Sustainability Plan History

In August 2008, Mayor Krasnoff and the Chesapeake City Council unanimously approved a resolution for the City of Chesapeake to develop an Environmental Sustainability program known as "Go Green Chesapeake: the Sustainable Chesapeake Initiative".

The Sustainable Chesapeake Initiative (SCI) committee was formed by the City Manager as an evolution of the City's 2007 Green Building Task Force to pursue a broader agenda of environmental sustainability. Among other things, the resolution tasked the SCI committee with developing a Sustainability Plan with short and long term goals toward making the City of Chesapeake a sustainable community. The resolution describes a sustainable city as one with a high quality of life that meets the social and economic needs of its current and future citizens, employees, visitors, and business community, while maintaining and improving the quality of its natural environment. This description complements the most commonly recognized definition of sustainability which is "to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

The initial focus of the effort is to pursue environmental sustainability within the operations of the City with the longer term focus to promote and facilitate environmental sustainability within the greater community.