From Hampton’s Councilman Randy Gilliland, also lead organizer with the Peninsula’s Green Drinks and Chairman of Green Economic Alliance and Green Jobs Alliance:

There is $75 million available for our region from the Department of Energy EECBG grants. The purpose is to fund job creation, economic growth, and energy efficiency improvements.

Securing the funding will require support and cooperation from commercial contractors, realtors, homebuilders, local development officials, commercial property owners, and manufacturing.

Come Tuesday to find out more about this tremendous opportunity for Hampton Roads, and what you can do to help.

That Tues., Nov. 24, 5:30-9:00pm at Marker 20, 21 East Queens Way, in Hampton.

Last year, Virginia Beach was the first “Virginia Green Destination”. To be certified “Virginia Green”, tourism partners such as hotels, restaurants, events and attractions must meet specified water conservation, energy conservation and recycling standards. They must also minimize the use of styrofoam/disposables. Today the City announced that the Virginia Beach hospitality industry “took that challenge to the next level, exceeding a goal to certify 100 new hospitality businesses”.

Per their press release: “The Virginia Beach hospitality industry exceeded its goal to certify 100 businesses with the Virginia Green program – including hotels, restaurants, events and attractions. Currently, more than 115 Virginia Beach businesses are Virginia Green certified, including 42 percent of Virginia Beach hotel rooms. Virginia Green awards green certification to businesses that take steps to reduce harmful environmental effects”.

What is Virginia Green?

Clean water, clean air, and abundant wildlife are what make our mountains, streams, and beaches so appealing to our tourists. Visitors to Virginia care about the environment and so does our tourism industry! This is the main premise behind Virginia Green. It is a network of tourism-related organizations and programs that are committed to protecting the environment while promoting responsible tourism.

Click here to learn more about the Virginia Green program.

While they had signed onto ICLEI several years ago, the City of Norfolk finally made their commitment to curbing carbon emissions official, pledging as a three-some tag team along with Tacoma, Washington and Kitakyushu, Japan.

The Joint Declaration reads as follows:

“In 1959, when our Cities entered into sister-city partnerships, most industrial nations - including the U.S. and Japan - were experiencing rapid economic development that brought great prosperity to both nations. At the same time, it also brought a new problem: environmental pollution. This era was also a time of overcoming this new situation.

50 years have passed since then and we now face a new problem, climate change, which affects everyone and in turn, everyone helps to cause. To overcome this problem, we need to change our culture/values and make continued efforts over a long period of time.

In response to this problem, our Cities will cross national barriers to work together to create low-carbon societies while observing the following points in order to appeal our efforts to the rest of the world.

- Each City will carry out activities adapted to their region and achieve a role leading their region toward the realization of a low-carbon society.
- On top of the cultural exchange we have accomplished thus far, we will further deepen our partnership through the exchange of information and opinions regarding climate change.
- The three Cities will work together to transmit information globally regarding each City’s efforts toward the realization of a low-carbon society.”

(Photo above found here within VML’s Town & City magazine.)

Norfolk Environmental Commission celebrates 30 years of keeping Norfolk beautiful with a gala event on Saturday, November 14th from 6 to 10 pm at the Norfolk Botanical Gardens. Proceeds from the event support an environmental scholarship for local students.

From their website:

Part of the NEC’s mission is to lead residents toward environmental stewardship. As such, this local environmental organization has brought together local government agencies, businesses, residents and environmental stewards to study and implement environmental stewardship throughout Norfolk for the past 30 years.

The work of the NEC over the 30 years is evident throughout Norfolk. Some of the accomplishments include:

* A cleaner city. Norfolk had a score of 1.46 on the 2009 National Litter Index, which means virtually no litter throughout the City as a whole.
* 627,000 volunteers from our community have contributed 931,000 hours of work participating in litter cleanups, wetland restoration, electronics recycling, environmental education and neighborhood beautification projects.
* 8,223 litter cleanups resulting in the collection and proper disposal of over seven million pounds of litter.
* 263,000 tons of residential waste collected for recycling.
* More than 243,000 students taught basic environmental stewardship principles.

More info on the event on the flip… Read the rest of this entry »