Worcester – Green Community on Many Fronts

Worcester’s road to Green Community designation has been a concerted effort for a long time.  Though the Massachusetts Green Communities Act is only a couple of years old the city of Worcester has been working toward some of the goals in the criteria for designation since Tim Murray was Mayor of Worcester during his tenure between 2002 and 2007.

Worcester received the designation on May 25th with Lieutenant Governor Murray there with both Mayor O’Brien and City Manager O’Brien.  You can find a video of all of the official ceremony on the City of Worcester’s website.  It highlights the progress that has been made toward the vision of having a sustainable energy future.

Of note on the news article on the Worcester City Hall website was the statement that the green community designation will:

also enable the City to market itself on a regional, national and global basis as a City that is attractive to companies in the green energy sector, thus boosting our economic development, business attraction and expansion activities.

What this can potentially mean is more green energy jobs for both Worcester and Massachusetts.

The need for both the Commonwealth and Worcester to move in this direction is augmented by the day to day pictures we get from the Gulf Coast which show what our  dependence on oil can do to our environment.  Green energy alternatives are at the forefront of our economic future not just as a state but as a country as well.  Let’s use this designation to remind us of our responsibility to conserve energy and find innovative solutions.  Worcester and Massachusetts seem to be positioned to be in the middle of it but it will take all of us in the community to keep moving the ball forward.  For more details I highly recommend going through the video.