Paul Colletti Mark Schwiebert stands in front of the Sylvan Slough Natural Area -- an industrial zone reclaimed by the City of Rock Island through bioremediation -- in this file photo from the fall of 2007. More photos from this shoot

Todd Mizener 2008 Radish Award More photos from this shoot

The 57-year-old mayor of Rock Island, Ill., has been leading a charge the past two years to transform his city of roughly 40,000 people into one that embodies environmental stewardship and leadership.

“It’s becoming increasingly apparent to all of us that we need to do a lot better job of taking care of the environment,” Schwiebert says. “Not a lot’s being done on the federal level right now, so it’s really kind of fallen to states and local governments to take the initiative.”

He’s among a growing coalition of mayors across the United States who have signed on to the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change created the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and it went into effect in 2005. Countries may choose to ratify the protocol and stick to its rules to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions or otherwise keep them in check. Though the United States notably has not signed on, several local governments within the U.S. have.

“Those are all people trying to lead by example and make sure their communities are doing environmentally responsible things with the hope that will gradually percolate up to a higher level,” Schwiebert says.

“The second thing is, it’s the responsible thing to do for our citizens,” he says of cost savings and revenue growth. “It can generate savings for us in energy consumption, reduces our energy bills, which reduces our expenses as a public entity. I see it as being an economic development tool because the industries of the future are going to be the industries that focus on sustainability — technologies that can be used over time.

“I’d like Rock Island to be on the cutting edge of that because I view that as a way to grow our economic base,” he added.

In early 2006, Schwiebert formed an Advanced Technology and Sustainability Consortium — a mix of private businesses, city and civic leaders who meet monthly to network and come up with ways to be “greener.” Out of that emerged a Sustainable Design Assessment Team, which helps private and public entities to create greener buildings.

The city is financially supporting redevelopment of the former McKesson warehouse downtown into condominiums and ground-floor business space. It will include many features — such as a green roof — that meet criteria for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, though it won’t have that designation.

“We need to show an example of how it works, that it’s not prohibitively expensive and how it can generate some significant savings in operation down the road,” Schwiebert says. “That’s one of the things that can sell this. People can save money doing this, as well as doing what’s right for our kids and our grandkids.

“Once people get into the mindset of doing things in a more energy-efficient way, starting to see the benefits that come from that, then it becomes part of our culture, our way of thinking.

“But we’re not there yet,” he says. “We’re still in the business-as-usual mode.”

Movies like “An Inconvenient Truth,” natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, record droughts and Al Gore’s Nobel Prize are helping change minds. Schwiebert attended the national Sundance Summit on climate change in September 2007. The event was co-hosted by Robert Redford, and one of the messages was “connect the dots,” the mayor says.

“People aren’t connecting the dots yet, because people aren’t focusing on it that much,” he says. “It doesn’t affect us directly. As people start seeing these disasters happen and start connecting the dots, they begin to see patterns forming and that heightens public awareness. Public awareness precipitates action.”

From the summit, Schwiebert was impressed by “the urgency of the problem, that (we’re) within 10 years of things becoming almost irreversible,” he says of global warming and the impact of carbon levels. “The second thing I came away with was ideas on measures that can be taken on the national level and ideas generated by talking with mayors on the local level.”

Among the many actions Rock Island has taken over the last year include committing to buy and expand a hydropower plant on the Rock River; reclaiming a dilapidated industrial site through bioremediation to create the Sylvan Slough Natural Area; starting a voluntary curbside recycling program; using more energy-efficient lighting and windows; using biodiesel fuel when possible; promoting stormwater management; and forming a city-staff “Green Team” that is studying and proposing other ways to help save the Earth. Schwiebert also wants the city to hire an environmental coordinator to oversee its efforts and find public and private funding sources to help pay for them.

The city will spend $2.1 million on the hydropower plant, providing about two-thirds of electricity needs at city facilities, and lowering its energy costs by $100,000 a year starting in 2017.

“You do it for the same reason you insulate your house,” Schwiebert says.

“It costs a little more money up front, but you start looking at what you’re going to be saving down the road. The savings start to accelerate at a rather rapid rate.

“Any time you convert from what you’re doing, you’re going to have an expenditure,” he says. “I think increasingly, we’re going to see the value of these investments in the environment as paying big dividends for our ratepayers, for our consumers.

“We put a man on the moon in 10 years and we did that 40 years ago, so why the heck aren’t we able to do this?” Schwiebert says of environmental commitment. “That was a hugely complex process. It’s a matter of willpower — where you want to put your investments.”

Read more about the Green Team in Rock Island, Ill., online at www.rigov.org/citydepartments/cityofficials/greenteam.html.