BGreen Bridgeport

BGreen 2020 was developed to be a blueprint for the future of the City of Bridgeport and its businesses, institutions, and neighborhoods. The plan laid out strategies to improve the environmental quality and livability of Bridgeport’s parks, waterways, and streets and to promote Bridgeport as a location for the development of green industries and green employment. The over 100 contributors to the BGreen 2020 plan charted a course that responded to the community’s needs for greater economic opportunities while recognizing the outstanding assets that Bridgeport has in its parks, infrastructure, institutions and people. Five areas of opportunity were identified for focus:

1. green energy and buildings;
2. land use and transportation;
3. green spaces, water resources and recycling;
4. green businesses, jobs and purchasing; and
5. education and outreach.

Within these areas, 65 strategies were developed for implementation by BGreen partners, including the city administration, state and federal government agencies, philanthropic partners, the business community, institutions, neighborhood groups and individuals.

BGreen continues to function as a public/private partnership with strong leadership by City of Bridgeport elected officials and staff and the Bridgeport Regional Business Council. Major ongoing support by the Fairfield County Community Foundation has been supplemented by city, state, and federal funds, private investment, and funding or technical assistance by other foundations and non-profit organizations. There are now over 150 projects completed or underway in Bridgeport which support BGreen 2020’s goals of improving environmental quality, livability, opportunity, and sustainability being carried out by over 80 organizations and businesses.

Initial estimates of the environmental impact of some of these projects indicate that Bridgeport has been able to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55,000 metric tons per year through projects that are implemented and operational, and is on track to save at least 162,000 metric tons each year through additional projects under development. This level of achievement would enable Bridgeport to meet the target of a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2020, recently established in the Bridgeport Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan developed as a supplement to the BGreen 2020 plan (Regional Plan Association. BGreen Energy Efficiency and Conservation Plan, August 2010).

Implemented projects reduce carbon emissions by 55,290.5 metric tons CO2e per year, equivalent to one year’s worth of:

• Greenhouse gases absorbed by 45,320 acres of forest
• Fuel burned by 11,519 passenger vehicles
• Electricity used by 7,607 US homes

Existing & Underway projects reduce carbon emissions by 162,244 metric tons CO2e per year
Equivalent to

• 377,312 barrels of oil
• 697 rail cars full of coal
• Recycling 60,766 tons of waste sent to landfills instead of recycling

Read the 2013 Progress Report to review the contributions of many of the 150+ projects to reducing carbon emissions as well as growing employment, developing energy-efficient housing, reducing utility costs, improving the parks system, promoting walking and biking, decreasing the cost and negative impacts of waste disposal, and including Bridgeport’s young people as advocates and partners in BGreen 2020. For each of the five BGreen program areas, we provide a snapshot of impacts of projects, detailed descriptions of a handful of key initiatives, a list of participating organizations, and a comprehensive list of all projects related to BGreen within that program area. New to the report is the addition of a sixth program area, Planning for Climate Change, which develops Bridgeport’s readiness to adapt to a changing climate. This report attempts to catalog all initiatives underway related to BGreen 2020, but it is inevitable that some projects have been left out. Please visit bgreenbridgeport.org to submit information on additional projects that support BGreen 2020 goals and for updates on BGreen 2020’s initiatives or visit this spreadsheet to learn how these figures were calculated.