Katherine Gajewski

It’s official: Mayor-elect Jim Kenney has officially named Christine Knapp the new Director of Sustainability. Christine will be taking the reigns from current Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski. No stranger to the blog, we wanted to hear more from Katherine...

Philadelphia’s sustainability leaders are making some changes. Philadelphia Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski announced yesterday in an email that Andrew Sharp is joining the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability (MOS) as Deputy Director for Policy. Andrew Sharp – New Role in Mayor’s...

Greenworks Philadelphia. Tree planting. Farmers Markets. Energy Works. Bike shares. We're all so used to the awesome things that the Mayor's Office of Sustainability does that we don't realize it's a temporary office. With a mayor election on the horizon, we don't want anything to disappear on us. Lucky for us, City Council introduced Charter Change legislation, Resolution No. 130884, to make the Office of Sustainability permanent in the Philadelphia government. As Katherine Gajewski said in an email announcement,

Greenworks Philadelphia 2013 progress report, which marks our progress against the ambitious Greenworks plan, has been officially released to the public. The 4th annual Greenworks progress report boasts that work on 95% of the original 166 initiatives is underway or complete. Greenwork's goal is to complete the initiatives by 2015, in order to infamously become America's Greenest City. 43 initiatives were completed as of 2013. Find out more about the Greenworks 2013 progress report, after the jump:

This week Green Philly Blog is interviewing some of Philadelphia's women sustainability leaders in honor of closing out March as International Women's History Month. Some of the women are well-known in our city, and some have yet to break out from under the radar. We kick off our week's interviews with Katherine Gajewski!   As Director of Sustainability for Philadelphia, Katherine Gajewski has helped our city become greener since July of 2009. Prior to coming on board to head the sustainability front for Mayor Michael Mayor Nutter, she worked on the smoke-free legislation for Breathe Free Philadelphia Alliance and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Gajweski has lived everywhere from Montana, Vermont, Seattle and Chicago. We asked her a few questions to find out more about Mayor Nutter's sustainable lady-in-charge. (Jump on through to read the Q&A, & find out where in the world Katherine would magically transport herself if she could!)

The Philadelphia Marathon is grabbing tons of attention for offering up some prime 26.2 mile real estate for disheveled NYC should-have-been runners. But there's more attention on the way for the Philadelphia Marathon's sustainability efforts! As I pointed out with the Broad Street run, large running events produce a TON of waste. (Find out how the Philadelphia Marathon is becoming more sustainable and how YOU can help!)

We're so excited to about yesterday's success! We had the Plastic Bag Ban petition shared by fellow Philadelphian bloggers all over yesterday. So many people were discussing #BanPhillyBags on Twitter (even though Twitter melted down midday!)  It was picked up by Sandy Bauers on Philly.com and Philly Mag! (We also had a few other mentions, both lovers and haters.)  There were thousands of people that saw our message and picked up an issue that had been dismissed since 2009. But, we Just Started. Yesterday begun our movement with such a big bang that we wanted to leave the petition open to encourage more signatures before sending to Mayor Michael Nutter, Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski, the Office of Sustainability & Philadelphia City Council. We'll send the letter next week, but the petition will remain open until the plastic bag ban has passed. How can you help? Please keep sharing the petition and your personal stories!  If a 12-year-old in Chicago can do it, we can do it! The most inspiring part of yesterday was reading the enthusiastic comments on our Change.org petition. Here are some highlights:

Introducing : Philadelphia Recycling Rewards Last week, Mayor Michael Nutter announced the Philadelphia Recycling Rewards program that will be citywide by July 2010. Philadelphia Recycling Rewards is a partnership between the Streets Department & RecycleBank that allows residents to earn points for discounts, full-value gift cards or charitable contributions at participating merchants and non-profits. Previous RecycleBank's partnerships have proven to increase recycling efforts & aid the local economy. According to Director of Sustainability Katherine Gajewski, this program is Philly's biggest Greenworks initiative to date in helping the City become the Greenest City in America. Philadelphia is now the largest City in the US to reward residents for recycling efforts. The program is anticipated to bring the City’s recycling diversion rate- the amount of recyclable materials that are diverted away from landfills—to record levels. $$ talks - Every ton of waste diverted from landfills saves the city about $65. City residents will be notified when Philadelphia Recycling Rewards will launch:

Need to get your green on to balance all the red Phillies Phever going around? (Interestingly enough, the city of Philly is removing Solar-powered trashcans from center city and temporarily replacing them in riot anticipation.) Upcoming Green Events in the Philly area include: