ALIGN

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This report is the first in series that will highlight different segments of the large buildings sector and their emissions. This report focuses on New York City’s elite emitters. New York City’s elite emitters live in the most expensive buildings and are among the worst carbon polluters in our city. It is no surprise that without energy efficiency measures in place, luxury buildings will have enormous impacts on climate, especially given their super-sized amenities. Inefficient buildings with heated indoor pools, private fitness centers, and private performance rooms all require energy resources above and beyond the typical residential building.

Since the beginning of Mayor Bloomberg’s term almost 15 years ago, New York City’s affordable housing developers ran amok, taking advantage of public trust and taxpayer dollars. They did it easily and have no reason to stop. While stagnant wages and rising rents dramatically increased the need for affordable housing, these developers profited from building affordable projects that were not really affordable. In the process, they abused workers, committed wage theft, and got caught up in ethics scandals. Read the full report.

New York City is renowned as a metropolis where diverse small businesses thrive in the shadow of icons like the Empire State Building. The city’s nearly 200,000 small businesses are essential to the city’s economy and account for much of its economic growth in recent years. Nonetheless, these diverse and innovative businesses are still obligated to use an inefficient and antiquated system for managing the waste and recyclable materials that they generate through their day-to-day operations.

Across the five boroughs, the affordability crisis is growing every day. Today, low- and moderate-income New Yorkers continue to be priced out of their neighborhoods. The incomes of countless New Yorkers are not increasing while rents keep rising. The growing gap between lower incomes and higher rents is making New York City increasingly unaffordable.

New York City’s sprawling commercial waste system performs significantly worse on recycling and efficiency than previously believed. Under an inefficient and ad-hoc arrangement that developed over the past several decades, hundreds of private hauling companies collect waste from restaurants, stores, offices, and other businesses nightly and truck it to dozens of transfer stations and recycling facilities concentrated in a handful of low-income communities of color. This waste is then transferred to long-haul trucks and hauled to landfills as far away as South Carolina. Previously unpublished studies and new data reveal just how chaotic this system is and make clear that fundamental reform is needed if we are to follow through on the City’s recently adopted commitment to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80% by 2050.

This report details a platform of 10 bold proposals for moving toward 80x50 that make our city more resilient, create nearly 40,000 good jobs each year, and cut our annual greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 12 mil¬lion metric tons of carbon equivalent. New York City must reduce its emissions by 36 million metric tons by 2050. Our plan points the way to achieving one-third of this goal. Putting 40,000 people to work would reduce our unemployment rate by 14 percent and help struggling families to be more resilient in the face of climate change and its disrupting consequences.

This powerful video features City Council Member and Sanitation Committee Chair Antonio Reynoso, small business owners, private sanitation workers and young people and advocates from environmental justice communities discussing the negative impacts that the city’s outdated waste system has on them, as well as solutions to create good jobs and clean and safe communities for all New Yorkers.

My name is Maritza Silva-Farrell and I am the Coordinator of Real Affordability for All (RAFA) – the largest affordable housing coalition in the city, comprised of more than 50 housing organizations.…

We organized the largest march for climate action in history. With over 400,000 attendees on September 24th and millions of others united in actions around the world, the People's Climate March drew attention to the climate crisis and built a movement between environmental justice, labor and community organizations.