Sustainability Ideas from The Natural Step study circles in Monona (the input of the members of three out of twelve study circles is not yet in this list)

BIODIVERSITY/RESOURCES

Lake/Ponds/Lagoon

- “repair” Lake Monona

- cooperative land use with shoreline land owners

- Clean up ponds in Winnequah park

- bioremediation of Lake Monona, lagoons, and parks. Partner with Aldo Leopold.

- partner with Madison and county on Lake Monona

- Program to involve students and general community in water-testing of Monona’s lakes and report to the DNR – get out there in our hip waders!

- carp reduction

- Signs along Lake Monona warning about the dangers of eating the fish, signs at all parks

- reintroduce original species of flora and fauna (what would they be?) to creek and lake

- Public access to lake laws revised or, if still in place, respected

- shoreline buffers?

Trees

- tree advisor to city residents/businesses, what are the best trees for Monona? For every tree cut down, two are planted

Parks

- buy lakefront property for park land

- overall management plan for all the parks, like Woodland Park plan (or extrapolate from that, if possible)

- eliminate pesticide/herbicide/chemical use

Water management

- Promote low water use.

- watering restrictions

- encourage rain barrel use—classes in how to make your own

CITY DEVELOPMENT/MANAGEMENT

- City to adopt the TNS framework

- Align financial incentives with sustainability—full-cost accounting

- Incorporate lifecycle impact into sustainable financial planning and budget goals

- Integrate environmental literacy into research, education, and communication

- More ways to monitor progress – Metrics

- Create sustainability indicators for Monona.

- Secure grants for water quality and water improvement

- grants for solar projects for City buildings

- add a department of environment or sustainability to the government

- All building has to be to LEED Platinum or better

Stormwater

- is there a way to replace concrete sidewalks with something pervious? Reduce cracking and shifting, easier to replace a section?

- All municipal buildings should have on-site water retention.

- Narrower, slower streets—a land use benefit

- Terraces turned into rain gardens—low growing plants are purchased by the city, residents do the planting

- Get city to sweep grass clippings out of the streets

- Promote gravel/permeable roads and driveways.

- Lending library of “stormwater tools”—inlet covers, filters…

- Pervious pavement

Energy/Fuel

- City to change all lights to fluorescents or LEDs, including streetlights (huge savings potential)

- non-“vampire” equipment and appliances

- high-efficiency equipment to reduce resource use

- Adjust thermostats in the municipal buildings and schools—higher in summer, cooler in winter

- school board to share RFP for energy audit with city (Peter Sobol)

- RFQ for solar and wind consultant

- Library has a very high-energy use. Work with the local government to get green certification for Monona library.

- Solar panels for the Library

- Solar power on all the roofs

- solar water heating for the pool (like Swedish resort)

- Create co-generation (heat sharing) subsidies for the larger commercial businesses

- Explore the possibility for biomass in Monona.

- Switch all municipal building appliances off at the power point when they are not in use (except for items such as fridge, freezer, emergency exit lighting/signs and other critical items such as the fax)

- Install a timer at the switchboard to switch off power to all power points when the building or office is unoccupied.  Again power points serving critical items would be excluded.

- replace the bulbs in street lamps with light-emitting diodes that use much less power

- plant rooftop gardens on municipal buildings to insulate, and for stormwater reduction

- Solar power or solar hot water on public buildings

- City vehicles and buildings required to use less fossil fuel

- City to consider life-cycle costs of vehicles

Housing/Building

- Require all new buildings to have solar (wouldn’t need ATC line)

- Zoning for cottage industry in Monona’s residential area.

- Create eco-housing and co-housing.

- No vinyl or aluminum siding allowed

- Build cost of renewables into mortgage

- Require Landlords to promote energy efficiency and minimize waste

- Eco-housing for retirement

- offer fast-track building permits and other perks to those who agree to make their homes extremely energy-efficient

- All buildings should have on-site water retention.

- Parking lots—certain percentage of square feet pervious

- Percentage of each property must be pervious

- Don’t allow more land to be developed (remodel up and/or improve)

- Don’t want to lose any more sightlines to the lake

- Increase density—apartments over garages like in the book, Superbia—with increased density, mass transit becomes more viable

- Is the building necessary in the first place? The most sustainable building is the one that is not built.

- how does the building help its owner and the municipality achieve “success” as defined by their own sustainability plans?

- Do barriers to green buildings in general need to be removed?

- Put “green roofing” on big box stores.

- Require the big box stores to put solar panels on their roofs

- Shoot for Zero-Waste, Zero fossil fuels in all enterprises

- Require new development to:

Plant local, sap-less trees in the parking lots.

Recycle the materials from the existing buildings.

Meet LEEDS-Platinum standards or better

Orient the buildings for full use of passive solar principles and systems.

Use passive solar principles and systems.

Use heating and cooling sources that are not fossil-fuel based, but renewable.

Use building materials that are local (when possible), recycled, recyclable, chemical-free, and toxin-free.

Use building materials that require less intensive production methods than standard building materials.

Recycle the waste materials during construction.

Use full range of daylighting possibilities.

Eliminate or greatly reduce the use of impervious surfaces for walks, parking spaces, and parking lots.

Design the buildings to promote and simplify recycling for the residents or users of the buildings.

Use native plantings and other landscaping methods to eliminate the need for pesticides and herbicides.

Reduce or eliminate the area of lawn.

Reuse the on-site runoff for responsible storm water management.

Use grey water systems in the building’s construction.

Design spaces that foster community spirit, share resources, create socially cohesive communities, and reduce isolation.

Actively engage community members in the planning before major decisions take place.

Have waste disposal as a variable expense rather than a line-item

Create bicycle parking that is as easy as car parking

“Big C” Community Development/Monona Drive

- Improve the nature of the Community Center to be more enticing

- City needs stores that people can use—health food store, coffee shop, shoe store, etc.—within walk-able distances

- City center (library, Community Center, City Hall) to have some simple food resource—small grocery, coffee shop…

- Center near city hall for coffee, sandwiches, fresh foods, meeting place, etc.

- A central all-year covered market area.

- Why have auto repair shops and other non-enticing businesses on Monona Drive frontage? We should have those just behind Monona Drive on side streets, with enticing businesses on the main thoroughfare.

Chemicals

- Use environmentally responsible cleaning procedures/products (like Monona Terrace)

- Develop environmentally responsible purchasing practices and use green cleaning products

- Chemical-free or low-chemical products (esp. in schools)

- Monona as a “toxin-free” zone

Office

- City should use recycled paper products

- Paper reduction initiative: City, businesses, and households (also under Waste)

- Reduce paper output to Plan Commission and other city commissions, Council

- Other information distribution methods

- Customer input on their needs

- Document management and storage systems

- Reusable packets for the council members

- Converting waste paper to scratch pad training

- Green Office Initiative

- Printer/Multi-functional device assessment for all departments by ’09 budget

- Creating standards and process for office equipment, furnishings, supplies, etc.

COMMUNITY/GROUP OUTREACH

- create a community “garden labor co-op” wherein big work projects at each household can be tackled by many people at once—getting more done as a team. Take turns at each other’s houses. Sharing. Community.

- start an annual “Monona Volunteer Works Day” to get the whole community out helping people together—multiple projects all over town—trimming old folks’ trees, or cleaning the windows at an assisted-living facility, weeding the parks, removing graffiti, or beautifying an ugly building on Monona Drive…

- downward lighting campaign (darksky.org) to curb light pollution

- parent support group (fighting consumerism, etc.)

- group sharing of children’s toys, DVD’s, anything else you can think of…(like a tool library—a “kid’s stuff library”

- clothing swaps

- identify some projects for social networking that accomplish TNS goals

- Vigilante Justice Team – Rat out the environmental offenders

ECONOMY/BUSINESS

- survey of Monona businesses; What are they doing to become more green? Interested in learning more? Class on TNS for business.

- show how much money they can save by being more sustainable

- Monona coupon book

- Get Monona businesses in Dane Buy Local

- Fluorescent lighting campaign for businesses

- downward lighting campaign

- Drive for sustainability practices at our own workplaces (and have a discussion group for those who are seeking to do so)

- More diverse offerings here in Monona so people don’t have to get in cars—museum, live music, nightlife, coffee shop…

- Tax incentives for people to be able to work at home

- work to make Lake Monona an attraction to tourists (Trailer Park land for something better than condos?)

- Work with the big businesses in Monona, i.e. carpooling for WPS (ask ourselves what businesses have a big impact)

- Monona co-op grocery store

- Healthy, but “fast” food co-op with a coffee shop and meeting place

- Local Buy Local campaign

- Shop at La Tienda and new Asian grocery in order to support local business, foster a relationship with owners/staff, and encourage them to bring in organic and local produce, hold cooking classes to engage local residents… (?)

- Retailer cooperative effort where each store buys back used items it sold and then re-sells the used goods. It would have to be a catchy name, cachet… (must be shameful NOT to be involved for it to work)

- incubator for small businesses

- Farm-market kitchen that allows small processors (niche items?) to get a foothold without overhead costs: a co-op?

- Awards to local businesses: most improved footprint, most sustainable footprint

- lobby Fraboni’s for shade, coffee, and kid-friendliness (other places, too?)

- Crandall’s site to be a “Green Store”

- Change businesses’ purchasing practices, too

EDUCATION

- Classes through The Natural Step Monona

- have classes to encourage good behaviors. A class on composting and/or making your own composter (with a composter kit), worm composting (with a kit or pre-made kind), how to hook up a SD rain barrels or make your own from a trash can (with the parts as a kit), rain gardens (with seeds), how to install an under-sink water filter in your kitchen and stop using bottled water (with the filtration units), yogurt-making (with the yogurt makers?).

- Lecture series—sustainability leaders, businesses, “how to” info for citizens, business leaders? What are barriers to change? What is our city planning? How can people engage? – Make finding green resources easier

- Offer more community sustainability classes, especially at school (Monona to be a role model)

- Green book club

- Home Power magazine at library?

- Monona Wiki (talk to Andrew Taylor?)

- Educate in the corporate world

Children

- get teens and kids involved in study circles (summer at the library?)

- develop TNS curricula for young kids and teens (Create a condensed, easier book?)

- pre-teen/teen girls—are sex ed. classes teaching about menstrual cups, Glad Rags, etc? If not, volunteer to have a workshop or come in on the day they are studying that kind of thing. Can save $4,800!

- Field trips for kids to experience nature first-hand

- bike safety (and its transportation possibilities) for children

Households

- distribute flyers to households about what to do to be a sustainable at home, as was done in Bayfield (combine with a light bulb exchange program?)

- parent support group on being non-materialistic in a materialistic society

EDUCATIONAL METHODS

- shopping lists that recommend more earth-friendly, local things to buy, etc.

- Eco-Team approach to many things, including shopping in ways that reduce waste

- School “Green Teams”

- Need study circles in high school

- partner with Channel 12 to produce educational programs—how to compost, what’s recyclable and what isn’t, etc., reducing consumption, how to eat more “locally…”

- 50-page book on what’s being done in Wisconsin as a study resource

- Computer simulations (Sim City?)

ENERGY

- light bulb exchange: door-to-door campaign offering a CFL in exchange for an incandescent (grant $ or donation of bulbs)

- financial incentives to get people to go green: cash rebates for citizens who install solar panels… low-interest loans for energy-saving home renovations… financing the cost of solar panels for homeowners who agree to pay the money back through a 20-year property tax assessment…

- ways to educate citizens and employees on solar water heating

- incentives such as property-tax rebates to get residents to install solar-water heaters

- “Sunona” – marketing a solar program

- get off of the grid

- individual wind energy for homes

- wind power in Lake Monona (how much noise?)

- use black tubing like Sweden to heat water in pools

- feedback devices for electric and waste water

- use cold lake water to help air-condition homes (Amsterdam) (Does this have an effect on the biodiversity in the lakes?)

- aggressive incentive programs for homes and businesses to replace outmoded, energy-guzzling gizmos with energy-saving ones.

- metered energy and waste usage

- Biomass for Monona?)

 

FOOD/AGRICULTURE/GREEN SPACE

Lawn and garden

- natural landscaping at schools

- Ask council to hold staff accountable to follow the pesticide policy

- Rain gardens in front of AmericInn, northeast corner of Gundersons, northwest corner of MGHS…

- Tax incentive for converting lawns to natural gardens.

- Get the parks and golf course to cease pesticide use

- city subsidizes cost of environmentally-friendly corn gluten meal at an annual sale to encourage its use over bad herbicides/fertilizer (combine with composter sale)

- Less mowing on city property? Plant natives instead of lawn. Return some parkland to native prairie.

- Sheep at Winnequah Park instead of mowers (!)

- promote push reel mowers–city gives a rebate for turning in old mowers and a coupon to buy a push reel mower from The Natural Step Monona (?), demonstration at The Natural Step Monona 4th of July booth?

- pledge program: citizens pledged to practice safe lawn care or who install a rain barrel, rain garden, etc. get a special sign or flag for their yard.

- encourage rain gardens and lawn reduction

- a rain garden task force to help citizens implement

- Femrite Drive land/parks lands to be used for community gardens

- Create signage in imitation of ChemLawn type of thing, “This yard treated with nothing.” “No chemicals. This lawn is perfectly safe for kids and pets (but don’t tread on it anyway).”

- start a Monona organic gardening club

- Promote or begin a version of the Healthy Lawn Team in Monona—sustainable lawns (downstream approach-not the best)

- Total ban on fertilizer and chemicals on lawns

- CSA – growing in Monona (St. Stephens? Parks?)

- Have Park Pride clean up dates and times on the city website so that interested people can help any time they are able

- Have judge assign juvenile delinquents to clean up parks with the Park Pride groups

- narrow the wider streets, parking on one side only, add sidewalks (reduce overall impervious surfaces and make the streets safer)

- Promote green/organic gardening

- more trees in Winnequah Park

- Vertical Farm

Foods

- Monona winter farmers’ market

- Ban plastic bags at the Monona Farmers’ Market

- School garden at Monona, where the food is used on-site.

- allow backyard chickens

- Plant fruit trees in the parks

- (see La Tienda at Economy/Business)

- investigate changing the law that doesn’t allow reuse of personal containers at grocery salad bars, etc.,

- Community Canning Kitchen – seniors show people how to can.

HOUSEHOLD ACTION

- home audits of energy usage, lifestyle, etc. (not a blower door test type of thing, but, for example, assessing what lights are on and why; do you keep a light on at night? If so, do you really need to and is it a fluorescent? Fan use, dishwashing methods, bottled water vs. filter, how they wash and dry clothes…

- Best of the best list of Energy Star products—which ones are the most efficient?

- start a Monona Tool Library

- promote water use efficiency—composting toilets, rain barrels, grey water systems, low-flow showerheads, toilet rebate for water-guzzling toilets…

MARKETING/MEDIA

- column in Herald-Independent (Done!)

- create graduating handouts that list things people can change to make steps toward sustainability, starting with the easiest and the most important (not always the easiest!) and increasingly moving through the harder and less important. (Or two separate series – easiest to hardest and most important to least?)

- recycling calendar to city residents—shows which weeks have recycling pick-up, but also educates about waste

- Annual prize for sustainable business or individual

- Financial incentive for households to do a sustainable thing (contest?)

- Convince people to stop using chemicals on lawns

- billboard campaign (is that completely incompatible with TNSM?!) with simple things you can do (simple graphics like the poetry campaign of several years ago)

- PSAs: how to drive to be fuel efficient, how the trash that gets thrown in the street (cigarette butts!) ends up in our lakes (like the old ad with the crying Native American elder)

- Certifying local businesses, schools, and homes with different levels of TNSM “environmental labels”

- shift the view of Monona being land-locked to a positive

- rebrand: sustainable, smaller homes are better homes.

- envy-factor, a way to get people to copy us, move here

- use the visibility of kids to market sustainability – cute factor

- community-based social marketing to cut down on meat and seafood consumption

- Enter the Monona Chili Cook-off with a vegetarian chili, using only local, organic ingredients

- Create videos to change views.

- at Monona Community Festival (Ind. Day(s) event) booth—have a laptop so people can calculate their carbon footprint

- also at the MCF (above) have two suggestion/voting/something boxes for the answers to “If I could do anything to make the world more sustainable, I would..,” and “If I could do anything to make Monona more sustainable, I would…” Maybe even go around asking people, clipboard in hand. Report the results in the Herald-Independent and on our website. Have our handout include how to follow up. Have a press release ready to go to the major papers with the results.

- Also at the MCF: sign up for email list for info on Monona sustainability, opportunity to take a quick survey: age, kids, do they compost, have rain barrel, rain garden, what it would take to get them to join a study circle, etc. (VALID survey—what do we want to know?)

- Micro Radio Station – HS has one – to broadcast The Natural Step Monona and SusCom info.

POLITICAL/ACTIVISM

- encourage the city to provide rebates or reductions in fees for good behaviors and positive actions (reducing your home’s impervious footprint, using a clothesline, composting, using a rain barrel, creating a rain garden, replacing lawn with native gardens, etc.

- outlaw leaf blowers? (environmentally unsound and horrible noise pollutant)

- work to make appliance manufacturers list stand-by energy use, on packaging, in ads, and next to the watts on the product. Work to reduce or end vampire usage upstream (in the product).

- encourage the ending of the production and use of packaging popcorn

- encourage better communication from city leaders about what is happening at all levels.

- work to stop pesticide use on city property

- City of Monona pamphlet

SCHOOLS

- eco-school charter school at Maywood

- healthy food, local food in cafeterias

- rain gardens, composting, vegetable gardens—kids doing it all as part of their education

- kids cook the foods, eat the foods

- get students (parents!) to bring juice in a reusable container, rather than a juice box.

- analyze the packaging, etc. of food supply to schools

- “Play Pumps” for pumping water (or energy?)

- School assessment of how green they are (DNR & DPI)

- building of new schools should involve the children more in the planning, as in Tvärred (see The Natural Step for Communities)

- Waldorf school

- eco-renovation of schools

TRANSPORTATION/POLLUTION

General

- change the voting precinct setup: with the north half of the city’s voters going to St. Stephen’s and the south half to the community center, walking is effectively discouraged. Switch the two.

- “Clean Air Commute” — employees are asked to make changes in their commute behavior for one week, track this information on a diary card, and, at the end of the week, submit their cards. The employers calculate the amount of pollutants they have prevented individually and how much carbon was prevented from release. Follow up with incentives to continue to improve.

- More diverse offerings here in Monona so people don’t have to get in cars—museum, live music, nightlife, coffee shop…

- Ban on wood burners.

- Railroads to run on bio-diesel

Autos

- Rethink road-building (if you build it they will come—do we want them to come?!)

- reframe how we think about cars—from freeing to confining. Change our values, more like Europe.

- Anti-Idling ordinance + signs outside the schools where parents idle

- Community Car (pickup, electric car, and van) in Monona, pick up spot in the center of Monona – either at the Library or at the Community Center

- Carpooling—organize it or make any current programs better known

- Carpooling programs for both work and school

- Monona “Carpool-to-Work Day” – A competition among companies, church members, and/or friends to see who can carpool more days of the week

- A challenge: carpool once a week

- Sponsor a competition between the local high schools to see which one can have fewer cars in their parking lot (or rather, which school can promote alternative means well enough to reduce the percentage of students who drive to school or at least increase the number of people per car) or by mileage

- Plan to get parents to quit idling their cars while waiting to pick up kids at school (get parents to quit picking their kids up at school!)

Biking

- Encourage parents to let their children ride bikes to school by having a “Bike-to-School Train,” a system manned by two adult volunteers who are at the front and back of the train. It works like a bus route. Kids and adults get exercise and are safely escorted to school.

- Encourage the use of bike bells

- AAA for bicylists

- Monona “Bike-to-Work Day”

- work with Bike Federation, city of Madison to improve bike transportation

- biking “cross” at Dean Avenue and Wallace (like gthe road signs the middle of Monona Drive). School children riding their bikes get stuck there for ages waiting to cross in the rush hour traffic. Make it EASY to bike to school, not hard.

- better bike trail from Capitol down Monona Drive

- bike path to the new middle school

- Bike parking should be easier than car parking everywhere

Mass Transit

- Get real mass transit back to Monona, with efficient and swift routes

- Run a Monona metro loop, through, and for Monona.  Run a bus to all local points like the library, community center, city hall, Monona drive shops (Stop on request) Pier 37 and South Town.

- High-Speed intercity rail

- Make the bus to downtown Madison free

- Vehicle to pick up kids for the pool and return them home

- Change the stigma of using the bus, both for schoolchildren and adults

- Coupons for the bus to convert the non-user, Coupon event?

- Monona drive as a railway—commuter rail, why not Monona?

- Ferry from Monona to the Terrace/Saturday morning event to “ferry to the farmer’s market” once or twice a summer.

Walking

- houses, offices, shopping, and leisure activities would all be within a walkable space

- Encourage neighborhood businesses—things residents want to walk to, not things that draw people from far away

- Have more sidewalks so you don’t have to walk in the street (can we find a pervious alternative?)

- Pedestrian friendly cross walks for Monona drive.

- Monona “Walk-to-Work Day”

- Arts night at city center or MGHS once per month (bring culture to Monona instead of us going to the culture

Noise, Air, and Light Pollution

- outlaw leaf blowers? (environmentally unsound and horrible noise pollutant)

- encourage reel mowers and other non-polluting, non-noise polluting tools

- encourage downward lighting (darksky.org) to reduce light pollution

Chemical Pollution

- Encourage environmentally responsible purchasing practices for homeowners and businesses, including cleaning products

- bans on the sale of man-made chemicals that do not break down

WASTE

Composting

- better way to handle leaf pick-up or reuse of leaf mulch. Couldn’t leaves be shredded at the curb and “spit” back out for the residents’ use, if so desired, reducing the hauling and contributing to the quality of soils and gardens?

- Give away composters

- city subsidizes the price of composters at an annual sale to encourage their use, subsidies could equal the projected amount that landfill fees would be reduced or something slightly less. Could be a reduction on water utility bills (combine this sale with the fertilizer sale)

- a service provided at the street, making food waste a mandatory recycling ingredient

- class on how to compost, tape for Channel 12

- zero-waste concept

Trash

- Zero Waste Initiative (Goal: City (citywide?) 65% reduction in waste by 2010)

- Educate public to not put waste or recycling bin out until they are full.

- What if the trash and recycling collection were only once per month? (Or twice per month in winter, weekly in summer?)

- ban paper and cardboard from non-recyclable garbage — with enforcement penalties

- Charge per bag for trash collection to encourage less purchasing of non-recyclable or –renewable goods

- Styrofoam moratorium for the city (Home Concepts recycles it. City should not allow it to be in the trash.) Regular Styrofoam “drives?”

- Residents purchase “bag tags” and waste not properly tagged is not collected. The cost of the tags funds the trash collection. (Currently, those of us who waste little subsidize the big wasters.)

- encourage organic cotton shopping bags, outlaw disposable bags

- Movement at schools to get students to bring juice in a reusable container, rather than a juice box.

- waste products transformed into inputs for productive activity

- Waste Watchers education program

- Reduce the waste of UW move-out day

- No Styrofoam

- Promote the drinking of tap water with filter systems as an alternative to bottled water.

- Pilot more recycling programs  (Hazardous, yard waste, e-waste, food waste, Styrofoam)

- Pilot waste reduction at existing facilities (Garage, City Hall, Library, Public Works, Sr. Center.)

- Paper reduction initiative: City, businesses, and households (also under City Development/Management Office)

- Reduce paper output to Plan Commission and other city commissions, Council

- Other information distribution methods

- Customer input on their needs

- Document management and storage systems

- Converting waste paper to scratch pad training

- Green Office Initiative

- Printer/Multi-functional device assessment for all departments by ’09 budget

- Creating standards and process for office equipment, furnishings, supplies, etc.

- Tax on packaging

- create a CHARM (Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials in Boulder, CO) with a collection system (neighborhood-by-neighborhood network?)

- City to give away reusable shopping bags

- educate on proper dog poop disposal

Recycling

- TNSM sponsor a swap

- Recycling training in Monona. (Video promo or/and booth at a Monona event) Work with Green Valley, if they will ever return your call…

- Recycling bins in local parks and on select street corners

- Recycling required for all local events.

- educate about the importance of the three Rs—“recycling” comes LAST, as it is a downstream approach with many costs. “Reduce” is number one and should be most encouraged. “Reuse” is second.

- have waste page on city website listing all the things that are recyclable and have photos—not just “numbers 1 through 7,” but “yes, you can recycle this little plastic part of your soy milk carton,” or “no, the lids to your cottage cheese container are not recyclable,” etc. People have very specific concerns.

Restaurants

- educate the public (how to make it easy for people?) to remember to take a non-disposable food container from home for restaurant leftovers