaches are missed,” (Warner, Ben
2012). For example, average income, when disaggregated by race, can reflect the fact that
one group may have much higher incomes than another, even though the total average,
which otherwise would be the only indicator seen, may be going up year over year.
Warner also highlights the fact that his organization and the City involves the community
in solving problems that the report brings to light, such as infant mortality and prison
recidivism. They do so by approaching the problem with the question, “What would we
do if we were really serious about this issue?” and solving the problem creatively
together from there (Warner, Ben 2012).
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This process of ongoing engagement with the
community on solving equity issues reflects the power of municipal intention: a city that
decides to take equity issues seriously will chose to learn about, face, and directly address
the problems at hand as a community. The disaggregation of indicators is a simple
approach that cities today could utilize with the data they already have. Engaging the
community in order to directly solve equity problems is more involved at the human
level, however, it presents the opportunity for a community that wants to address equity
in good faith to overcome political controversy, and provides the tools for a real
discussion that can lead to tangible outcomes.
Another important approach for cities that have not yet created a plan is to have
equity advocates at the table from the beginning, as was done in San Francisco. Perhaps
the creation of sustainability plans can actually provide an important opportunity to
outline goals around values that affect the whole community, with the voices of equity

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Note to committee: this interview is from PERE research and part of a PERE paper that I believe is
under editing and is not yet submitted anywhere. I’m not sure whether or how it can be used here, but I’m
including it for now until it can be discussed for the next revision process post-defense.
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present and active during the formation of a plan. And, because equity, economy, and the
environment are so deeply interconnected, the voices of equity can actually push
environment and economy forward, bolstering the whole effort over a much larger group
that can participate, and make the whole plan stronger. The case of San Francisco
illustrates that the difference between ending up with a funded Environmental Justice
program and not having one had a great deal to do with the presence of a group of people
that cared about equity during the formation of the plan, and following its
implementation. Such a group does not seem to have been present in Santa Monica, and
the group that was present in San Jose unfortunately wasn’t listened to. Perhaps if the
Green Vision plan had a more robust community process, these voices would have been
heard. And all of this further highlights the importance of sustainability plans separate
from GHG reduction plans, because of the importance of equity.
Equity is deeply challenging for cities regardless of the sustainability
conversation. Importantly, in spite of the fact that equity lags in my case study cities,
equity indicators and programs have grown and improved over time in Santa Monica and
San Francisco, perhaps indicating that sustainability plans can still affect equity outcomes
over time by maintaining the issue and the goals set forth by the community. And that the
intention set by a city, even 15 to 20 years prior, can remain a powerful force over time.
Still, much can be done to lift up the equity conversation within the process of promoting
urban sustainability. A few approaches to improving the equity conversation include:
having equity voices at the table during the formation of a plan, equity mapping, and
disaggregating indicators by race and income. Most cities have the capability to utilize
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these approaches, and they significantly lift up equity, helping to move it toward the
center of urban sustainability efforts.
Planners and planning
Finally, my observation that urban planners have not played a central or
leadership role in the three cities runs through the entire study. While collaborating with
people from different professions, sectors, and backgrounds is very important for
sustainability, I do believe that urban planners are uniquely situated to lead in the
multifaceted, complex, and unwieldy process of urban sustainability planning. Certainly
this is relevant to urban planners in all cities, regardless of size, wealth, personality,
political disposition, or anything else.
In my case studies, I found that the urban planning departments in Santa Monica
and San Jose played a secondary role, focused on integrating the already existing
sustainability plans into the city’s general plans. In San Francisco, one of my
interviewees is an urban planner and was part of the formation of the Plan, however the
Sustainability Plan itself is not overtly integrated into the General Plan at all. While a
positive element of this observation is that many people are working together across
specialties, professions, sectors, and departments, I do think that urban planners are
uniquely situated to serve as leaders and facilitators in the formation of urban
sustainability plans. The planning profession’s broad-based, integrative perspective could
be very useful in the process of forming and implementing something as complex and
multifaceted as an urban sustainability plan. Planners could also play a major role in the
process of keeping a plan integrated over time, as the tendency in city governments is
often to silo and separate, which is counter to the inclusive and comprehensive notion of
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sustainability. Creative problem solving and learning by doing are also important skills
that planners can offer to the sustainability planning process.
The root cause of this lack of planners is unclear, although one possibility is the
institutionally siloed nature of planning departments in the municipal structure. Planners
are separated out from other departments and focus primarily on the general plan and
zoning in many cities. Perhaps also, something in the culture of planning keeps planners
from taking initiatives outside of the department and in more multidisciplinary ways.
Indeed, I believe it would planners to examine the possible root causes for this separation,
and to take a more leading role in the comprehensive, multi-disciplinary process of
creating and implementing urban sustainability plans, given the importance of
sustainability in planning.
Are these cases transferrable?
I find that the core lessons I learned from the three case studies are certainly
transferrable to other cities. Indeed, my main finding, that sustainability plans do affect
real outcomes on the ground in cities, rather than rotting on a shelf, is relevant to any city
that is interested in creating a sustainability plan. While there is no one-size-fits all or
turnkey solution to sustainability planning, the critical elements of what makes a
sustainability plan strong exist in some form in most every city. People, programs, and
purpose, may look different in each city, but can nonetheless drive a sustainability plan
unique to the city’s personality. Of course, if a city’s community and municipal
government are all against the idea of having a sustainability plan, one will most likely
not be created in that city. However, a city that is interested in creating a plan, but has
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limited financial resources, or is worried about the utility of creating a plan, can certainly
draw from the lessons in these case studies to create a plan that suits that city.
The challenge of equity is also an important lesson that is relevant in every city.
The practical models that I provided can be utilized by cities with finite resources and
real political challenges on the ground to more successfully face and address equity
issues within the context of a sustainability plan. While the issue of equity is complex and
difficult to address, it is central to sustainability and is worth overcoming obstacles to lift
up, both at the local level, and ultimately at the global scale.
In all, my hope is that the lessons learned from these case studies can serve to
inform both the three cities themselves, as well as any other cities interested in
developing or strengthening an urban sustainability plan. Because I have found that these
plans are indeed living documents that are very important to the cities and affect real
outcomes, my findings about why and how sustainability plans matter, and what makes a
sustainability plan strong, are relevant to any city interested in furthering urban
sustainability.
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Chapter 9: Conclusions and Summations

The cities of Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose can teach us a great deal
about urban sustainability plans and their outcomes, as well as about the sustainability
concept more generally. Understanding how and why sustainability plans matter in these
places can inform efforts by planners, policymakers, citizens, and other stakeholders in
other cities. From these cases, stories of the complex political processes of formulating
and implementing a sustainability plan emerge. These stories provide insight into the
many challenges and opportunities that sustainability plans provide in creating more
sustainable systems. These cases also illustrate the relationship between international
agreements and goals and how they affect cities and play out at the local level. At the
level of the urban planner, these cases reveal the roles that planners have and have not
played in these particular cities, and illuminate the potential for greater leadership in the
field.
The difficulty of moving equity forward highlights the opportunities that exist to
forge ahead with direct and creative solutions that take on the challenge head on.
Combining municipal and regional efforts to address equity issues is an important next
step to making existing plans more robust, and can be built into new plans that are not yet
created. New planning processes can take the lessons learned from other cities and start
from a place with equity driving change. The importance of equity also brings to light an
inherent weakness in GHG-focused plans, which are important but not enough.
Although all of the cities, and particularly Santa Monica and San Francisco, are
relatively wealthy cities with populations that want their cities to lead in sustainability,
not every city requires these luxuries. They certainly facilitated the first-movers to start
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the process of learning by doing, but by now, other cities can take the key lessons from
these processes and start with the advantage of lessons learned. Indeed, the uniqueness of
the three cities as reflected in their stories indicates that each city will have to apply
lessons in a local way, with the specifics of their cities at the heart of any plan. But these
case studies provide examples of what can be done in as few as 6 to 15 years. The fact
that sustainability plans do matter, and can move cities forward in many ways in the path
toward sustainability, is inspiring and opens the door for much more to be done on other
cities, perhaps with a quicker learning curve. The complex definition of sustainability can
be grappled with and focused, programs and policies can flow from shared city goals, and
an urban intention can become powerful reality on the ground in a short time.
Further research in this direction could certainly include other cities, ideally cities
very different in character to the cities in this study. While indicator outcome data will be
more limited in cities with newer plans, much can be learned about institutional
governance and processes as was found in this study. Studies about urban indicators are
growing, and the case study approach could supplement this line of inquiry. Also, further
research about regional equity and regional equity indicators can contribute a great deal
to the sustainability discussion. Finally, research about the role of equity in sustainability
could certainly help move the larger sustainability conversation forward.
While sustainability is a complex concept, and cities are complex entities, the
study of urban sustainability has never been more important. My hope is that the new
information and the knowledge garnered from these three case studies moves the
conversation forward in a way that is useful to scholars as well as practitioners.
350 
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355 
APPENDIX A: City Selection Matrix

San Francisco,
CA
Santa Monica,
CA
San Jose,
CA
Sacramento,
CA
Pasadena,
CA San Diego Los Angeles
City population 805,235 (2010) 87,664 (2008)
945,942
(2010) 466,676 (2009)
143, 667
(2009)
1.3 million
(201)
3.8 million
(2009)
Population
growth Growing (2004)
Stable
(Portney
2004)
Growing
(census)
Growing
(census)
Not sure,
probably
relatively
stable
Growing
(census)
Growing
(census)
Region
Population
7.4 million
(2009)
9.8 million
(2009)
7.4 million
(2009)
2.1 million
(2009)
9.8 million
(2009)
3.1 million
metro
(2010)
9.8 million
(2009)
Politics Very liberal Very liberal
Liberal for
the
country,
but more
conservativ
e than SF
and SM;
still
represented
at the
federal
level by
almost all
Democrats
Represented by
all Democrats
at state level,
and one
Democrat and
one Republican
at the federal
level
Dem at the
state level,
moderate
Democrats
and
Republicans
at the
federal level
Conservativ
e -
Republican
at federal
level, mix
at state
level
Liberal, but
not as liberal
as SF and
Santa
Monica
Wealth
Wealthy, but has
internal income
disparity
Wealthy, but
has internal
income
disparity
Wealthy,
but has
internal
income
disparity
Mixed/moderat
e?
Wealthy,
but has
some
internal
income
disparity
Wealthy,
but has
internal
income
disparity
Wealthy in
terms of size
of economy
but not in
terms of
average
income or
wealth
disparity
How to
characterize,
based on
planning
literatures
Very aggressive
(Portney 2004)
Very
aggressive
(Portney
2004)
Less
aggressive
than SM or
SF as of
2004, but
still
aggressive
(Portney
2004)
Challenges in
comparing?
Unique case,
very liberal, also
city/county issue
Unique case,
very liberal
Silicon
Valley
dynamic is
unusual
Recently
adopted, maybe
not enough info
Recently
adopted,
maybe not
enough info
Unique
because of
border
Unique
because of
size of city
and lack of
plan
Have a plan? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Only a
climate
action plan,
also a solar
implementa
tion and a
conservatio
n element
No
comprehensi
ve citywide
plan, only
Mayor's
Green
Agenda and
GREENLA
climate plan
Year
implemented/ag
e of plan Adopted 1997 Adopted 1994
Started
process in
1980,
sustainabili
ty
provision
of general
Sustainability
master plan
adopted in 2007
Green City
Action plan
adopted
2006
Climate
action plan
adopted
2005
GREENLA
Adopted
2007
356 
plan
adopted
1994, 2007
Green
Vision
adopted by
city
Similarities and
differences in
plans
Founded by
NPO,
administered
through city
department
Unique - all
done within
city
government
Not a
separate
plan, seen
as part of
comprehen
sive
planning
(Portney
2004)
Recently
adopted
Environmen
tally
focused, not
very people
focused
Focused on
GHG's
No coherent
plan
Linked to
general plan or
no?
Linking over
time
Linked but
separate
Completely
linked
Within city and
integrated with
city
departments,
linked directly
to 2009 general
plan
Approved
by city
council
Approved
by city
council
Housed in
city, mayor's
office
Adoption
process
Highly
participatory
(Portney 2004)
Highly
participatory
(Portney
2004)
Sacramento
sustainability
forum started in
2010
Indicators? Yes Yes Yes
Large general
targets, not
really
indicators Yes
Baselines
and goals, I
don't see
any
indicators
though
For GHG
plan, yes
Include an
equity
component? Yes Yes Yes Limited
Only in
environment
al health No No
Plan
components
Air quality,
biodiversity,
energy/climate
change and
ozone depletion,
food and
agriculture,
hazardous
materials,
economy and
economic
development,
environmental
justice, risk
management,
human health,
parks/open
spaces and
streetscapes,
solid waste,
transportation,
water and
wastewater,
municipal
expenditures,
public
information and
education
Resource
conservation,
environmental
and public
health,
transportation,
economic
development,
open space
and land use,
housing,
community
education and
civic
participation,
human dignity
Land use
and growth
manageme
nt,
watershed
manageme
nt,
integrated
waste
manageme
nt, energy
and
air/climate
programs,
transportati
on,
economic
developme
nt,
environme
ntal
compliance
, legislative
review and
advocacy,
community
relations
and public
education
Energy
independence,
climate
protection, air
quality,
material
resources,
public health
and nutrition,
urban design,
land use,
building and
transportation,
parks, habitat,
and open space
conservation,
water resources
and flood
protection,
public
involvement
and personal
responsibility
Energy,
waste
reduction,
urban
design,
urban
nature,
transportatio
n,
environment
al health,
water
Energy,
transportati
on, waste,
urban heat
island,
environmen
tally
preferable
purchasing
Clean tech,
climate, air,
water, earth
Website
http://www.susta
inable-city.org/
http://www.s
mgov.net/Dep
artments/OSE
/Categories/S
2007 Green
Vision:
http://green
vision.sanj
http://www.city
ofsacramento.o
rg/generalservic
es/sustainability
http://www.
ci.pasadena.
ca.us/Green
City/
http://www.
sandiego.go
v/environm
ental-
http://mayor.
lacity.org/Iss
ues/Environ
ment/index.h
357 
ustainability/S
ustainable_Cit
y_Plan_Sum
mary.aspx
oseca.gov/;
http://www
.sanjoseca.
gov/esd/sus
tainablecity
.htm
/ services/sus
tainable/
tm

Abstract (if available)

Abstract This study focuses on whether sustainability plans, through their creation and implementation, affect urban sustainability outcomes in three Californian cities: Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose. These early adopter cities address core tensions in planning theory and practice between environment, equity, and economy. I utilize cross-case synthesis techniques to examine the linkages between plans, implementation and outcomes in the three cities explored. To frame and guide these case studies, I consider findings from planning theory, policy implementation, and newer community organizing literature. Through the case studies, I identify the following key lessons: 1) What makes a sustainability plan strong is ""The Three P's:"" people, programs, and purpose, 2) Operationalizing ""The Three E's"" of environment, equity, and economy is crucial, and while all three take effort, equity is significantly the most difficult, 3) Urban Planning as a field and professional practice has been glaringly absent in the story of the development of these urban sustainability plans.

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Embedding sustainability: a change management guide for ports

Asset Metadata

Creator McMorrow, Erin (author)

Core Title Do sustainability plans affect urban sustainability outcomes in Santa Monica, San Francisco, and San Jose?

School School of Policy, Planning and Development

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Policy, Planning, and Development

Publication Date 11/21/2013

Defense Date 05/15/2013

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag California,OAI-PMH Harvest,Planning,plans,San Francisco,San Jose,Santa Monica,sustainability,Urban

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sloane, David C. (committee chair), Banerjee, Tridib K. (committee member), Pastor, Manuel, Jr. (committee member)

Creator Email erin_mcmorrow@yahoo.com,erinmcmorrow@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-350273

Unique identifier UC11296191

Identifier etd-McMorrowEr-2173.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-350273 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-McMorrowEr-2173.pdf

Dmrecord 350273

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights McMorrow, Erin

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA