Delaware Joins the Climate Prosperity Project

WDEL has audio of Gov. Markell’s announcement here.

The effort to grow a greener economy in Delaware stepped up its profile today with Gov. Markell’s announcement that Delaware is the only state to be invited to join the Climate Prosperity Project. According to the NJ, this group:

The Climate Prosperity Project, sponsored by the Rockefeller Fund and Global Urban Development, seeks to demonstrate that innovation, efficiency and conservation of resources are the best ways to create jobs and increase competitiveness. Participants in the project will provide expert advice on how to pursue environmentally sustainable economic development strategies.

According to the Chairman of the Project, Dr. Marc Weiss, Delaware is one of their 7 pilot region projects, with access to a wide range or resources and expertise to assist in developing and implementing a green economic strategy. The Project is also rapidly developing additional resources, decision support software, networks and metrics development to better assess green economic growth, environmental and energy improvements. Representatives from Delaware will be at the table with this organization, helping to develop these strategies,resources, standards and assessments for this high profile subject.

This ought to be a very good thing for advancing the greening of Delaware’s economy. This group has included Markell’s vision for this with the green economic visions of places like Silicon Valley/San Jose, King County/Seattle, Denver, St. Louis, Southwest Florida, and Montgomery County, Maryland, which is pretty good company to be in for this effort. It is very hard to know how the results of this kind of consortium really do show themselves in real change towards a new vision, but it will certainly be worth tracking over the years.