Pathways to Sustainable Communities

Every community can make a difference in securing a sustainable future.

Sustainability Action Plan
Sustainable Jersey Certification Program
Audits & Assessments
Policies
Land Use Planning
Ordinances
Municipal Initiatives
Key Resources
Implement pesticide free pest management programs; see sample policy
( 213kb)
Involving Residents

For additional advice and information, contact resourcecenter@anjec.org.

Sustainability Action Plan

Develop a sustainability action plan. See Belmar, Highland Park, Hopewell Township, Lawrence, Maplewood, Montclair , Summit, West Windsor and Woodbridge.

Sustainable Jersey Certification Program

Sustainable Jersey is a certification and incentive program for NJ municipalities. To become certified under the program, municipalities must form green teams and complete a significant number of the program’s defined sustainable actions.

Audits & Assessments

Determine the level of carbon emissions
- For local governments and communities, three providers of methods and tools are
  - ICLEI (Paid membership required)
  - World Business Council for Sustainable Development
  - Sustainable Jersey has actions for both municipal government and the whole community
  Two examples are
  - Columbia, MO ( 50kb)
  - Langley, B.C ( 1.4MB)
- For houses, encourage residents to
  - calculate their household’s carbon footprint
  - estimate personal emissions or take the Redefining Progress Quiz
Conduct an energy audit
- For local governments and communities, guides are provided by NJDEP’s Office of Planning & Sustainable Communities ( 115kb) and NJ State League of Municipalities. NJ Clean Energy provides rebates for participants in its Local Government Energy Audit program.
- For houses, encourage your residents to perform NJ Clean Energy's Home Energy Analysis or to contract for a low cost professional energy assessment through Home Performance with Energy Star
- For large businesses and governments (where peak electricity usage exceeds 200kW) NJ Clean Energy Program offers the Existing Buildings component of the Pay for Performance Program.
- For smaller businesses and governments NJ Clean Energy Program offers Direct Install to perform Energy Assessments and installations.
Review public works processes, i.e. garbage collection, recycling and snow removal for ways to improve sustainability; US Environmental Protection Agency's Green Infrastructure Handbook
Track and assess ongoing energy and water consumption in individual municipal buildings to monitor performance and identify strategic opportunities for savings and conservation.
- Adopt a municipal building energy management plan (See Hamilton)
- Adopt a Sustainability Plan and/or a Climate Action Plan (See Maplewood)

Policies

Adopt Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System™ (LEEDs) for major construction projects
Implement sustainable purchasing policies;
Use green cleaning supplies; information available from NJ DEP’s NJ Environmentally Preferable Purchasing based on the 2006 New Jersey green cleaning executive order and the Spring 2007 ANJEC Report ( 1.4MB), page 13
Sign the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement
During site plan review, consider factors like building orientation, preserving shade trees and nonstructural drainage to conserve heat and air conditioning and reduce stormwater runoff
Promote use of the Green Design Checklist for development applications.
Protect and enhance wildlife habitats and natural ecosystems.

Land Use Planning

Master Plan*( 88KB)
Shared parking
Pedestrian and bicycle friendly-circulation ( 1.0mb)
Open space protection ( 306kb)
Convert brownfields to green fields ( 827kb)
Funding opportunities

*Note: N.J.S.A. 40:55D-28a now allows municipalities to incorporate a Green Building and Environmentally Sustainable Plan Element into their Master Plans. A guidance document including a model sustainability master plan element is under development and will be posted here as soon as it's available.

Ordinances

The ANJEC Resource Center has over 1,000 sample ordinances on a wide variety of topics encompassing land use, zoning, conservation tools, energy, recycling, water resources, pollution and much more. Here are a few examples of interest to sustainable communities:

Additional ordinances available through ANJEC Resource Center (send email request to resourcecenter@anjec.org).

Municipal Initiatives

Key Resources

Energy
- Retrofit municipal buildings with energy efficient heating, cooling and lighting systems. See Highland Park and NJ Clean Energy's Pay for Performance Program for large municipalities or Direct Install for smaller municipalities.
- Replace fleets with more fuel efficient or alternative fuel vehicles. See Montclair and Woodbridge.
- Install Light Emitting Diode (LED) traffic lights and use compact fluorescent lights in buildings, on ball fields and in street lights. See Highland Park and Montclair.
- Consider opportunities for solar, wind, geothermal heat pumps and other alternative energy sources. See Montclair, Bayonne and Highland Park.
Natural Areas
- Protect aquifer recharge areas and wellheads. Consider becoming a partner in WaterSense, an EPA sponsored program that seeks to protect the future of our nation's water supply by promoting water efficiency and enhancing the market for water-efficient products, programs and practices.
- Remove invasive species
- Restore wetlands and forest habitats;
- Establish a farmers market
- Educate members of the community to reduce nonpoint source pollution by creating rain gardens. See links at Rutgers Water Resources Program

Involving Residents

Explore ways to make it easier for commuting residents to carpool or use mass transit. See Maplewood and Parsippany's Carpool Center
Encourage residents to conserve water and energy, buy locally grown foods, reuse and recycle and other sustainable behavior
Use your website to provide energy efficiency challenges to residents and businesses. See Hopewell EQ Challenge.
Engage students to communicate energy efficiency measures to area businesses. See Summit Energy Ambassadors
Enlist your fire department to offer residents energy efficiency tests using thermal imaging technology. See Greenbrook.
Join the New Jersey Environmental Federation's campaign for idle-free zones. See Millburn's use.

What's Happening in New Jersey?

Ideas from Other States

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