As of this week, the City of Tampa became one of just a handful of cities nationwide to start a green business designation program. Outside of the West Coast (California and Washington state), Tampa will join major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia and Knoxville in rewarding private businesses that have become or want to become more environmentally-friendly.
What seems to be unique about the City of Tampa program, compared to other municipalities' programs, is that the city will not be the adminstrator of the program. Because of the expense related to hiring someone to administer the program, the City of Tampa decided to partner with a non-profit local sustainability group, The Sustany Foundation.
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2009.