Foreword by Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor of New York City
Seven years ago, we created a division of sustainability in the Mayor’s Office. From that tiny seed, the vision of a “greener, greater” city took root. In PlaNYC, we sought to address numerous challenges to the city’s growth: How would we enable up to one million new residents live, work, and play in a city that was already congested and brimming
with activity, while, at the same time, in a city with over 520 miles of coastline, adapt to and mitigate the growing risks of climate change.
We’ve come a long way since we launched PlaNYC six years ago. The air that New Yorkers
breathe is cleaner than it’s been in decades, and will become cleaner still as we end the burning of heavy fuel oil in buildings. New York Harbor and its tributaries are healthier
than they’ve been in a century, and they’ll become cleaner still thanks to our investments
in innovative, stormwater-absorbing bluebelts and green infrastructure. We’ve set our sights on doubling New York’s recycling rate over the next four years, and just last month we made it possible for New Yorkers to start recycling all rigid plastics—the largest expansion of recycling in almost 25 years. We have passed the 750,000 mark in our campaign to plant a million new trees. We are implementing the most ambitious “green buildings” laws in the nation. And we’re more than halfway to our goal of shrinking
the city’s carbon footprint 30% by 2030.
None of these achievements would have been possible without the efforts of hundreds of people at more than a dozen City agencies to make sustainability part of the DNA of the City’s operations. Using rigorous data and analysis and the best science we have focused on cost-effective investments made in partnership with communities and the private sector. The results are policies—like new stormwater management standards that will drive green infrastructure investment; and public-private partnerships like Clean Heat that have overwhelming public support.
Our city faces renewed challenges today as we recover from the damage and disruption
caused by Hurricane Sandy. Despite years of learning and preparation, we are sobered by the “new normal” that climate change is producing in our city, including more frequent and intense summer heat waves and more destructive coastal storms like Hurricane Sandy. We can’t know that the future will not repeat the past, so we must prepare on all fronts. However, we can say this with confidence: we will mobilize the same spirit, ingenuity, and accountability to make New York a greener, greater, more resilient city.
Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor