Green giant: website outlines green initiatives in Sault.

• Author: Kelly, Lindsay
• Position: NEWS

How green is your hometown? Sault Ste. Marie residents will soon know exactly what their city is doing to reduce its carbon footprint when its online Environmental Initiatives Map launches this fall.

Funded by the city's Municipal Environmental Initiatives Committee, and being implemented by the Community Geomatics group at the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre, the website outlines environmental projects taking place within the city. Everything from the hours of operation for hazardous waste depots to major solar projects will be detailed on the site.

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"Part of our mandate on the green committee is to make the public aware of what the city's doing to help reduce our own carbon footprint," said Marie Alexander, a senior software engineer and developer with the Community Geomatics Centre, who's working on the initiative. "We want the community to know the city is doing something to reduce their energy emissions, to reduce their energy consumption, and these are the things we want to do."

The website will comprise three segments: a renewable energy section, which will list renewable energy projects in the city; a section for the city's environmental initiatives, which will detail projects the city's undertaken, such as retrofitting lights or reducing fuel consumption; and a section listing energy-related companies in the private sector.

A news feed on the site will update people on the latest developments.

"It gives them a one-stop shop for all the environmental initiatives that the city is doing, whether it's solar lights, or waste-diversion efforts, or pump station work which is related to water quality" Alexander said. "So we want to try to incorporate all the different things all in one spot."

Though its initial purpose was to help inform residents of their city's eco-friendliness, Paul Beach, the geomatics centre's manager, believes the site can also serve as a "window" into the progress Sault Ste. Marie has made on the renewable energy front.

Over the last few years, the...