Sustainable Jersey

the problem. We have to just start implementing solutions at all levels. Sustainable Jersey is a novel, unique, and interesting approach to how to make progress in a broad scale, something that wasn’t really done anywhere else before. And it’s making real, substantive, measurable progress on the ground. We’re now part of a network of programs similar to ours that we founded, in twelve other states, so there are versions of Sustainable Jersey in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Minnesota, Massachusetts, etc.” New Jersey is a home-rule state, meaning local governments have great authority at the local level over drinking water, elements of the energy system, land use, transportation, schools and education, and local economic development. “Having tremendous authority doesn’t mean having a lot of capacity to make decisions and implement them,” Solomon explains. “Most small cities don’t have suites of high-level government workers with PhDs to figure out solutions to these issues. And it didn’t make a lot of sense to have 565 individual units of local government and individual municipalities each figuring out what they’re going to do regarding water, transportation, energy, and all these connected issues touching on sustainability.” Thus, Sustainable Jersey was born as a way to partner with and engage the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that wanted to move forward and make progress on these concerns. That included a number of leading mayors in the state, along with the state’s League of Municipalities, and some of the key state agencies, as well as a number of leaders in the business community. Solomon notes, “We came together and formed Sustainable Jersey with the mission to achieve a better tomorrow, one community at a time, working from the bottom up, to solve our key sustainability issues by having a broad impact at the local level.” Of New Jersey’s 565 municipalities, 450 are now registered with the program to try to achieve sustainability, which means each has passed a local ordinance or resolution stating their intention to become certified, appointed a formal liaison to be in charge, and created a local government body to coordinate their activities