Statewide Sustainability Program Officially Established!
By: Danielle Bass, State Sustainability Coordinator
Amidst the many uncertainties brought on by the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020, a noteworthy bill was signed into law expanding the capacities of the State of Hawaiʻi’s Office of Planning. On September 15, 2020, Act 45 was signed into law, expanding the Office of Planning’s roles and responsibilities to provide statewide climate adaptation and sustainability planning and coordination, and sea level rise adaptation coordination. Additionally, the law officially established the State of Hawaiʻi’s first Statewide Sustainability Program led by the State’s Sustainability Coordinator within the Office of Planning.
This exciting new Statewide Sustainability Program is statutorily authorized to develop, organize, and promote policies and programs that assist in the meeting Hawaiʻi’s many sustainability and climate policies and goals. The Statewide Sustainability Program is also tasked to identify, evaluate, and make recommendations regarding proposed legislation, regulatory changes, or policy modifications to the Governor, State Legislature, government agencies, and private entities for the purpose of encouraging activities that best sustain, protect, and enhance the quality of the environment, economy, and community for the present and future benefit of the people of Hawaiʻi.
Since it’s official establishment in September 2020, the Statewide Sustainability Program hit the ground running, by: providing planning support to the State of Hawaiʻi’s COVID-19 economic reopening and recovery; supporting Hawaiʻi Emergency Management Agency’s disaster management, recovery, and hazard mitigation planning; reviving and providing staff support to the State’s Greenhouse Gas Sequestration Task Force; advocating for and engaging with policymakers on sustainability and climate adaptive policies; partnering with the State Procurement Office and the Department of Health to issue the State’s first statewide procurement of sustainable products and goods; and leading the revision and decennial update of the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan.
State of Hawaiʻi Issues First of Its Kind Sustainable Products and Suppliers RFP
The State Procurement Office in coordination with State of Hawai‘i Office of Planning’s Statewide Sustainability Program and Department of Health’s Hazard Evaluation and Emergency Response recently issued the first of its kind Request for Proposals (RFP) for sustainable goods in May 2021.
The State of Hawai‘i has made multiple commitments to protect the State’s economy, environment, health, and way of life, in order to achieve progress toward Hawai‘i’s sustainable future. This first of its kind procurement project seeks to continue the State’s commitments to develop a culture of sustainability to achieve progress toward Hawai‘i’s sustainable future by procuring various environmentally sustainable and environmentally preferable disinfectants, cleaning products, food containers, utensils, and plastic bag alternatives for various state and county agencies statewide.
It is the State’s intention to award up to 6 vendor(s) per category, across a total of 11 categories for sustainable goods and products that will furnish and deliver sustainable industrial hygiene goods for use against the COVID-19 virus, plastic free bag alternatives, general cleaning, and food container and food ware products.
Proposals are due on June 14, 2021 at 2pm HST to the State Procurement Office, with the Notice of Award scheduled for August 2, 2021 and the Anticipated Contract Start Date beginning on August 9, 2021.
Announcing the Revision and Update of the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan
The Office of Planning’s Statewide Sustainability Program is set to release an extensive update to the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan this June! Recently designated to serve as the State’s climate and sustainability strategic action plan by Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes §226-65, this update will reflect the State’s alignment with the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development identified 17 SDGs that represent an urgent call for global action to end poverty, improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth while tackling climate change and preserving natural resources. The UN designated 2020-2030 as the “Decade of Action,” as a time to accelerate progress toward the SDGs through sustainable solutions in order to achieve the goals by the 2030. Additionally, there is a renewed sense of urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the impact of climate change and meet the goals of the UN Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, above pre-industrial levels. The UN SDGs provide a framework to work in alignment with the goals set forth in the UN Paris Agreement. This timely update to the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan: Charting a Course for the Decade of Action (2020-2030) is part of the Hawaiʻi’s reaffirmed commitment to the UN Paris Agreement, the UN SDGs, and the State’s numerous sustainability and climate mandates, policies, and goals.
The development of this updated Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan is a direct result of the extensive community outreach, participation, and feedback received from hundreds of public participants including private and non-governmental partners, and individuals who provided valuable community-based recommendations throughout the paeʻāina, and 65 state and county reviewing agencies. The Statewide Sustainability Program and the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability project team held 9 public, virtual information sharing sessions between September and November 2020. The virtual public information sharing sessions hosted 4 comprehensive sessions, as well as 5 topic-focused sessions to specifically focus on Hawaiʻi’s: climate adaptation, natural environment, traditional livelihoods, social stability and human health, and urban communities and built environment. The project team’s community outreach also distributed 2 public surveys to over 600 stakeholders to solicit public feedback. The Statewide Sustainability Program and the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability project team reviewed over 150 existing plans, policies, programs, and strategies relevant to sustainability and climate change in Hawaii to determine how their activities and recommendations align with the 17 UN SDGs and identify gaps where individual SDGs are not being addressed by existing efforts.
Among several of its new features, the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan will focus primarily on the 2020-2030 decade, while also compiling the State’s sustainability and climate statutory targets to be achieved beyond 2030. By focusing on this 2020-2030 decade, the Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan underscores upcoming statutory targets and recommends actions that can be taken promptly or within the near future. The revised Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan includes 17 case studies as a part of it’s “Sustaining Hawaiʻi” series which collects and highlights the many collaborative governmental, private, nonprofit, and community-based efforts around the state that highlight recent economic stressors, natural disasters, and sustainability-related challenges which led to multi-sectoral, community-based collaboration and resiliency. The result is not only an overview of current achievements and challenges in Hawaiʻi’s sustainability and climate adaptation progress but also provides 8 focus areas for the 2020-2030 decade, strategies within those focus areas, and over 200 recommended actions to advance Hawaiʻi’s sustainable economic recovery and equitable, climate resilient, and sustainable future!
The Hawaiʻi 2050 Sustainability Plan: Charting a Course for the Decade of Action (2020-2030) simultaneously serves as a reminder that cumulatively as a state, we must all collaboratively and actively work together on the sustainable development and climate adaptation of the state to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations of Hawaiʻi to meet their own needs.
Please contact the Office of Planning’s Statewide Sustainability Program at sustainability@hawaii.gov to learn more about these exciting new developments or partnership opportunities. You can also stay informed by subscribing to the Office of Planning's E-Newsletter, or by “liking” @OfficeofPlanning.HIgov on Facebook!