Sustainable Atlanta Releases its First Sustainability Report

Last month, Sustainable Atlanta released its first report on the state of sustainability in the city of Atlanta. The mission of Sustainable Atlanta is the following; "Sustainable Atlanta leads Atlanta's quest toward sustainability by developing strategies and policy recommendations with partners from Atlanta's business, non-profit, academic, community and government leadership. I would highly suggest downloading and reading the .pdf. It is very insightful and will give you hope that the city is moving in the right direction. The report is broken up into 5 categories and each is broken down by statistics with briefs on partnerships and what is planned for the future. Below are the areas that Sustainable Atlanta is focusing on along witha notable quote from each:

• Water -"Atlanta - Which depends on the Chattahoochee River as its water source - is the buggest U.S. city not built on a large body of water."
• Energy & Climate Change - "For nearly 10 percent of all the days in 2008, our air reached unhealthy levels."
• Parks & Green Space - "Among the nation's 25 largest cities, Atlanta has the least amount of land dedicated to parks."
• Recycling & Materials Management - "Together, paper and pastic account for over half the materials that go into our waste stream. But organic material makes up almost a quarter."
• Leadership - "It's about changing the way we behave. It's about choosing to preserve more and throw away less. It's about finding healthier ways to commute. It's about designing and building better so that we live and work in more efficient and healthier buildings. it's about changing what you do - and convincing your colleagues and neighbors to do the same"

The city is ranked 19 out of the top 50 most populous metro areas in the U.S. We currently lead the southeast and are number three nationally in the number of environmentally friendly buildings. You can find more rankings broken out by category at SustainLane.