Beyond Green

The broad mission of Philly's incoming sustainability director.

by Andrew Thompson

Andrew Thompson URBAN PHLANNER: Mark Alan Hughes wants a long-term sustainability plan. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Last week, Mark Alan Hughes, who in May was appointed director of sustainability for Philadelphia, spoke to a packed auditorium at the Sustainable Philadelphia forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences. Beginning in July, Hughes will try to make good on Michael Nutter's promises to improve recycling rates, reduce the city's energy consumption, and generally return Philadelphia to the days of William Penn's "greene countrie towne."

At the forum, a panel of academics had been discussing metrics for gauging how sustainable Philly is. But when Hughes delivered his keynote address, he posed a more fundamental question: Do we even know what "sustainability" means?

Hughes acknowledges that it's a difficult issue.

"A completely closed definition [of sustainability] that everyone can agree on isn't necessary to make progress," he says in a telephone interview. "Where you end up isn't so much about the definition."

Broadly, though, he defines sustainability as meeting society's needs in a way that allows future generations to do the same. If this sounds like a mandate that goes beyond environmentalism, that's because it is; in fact, much of Hughes' background is not in green initiatives, but in public policy, which he taught at Harvard and Princeton, and in designing federal job assistance programs. His role in Philadelphia, then, will go beyond recycling. He'll be charged with getting government, businesses and residents to think about the impact of their actions on future generations.

That his position is part of the Mayor's Office will give this sustainability agenda unprecedented authority.

"Part of the opportunity here is to move beyond any given set of even these core issues [of carbon emissions and recycling rates] to build a broader coalition that understands sustainability as a way of living and governing," says Hughes.

Priority number one for Hughes is to establish a Philadelphia version of New York City's sustainability agenda, PlaNYC. At last week's forum, Melissa Wright of New York's Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability exhibited the plan —157 pages with 127 initiatives and goals for the city — 90 percent of which has been launched, according to the PlaNYC 2008 Progress Report. Beyond accomplishing traditional sustainability measures like improving the fuel efficiency of private cars and increasing tree planting on lots, New York has begun construction of 13,000 affordable, low-impact housing units and tied disparate neighborhoods together by developing underutilized areas for transit and other infrastructure.

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"In a perverse and provocative way, we will benefit by these changes beyond our control," Hughes says. "The question under our control is: How much are we going to benefit and how equitably distributed will these benefits be?"

Hughes is such an admirer of PlaNYC that he has informally dubbed his forthcoming plan "Phlan." The "Phlan" may be a missing piece in the puzzle to make Philly sustainable. Philly already has made some moves towards sustainability, like taking a carbon inventory and collecting storm water runoff data. But the data and goals remain disconnected, leave holes, and, what's more, most of the recommendations that have been made remain mere recommendations. The Phlan, if it works, will aggregate the information and plans and turn them into directives from the highest level of city government.

Hughes will take office at a time when terms like "green" and "sustainable" are shifting from liberal buzzwords to acknowledged necessities in both the political and business arenas. His planned campaign to bring corporate leaders on board his advisory committee will be much easier than it would have been as recently as 2007. "This job wouldn't have meant something a year ago," he says. "But now we are seeing some of the strengths of American capitalism. The market alone won't take care of problems, but it can be a very powerful partner."

(editorial@citypaper.net)