By Kaya
 |
| Kaya and Eliza |
On Monday, May 6th,
Eliza and I attended an early morning signing ceremony for the Cambridge
Community Compact for a Sustainable Future. This joint effort is dedicated to creating
a more sustainable future for the City of Cambridge.
 |
| Mayor Henrietta Davis with our quilt |
Mayor Henrietta Davis had sent us an invitation to attend, which we accepted with excitement. The quilt we made and had donated to the City of Cambridge — “Imagine a Sustainable Life” — had been hung in Mayor Davis’ reception room during March. Perhaps this was her way of saying “thank you” by including us. She knows we care about these issues, so we were happy to be there!
Representatives of the City of
Cambridge, along with the presidents of Harvard University and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed the document that expresses
their commitment to work together on climate change and energy sustainability.
The four signatories were City Manager Robert Healy, Mayor Henrietta Davis,
Harvard President Drew Faust, and MIT President Rafael Reif. The city and these educational institutions
had worked on drafting this resolution for more than a year.
 |
| Left to right: Harvard President Drew Faust, MIT President Rafael Reif, Cambridge Mayor Henrietta Davis and Cambridge City Manager Robert Healy |
The signing ceremony — with
remarks from each of those who signed it — lasted less than an hour. In
her remarks, Mayor Davis emphasized the main points of the Cambridge Community
Compact for a Sustainable Future, which holds each party accountable for making
progress toward achieving certain goals. Broadly, those goals are:
·
Building energy
efficiency
·
Climate change
mitigation and preparedness planning
·
Renewable energy
systems
·
Sustainable
technology
·
Waste management
·
Water management
·
Urban natural
resources
·
Public information
and education
·
Green tech
incubation and promotion
By signing the Compact, MIT and Harvard, as well as the city of
Cambridge, are pledging their contribution towards creating an environmentally
sustainable city. This is a big step for Cambridge, and it shows just how
serious Cambridge is about increasing its sustainability by addressing the
challenges of climate change.
 |
| The Sprouts of Hope with the signatories and other invited guests. |
The Sprouts of Hope are glad to have witnessed such a remarkable event
and can’t wait to see how the contract comes into play! Great job, Cambridge!
