Mayor Slay's Sustainability Action Agenda: Progress Report

ST. LOUIS — When Mayor Francis Slay unveiled the first City of St. Louis Sustainability Plan in 2013, he set forth 29 goals to accomplish by 2018. His Sustainability Action Agenda outlined initiatives to make our City cleaner, safer, healthier, with less waste of energy and natural resources; to attract knowledge workers and others who want more-sustainable spaces and neighborhoods; and to make life better and easier for all of the City's citizens.

The Agenda is a list of priorities chosen from the City's Sustainability Plan, a 260-page library of ideas developed through two years of public engagement to improve economic, social and environmental conditions by enhancing the City's natural and built environment.

Mayor Slay will present a status report of his Action Agenda at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at the Missouri Botanical Garden Spink Pavilion.*

"We have been on a mission to improve our City in ways that people can feel, touch, understand, and measure," Mayor Slay said. "My Sustainability Action Agenda should be viewed as my firm commitment to advancing sustainability in the City, and I am proud to announce that we have achieved or even exceeded many of our goals. My hope is for the next Administration to choose its own priorities and set forth a new action agenda by using the Sustainability Plan, which is an extensive collection of broad goals, specific objectives and direct strategies that have been identified by the people of St. Louis as a comprehensive blueprint for achieving even greater livability and quality of life."

In addition to the update on each of the 29 Action Agenda items, Mayor Slay will announce five new pieces of the Plan, which include:

• Expanding Set the PACE St. Louis to include residential and municipal buildings;
• Launching a green energy training program for minority- and women-owned business enterprises;
• Unveiling the City's first Climate Action & Adaptation Plan;
• Acknowledging St. Louis's Biophilic City designation;
• Disseminating the new STL Connecting with Nature map.

*Highlights of the agenda for the day is as follows:

• [ 9:30 a.m.] Continental Breakfast
• [ 10:00 a.m.] Update from Mayor Slay on Sustainability Action Agenda
• [ 10:45 a.m.] Sustainability Director Catherine Werner details Action Agenda progress
• [ break ]
• [ 12:00 p.m.] Urban Vitality &Ecology Retrospective
• [ 1:15 p.m.] Urban Ecology "Coming Attractions" Pecha Kucha

Topics include:

• Youth & Community Leadership,
• Education & Outreach,
• Turtles,
• Bees,
• Monarchs,
• Watershed Conservation,
• Green Infrastructure,
• Greening vacant lots to benefit neighborhoods.