The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) presented the 2019 Climate and Energy Leadership Awards to the Prince George’s County Food Composting Program, Anacostia Coordinating Council, and Fairfax County Public Schools for outstanding efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This year’s awards also recognized projects and programs that engage and serve the region’s underserved communities.
The awards were distributed at the October COG Board of Directors meeting by COG Climate, Energy, and Environment Policy Committee Chair and City of Falls Church Council Member Daniel Sze, and COG Air and Climate Public Advisory Committee Chair Tamara Toles O’Laughlin.
“Local efforts like these ensure we’re able to equitably work toward our ambitious regional goal of reducing emissions by 80 percent by 2050,” said Sze. “I’m very excited to see how the amazing work by our awardees expands and evolves.”
Learn more about the award recipients and their innovative programs below:
Prince George’s County Food Composting Program
The Prince George’s County Department of Environment is engaging communities in the county on food scrap separation and composting. Food waste constitutes about 23 percent of the waste stream in the county and it is expected to increase. The county’s Department of the Environment saw this as an opportunity to promote sustainable resource recovery by establishing the County Organic Composting Facility, the largest municipal installation of its kind on the East Coast. To support this system, a curbside collection pilot of food scraps was implemented from December 2017 to January 2019 with approximately 200 households from four diverse communities. An estimated total of 112,000 pounds or 56 tons of food scraps were collected and diverted from the landfill in 14 months. The program is now expanding to 3,000 households and plans county-wide deployment in the next two to three years.
Anacostia Coordinating Council
Ward 8, the southernmost portion of the District of Columbia, boasts more than 500 acres of forests that clean the air by absorbing greenhouse gases, lower summer temperatures by providing shade, prevent erosion, and filter contaminants from stormwater. Ward 8 Woods is a project of the Anacostia Coordinating Council (ACC) that engages residents in need of work in restoring the beauty and health of these forested areas. Through grant support from the District of Columbia, ACC hired five part-time Park Stewards. From July 2018 – June 2019 the stewards removed over 150,000 pounds of trash, cut invasive vines from the trunks of more than 800 trees, distributed over 3,000 handbills describing the project and each of the parks, spoke face-to-face with hundreds of Ward 8 residents about the project, and mobilized over 200 volunteers to assist in this work.
Fairfax County Public Schools
Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has over 27 million square feet of space in 220 facilities. Continual energy efficiency improvements since 2005 reduced annual electricity and natural gas consumption by 15 percent and reduced GHG emissions (CO2e) by more than 80 million pounds, despite the addition of over 3.5 million square feet to accommodate student population growth. Get2Green is the environmental stewardship program at FCPS. The program is improving equitable access to school-based environmental stewardship projects at schools in underserved communities. With Community Foundation for Northern Virginia support, Get2Green established outdoor learning spaces at 13 schools last school year. More than 2,000 students helped with planting and building the spaces and an additional 11,000 students will use these new spaces, fostering a stronger connection to the planet.
The awards pictured were handcrafted by Montgomery County Artist Janet Wittenburg, owner of Glass Habitat studio.
MORE: COG's Climate and Energy Leadership Awards