Founding Member

The City of Grand Rapids-
Located in West Michigan, the City of Grand Rapids prides itself on our flourishing and healthy communities along with our vibrant atmosphere.  With a wide variety of departments, comprised of over 1,400 hard-working individuals, we are able to maintain a city focused on the sustainability of not only our communities, economy, and environmental impacts, but responsive governance as well.

We continually strive to improve our city’s footprint through comprehensive goal setting and creation of detailed documents such as our more recent 2013 Climate Resiliency Report and our Sustainability Plans. The most recent FY17-FY21 Sustainability Plan not only builds off of the three traditional sustainability pillars of Economic Prosperity, Social Equity, and Environmental Quality, but will also include the idea of Governance to create a Quadruple Bottom Line approach. Highlights of the plan include:

Economic Prosperity-
1.  Create incentives for development of socially responsible B-Corporations by June 30, 2021.
2.  Increase the diversity of neighborhood business districts by ensuring 20 new businesses are established annually.
3.  Ensure that 80% of jobs created or retained with incentives will be permanent, full-time employment with benefits annually.
4.  Increase private business investment by $500 million between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2021.

Social Equity-
1.  Increase the amount of housing for families in serious need (defined by those who make less than 40% of the median income and pay more than 40% of their income for rent).
2.  Increase the diversity (age, gender, race, ethnicity, socio-economic, etc.) on City boards and commissions by June 30, 2021 to mirror census data.
3.  Create two additional diversity festivals to recognize, celebrate, and promote the diversity in Grand Rapids by June 30, 2018.

Environmental Quality-
1.  Increase the Urban Tree Canopy to 40% by June 30, 2021.
2.  Achieve 100% of energy use for City-owned buildings from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal by June 30, 2025.

Governance-
1.  Increase timeliness and effectiveness of response to customer request calls to 311 by June 30, 2021.
2.  Ensure that 100% of sidewalk snow removal complaints will be abated within 72 hours of the non-compliance notice expiration annually.