Everyone can be a force in the community, creating a brighter future for all.
By assessing where your community is in its sustainability journey and setting clear goals to achieve objectives, with transparent processes and measures, Sustainable Pennsylvania provides a foundation for community leaders and members to understand and evaluate what actions are effective.
The overarching sustainable community goals we strive toward are:
- Community planning that is created with a constitutionally inclusive, goal-oriented, and implementable process. A cyclical planning, implementing, and assessing process that is fundamental to the work of the municipality and the community at large.
- Adopting and implementing policies to improve resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, and resilience to disasters.
- Reducing the adverse environmental impact of businesses, residents, and others within the community, by paying special attention to energy use, transportation, land use, and waste and materials management.
- Building sustainable, resilient, and energy-efficient public and private buildings that utilize local materials.
- Expanding and maintaining housing choices and ensuring everyone has access to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and other essential services.
- Ensuring everyone has access to safe, affordable, accessible, and sustainable transport systems. Improving road safety with a focus on the needs of vulnerable populations, pedestrians, bicycles, and those using mobility aids.
- Providing universal access to safe, inclusive, and accessible, green and public spaces, for all members of the community.
- Supporting positive economic, social, and environmental links between urban, suburban, and rural areas by strengthening regional community development planning.
“Our desire to author and implement a full sustainability plan was born of our efforts seeking a high level of achievement on the Sustainable PA Program. The program helped us assess what we were doing and see the possibilities of what could be done.”
John Bojarski, Public Information Officer, McCandless
Communication and Measurement
To learn more about sustainability practices assessed in the certification, visit the Action Resources. This comprehensive, curated library of actions and resources is designed specifically for Pennsylvania municipalities.