In honor of Earth Day on Friday, several Denver City Council members want to challenge the city offices as well as their council districts to start more green, sustainable practices.

Councilman Jolon Clark said that while the city has done lots of great work to help the environment, it gets put to the side when other issues come through the City Council process, and that the work to save the planet is never truly done.

“I just want everybody to think back to where we were when the Climate Action Task Force was put together – when we really stood here and said this is an emergency, and the thing that’s on fire is our planet,” Clark told his colleagues on the Business, Arts, Workforce & Aviation Services Committee. “…I think that this is a great moment with Earth Day here to recenter around just how much work there is still left to do. We have done amazing things, we have really set the tone for a lot of cities who are now modeling after what we’ve done, and yet we are so far from where we need to be.”

Clark said 70% of global greenhouse emissions come from cities, and with Denver being the capital and largest city in Colorado, the city has an opportunity to make real change and set a better example for other cities.

Councilwoman Kendra Black said the first step is making sure the council and all of its members are “walking the walk” to show the little things folks can do to save energy and make a difference. This includes driving less, eliminating landfill-bound waste through recycling and composting and reducing the presence of single-use items in council offices. She also challenged other city staff, offices and agencies to get the Certifiably Green designation.

Megan Stansell, certification manager for the Certifiably Green Denver program within the Office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency, said the goal of the program is to foster a network of green businesses in the community. Over 1,800 businesses are enrolled and over 150 are certified.

Stansell said her program, which has been around since 2009, functions as a free consulting service for businesses across all industries that are looking to be more sustainable and green. The program keeps track of how certified businesses perform in order to renew their certifications each year and helps businesses reach whatever goal within the program they want, whether it be getting fully certified or taking small steps to improve sustainability practices.

The program targets five areas including energy efficiency, water conservation, resource management, sustainable transportation and business management in compliance with regulations. One of council’s goals is to get all of its offices as well as the council’s central office certified. Councilman Chris Hines said his office has had the designation since 2019, about a month after he took over.

Mark Heiser, who is venue director at the Denver Performing Arts Complex with Denver Arts and Venues, gave the committee an overview of his department’s industry-leading sustainability efforts. The program is split into three prongs: utilizing a three-stream waste system and sorting; messaging and patron and partner accountability; and venue purchasing, operational efficiencies and capital improvements.

Red Rocks Amphitheatre has a 85.8% diversion rate, which means it is keeping that percentage of waste out of landfills. On top of having recycling, landfill and compost bins, Red Rocks officials hire a team to go through and sort these bins to ensure the least amount of cross-contamination.

Black said it would be interesting to see what could be done to get all events held on city property to properly sort waste. She said with a festival she worked on previously, they had volunteers stand by waste bins to talk to people and make sure items are disposed of in the proper bins, and that this could work in other situations, too.

The full City Council also adopted a proclamation Monday night in honor of Earth Day, stating its commitment to environmentally friendly policies that will promote the health of the planet.