Green facts:

Trees and Parks

• Since Richard M. Daley has become mayor, 500,000 trees have been planted in Chicago.
• Over 70 miles of boulevards were constructed.
• More than a hundred school parking lots were turned into parks.
• In the last ten years the city’s water usage has been reduced by 160 million gallons a day.
• Built in the last few years Millenium Park is not only of the greatest metropolitan recreation areas in the world, it is also the largest green roof: covering 24.7 acres, it sits atop a network of municipal garages.  It is filled not only with recreational facilities, but is also home to many native species of plants.  The cost of building the park exceeded original estimates nearly threefold.  Hardly anybody is still complaining.  A market study commissioned by the city found that the park attracts over 4 million visitors annually, and was responsible for encouraging over 25 percent of the 10,000 units of housing under construction, as well as for a $190 million annual increase in hotel, restaurant, shopping and entertainment sales.

Buildings

• Chicago was among the first U.S. cities to require all new public buildings to earn certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.
• More than 200 buildings in the city have green roofs covering 2,5 million square feet – more than the rest of the country combined. The roofs help to cool the air in the city, absorb rain water, reducing the usage of energy.
• A McDonald restaurant downtown is going to be the only one fast-food place in the country with a green roof.
• There is a green roof atop the City Hall Building.
• The Neighborhood Technology Center received the first Platinum Award from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Manufacturing and Exchange

• After the creation of a “Greentown” enterprise zone for clean technology, Solargenics
  Energy LLC moved to Chicago to build a thermal manufacturing plant here.
• The Boeing Company moved its headquarters to Chicago.
• The City helped launch the Chicago Climate Exchange, or CCX, the world’s first voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction system and trading platform.  In March, the exchange’s 100-plus members, including IBM, Motorola, and Baxter International, traded a record 607,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.