After months of discussions and strategy sessions, the DowntownDC BID has leveraged its strong relationships with several stakeholders to designate the BID area as an EcoDistrict, an area that uses cooperative action and economies of scale to reduce its carbon footprint. Details are available in our new leadership paper, DowntownDC ecoDistrict: A 21st Century Sustainability Framework.
Through operational practices, supporting the city’s sustainability efforts and creating an environment attractive for further and future investment the DowntownDC ecoDistrictwill set the stage for accelerated neighborhood-scale sustainability.
The ecoDistrict covers the entire BID area and has three major goals:
- Reduce peak and overall energy consumption
- Enhance economic performance, market positioning and market share of Downtown buildings
- Promote and develop Downtown DC as one of the most sustainable Downtowns nationally and globally
The DowntownDC BID boasts one of the nation’s first ecoDistricts. BID-area businesses will commit to achieve ambitious sustainability performance goals that guide district investments and community action, ultimately leading to increased market share and profitability. The performance results will be closely tracked to measure progress and improve sustainable practices.
“The DowntownDC EcoDistrict makes perfect business and ’green’ sense,” said DowntownDC BID executive director Richard Bradley. “It will align with DC’s new citywide Climate Action Plan goals, which we will provide leadership to help meet. And it will ensure that Downtown’s unique assets are leveraged to create a propitious investment environment.”
“The bottom line,” he added, “is that we want to engage more stakeholders, provide better measurements of success and boost marketing efforts to help Downtown, the city and the nation achieve and accelerate their sustainability goals. It’s a win-win situation for all involved.”
The DowntownDC ecoDistrict builds on best practices outlined in the BID’s 2008 Greening DowntownDC leadership paper and its 2010 Downtown EcoDistrict Summit.