On August 8, nearly 40 local government representatives from diverse regions of Virginia attended the “Go Green Challenge Forum.” The event was held in the Rockingham County Fire and Rescue Classroom in Harrisonburg.
The purpose of the Forum was to provide information about the Green Government Challenge. Specifically, one of the presentations made by Virginia Tech Faculty Fellow Harry Gregori provided details about the university’s Environmental and Sustainability Management (ESMS) program. ESMS is a suite of management processes and procedures that allows an organization to analyze, control and reduce the environmental impacts of its activities. Virginia Tech’s ESMS Institute has scheduled a series of future workshops and information about them is available by reviewing Gregori’s presentation.
The Forum also featured a presentation on possible impacts of the so-called Chesapeake Bay Program “mid-point” assessment, which will require Virginia to submit to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency an updated Watershed Improvement Plan (WIP) to demonstrate how the state and localities will achieve specific pollutant reduction goals for the Chesapeake Bay by the year 2025. Another presenter was Virginia’s Deputy Secretary of Natural Resources Angela Navarro, who provided details about Governor McAuliffe’s Clean Power Plan.
The Forum was held as part of the 2016 Green Government Challenge, which VACo and VML launched last month. The Green Government Challenge is a friendly competition designed to encourage implementation of specific policies and practical actions to protect the environment and promote energy efficiency by local governments and the broader communities they serve. As in years past, those qualifying with at least 100 “green” points for completing certain action items, will be recognized at the VACo Annual Conference. For more information and to register for the challenge go to www.gogreenva.org. If you have any questions contact Larry Land, VACo’s Director of Policy Development, at Lland@vaco.org or 804.343.2504.
VACo Contact: Larry Land, CAE