Will Peabody Go Green?

There are two campaigns taking place in Peabody these days, one quite visible and the other barely visible. But both campaigns will have a major impact on the future of our community.

The first campaign (or more accurately campaigns) will determine who leads our city come January 2012. The second and much quieter campaign is the one now being waged by GreenPeabody to help boost Peabody into the ranks of Massachusetts’ “Green Communities.”

Here is some information about the Quiet Campaign.

The Green Communities movement was initiated in Mass. upon the passage of the Green Communities Act in 2008. In a nutshell the act was passed to promote through education and financial incentives more energy-efficient practices especially by and within municipal government. Adoption of any of the provisions of the Green Communities Act is strictly voluntary and NO community is mandated to do anything it does not want to do by voting to approve certain conditions of the law.

GreenPeabody, the official Green Committee of the city of Peabody is now actively working on the application for Peabody to join the seventy-four other Massachusetts cities and towns, including many on the North Shore. GreenPeabody members are now staffing an information table at the Saturday market with information about the Green Community Campaign and we’ll have a lot more information at the International Festival.

Over the next several posts I will discuss the benefits as well as the costs associated with becoming a green community. But at the core of it all is both a vision and a concrete plan to move Massachusetts and eventually all of the cities and towns in the Commonwealth that choose to move into the 21st century economy by taking concrete steps to reduce our energy consumption and carbon emissions while simultaneously supporting the renewable energy technologies that will power this century going forward.

In short, we have a choice. Over the next few weeks I will attempt to articulate what I believe these choices are while providing as much information about the basic elements of the plan as a reader might want.

Russ Eckel,

Chairman GreenPeabody