Small Grants Drive NJ Sustainability

Sustainable New Jersey is offering 12 municipalities throughout the state small grants to support sustainable solutions to everyday civic challenges

What Happened?
Sustainable New Jersey is offering 12 municipalities throughout the state small grants to support sustainable solutions to everyday civic challenges.

Goal
Sustainable New Jersey announced $200,000 in small grants have been awarded to 12 municipalities statewide. Administered through the small grants program, the 32 grants provide communities with $10,000 or $20,000 in funding to fuel sustainability projects at the local level. Projects supported by the small grants program focus on a variety of sustainable community solutions such as:

Food waste recycling
Woodlands restoration
Energy efficiency outreach
Bike and pedestrian paths
Green business recognition
Water conservation
Creative assets inventory

Sustainable New Jersey works with municipalities to implement a comprehensive sustainability program that combines certification programs with state and private financial incentives. The organization also connects local governments with a fully resourced program of technical support and training to ensure sustainability projects can be successfully maintained in the long term.

Who Won?
A wide variety of sustainability projects received funding through the small grants program. The four projects awarded $20,000 grants included:

Simple Steps to Savings: Education, marketing and outreach component of Atlantic City’s Energy Efficiency Program. Atlantic City will educate residents on how to save energy and money.
Life Learning Greenhouse Project: Edison Township will construct a permanent sustainable live learning greenhouse where they will grow, cook and study organic food.
Wetland and Forest Restoration: Madison Borough will restore a 20-acre tract of native wooded, freshwater wetland by replanting native trees and shrubs.
Rutherford/Meadowlands Bicycle and Pedestrian Ring: Rutherford Borough will make a major roadway more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly through signs, infrastructure and a bicycle education program.

When selecting sustainability projects to receive small grants, the organization considers several factors including:

Impact on sustainability of the municipality
How the project will be a catalyst for future sustainable practices or initiatives
Likelihood of success
Community capacity to remain active in Sustainable New Jersey program
Innovativeness and uniqueness of the project

In addition, the organization seeks out projects that demonstrate buy-in and collaboration between municipalities, state agencies and other organizations in the community.

Sustainability Measurements
Municipalities worldwide are adopting new policies to increase energy efficiency and boost sustainability in an effort to combat the impacts of climate change and reduce waste. Because sustainability projects span all areas of public services and operations, measuring their impacts can be difficult.

CityMetric outlined three common measurements city officials can monitor to determine how sustainable their communities are and where improvements should be made:

Land
Energy
Water

To determine a city’s ecological footprint, officials must analyze how much land and water area is required to support the community. More specifically, it must be calculated how much land and water is needed to produce resources for consumption and absorb wastes released. Ecological footprints are measured in global hectares, with the international average at 2.6.

When measuring a city’s carbon footprint, officials must calculate the total amount of greenhouse gases it produces. This footprint is measured in kilograms or tons of CO2 with an average of 1.2 metric tons per person worldwide, CityMetric reported.

A city’s water footprint is determined by tabulating all the freshwater used to produce goods and services consumed by the community. This metric is difficult to determine due to the variety of ways freshwater is consumed, CityMetric reported.

As more cities take on sustainability strategies, these metrics will likely be expanded and refined to look more closely at the impacts of new solutions.