Missouri

Roadmap to Sustainability

Focus St. Louis completed their “Roadmap to Sustainability” which highlights local initiatives for city governments and the implementation committee is eager to discuss it with city officials in the St. Louis Region. The report can be found at: http://www.focus-stl.org/Reports.aspx. Look for Environmental Sustainability Roadmap (2009).

On January 30 the St. Louis chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) will present their Civic Stewardship award to Focus St. Louis for this "tremendous resource for local governments to create more sustainable communities in the St. Louis region."

Smaller St. Louis Cities Lead the Way!

Forward thinking mayors in the St Louis area joined Cool Cities several years ago and most of them established environmental committees now working very hard to reduce waste and energy use in their communities. Creve Coeur and now Kirkwod have completed an emissions inventory while several, University City and Clayton on in the process. St. Louis county with help from ICLEI completed their emissions inventory and made plans to use stimulus funds to complete government iniatives. St. Louis city has recently hired a sustainability director.

So far the Missouri cities that joined ICLEI and expect to follow their 5 step process to reduce global warming and air pollution emissions are: Columbia, Creve Coeur, Kansas City, Olivette, Saint Louis city and University City

While ICLEI provides software to measure the greenhouse gas emissions as well as technical assistance a consistent problem has been that one person is needed who can be trained to compile the local data and consistently enter it into the software. Even for a small city this work requires a person capable of solving problems on their own and a salary for about 2 to 4 months. Our Cities don’t have this type of position in their budget. But in 2008 Creve Coeur, with support from Mayor Harold Dielmann, developed a way to hire an intern to complete their greenhouse gas inventory. Our long time member John May found a citizen of Creve Coeur who also was a donor to St. Louis University and who agreed to make a donation to SLU to fund an internship in the Center for Environmental Studies. Spencer Kellum, a student in the St. Louis University Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department worked for 13 weeks to complete the inventory. The study was completed with only the cost to Creve Coeur of ICLEI dues which was $600 last year.