In conjunction with the Sustainable Denver Summit, Mayor Hancock unveiled an updated climate action plan on Thursday, outlining a commitment to cut carbon pollution by 80 percent in Denver. Photo: Michael Furman
An array of city officials, nonprofit representatives, Regional Transportation District board members, environmental experts, energy engineers, city planners and citizens gathered in Davis Auditorium on the University of Denver campus Dec. 3 for the first ever Sustainable Denver Summit.
The University of Denver partnered closely with the city’s Office of Sustainability — attracting more than 400 industry stakeholders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors throughout the metro area — to help close the gap between Denver’s current sustainability trajectory and what will be needed to realize Mayor Hancock’s 2020 goals.
“Sustainability is not something that we can pursue in isolation as a campus,” said University of Denver Sustainability Coordinator Chad King. “It requires building partnerships across the region and utilizing the city of Denver as a critical partner. DU is on course to contribute, both pragmatically and intellectually, by linking our operations with the broader scope of the city’s goals.”
The summit opened with remarks from Mayor Michael Hancock, Gregg Kvistad, executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of Denver, and Majora Carter, a nationally renowned urban revitalization strategist from the South Bronx. Carter delivered an inspired keynote address to a packed auditorium of more than 400 people.
“There are two kinds of urban development,” said Carter. “Outside gentrification causes the demoralization of low-status communities. However, self-gentrification empowers people to create safe places to play, good education and access to healthy food from within their own communities, which creates economically diverse cities.”
Following Carter’s address, summit participants divided into four working groups — water, energy, mobility and materials — to brainstorm ways of forging partnerships that could move the City and County of Denver toward reaching the mayor’s 2020 Sustainability Goals. Denver’s 2020 objectives include reducing Denver’s CO2 emissions to pre-1990 levels, holding total energy use below 2012 levels and cutting fossil fuels by 50 percent, among others.
“We need strong partnerships with our residents, our businesses, our nonprofits and neighboring communities if we are to ensure that basic resources are available and affordable to everyone, both today and in the future,” Mayor Hancock said. “I look forward to working with you today and throughout the remainder of my administration to put in place the commitments to action needed to advance our sustainability.
Following the all-day breakout sessions that dove into strategies and tactics for collaborating on sustainability goals and efforts across Denver’s public and private sectors, the closing summit session announced the new commitments from each working group. Working group participants included representatives from the University of Denver Sustainability Council, the Alliance Center, the Nature Conservancy, CH2M, Denver Water, the Denver Foundation, Xcel Energy and a host of other organizations.
In conjunction with the Sustainable Denver Summit, Mayor Hancock unveiled an updated climate action plan on Thursday, outlining a commitment to cut carbon pollution by 80 percent in Denver by 2050.
“We organized today’s summit around commitments to action,” said Jerry Tinianow, Denver’s chief sustainability officer. “The city has ambitious 2020 goals, and we have made substantial progress toward meeting them, but a lot more is needed to close the gap between where present efforts will take us and where we need to be in five years. Today is about committing to actions that will close that gap.”