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Green Three locations have been found, including a median in an embassy campus on Van Ness Street, NW. Different embassies will be invited to plant native, non-invasive species on the median, turning it from a concrete eyesore to a natural rainwater sponge. “The focus [of the project] is to reduce runoff and beautify the city,” she said. Another project is geared toward getting diplomats out of their cars. Kirkpatrick said that her office is working with Capital Bikeshare, the city’s increasingly popular bike-sharing system, to offer a class on defensive cycling and maps of local cycling trails and routes for embassies and their workers.The hope is that the classes will coincide with National Bike to Work Day, which takes place on May 18. Raes said the Dutch Embassy has transported the country’s notorious love of cycling stateside, and offers its employees a number of shared bikes to get to and from the Van Ness Red Line Metro Photos: Royal Netherlands Embassy station.“We’re not too far from the Metro, and these bicycles just make a difference between people Chargé d’Affaires of the Croatian Embassy Vice Skraĉiĉ, left, and Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova getting in their car andeffort gettingisonmade the bike and —your NOTE: Although every to assure free of40mistakes andorganizations — sign a pledge to make their buildings joinedad by is more than embassies in andspelling international using the content Metro to go to ultimately appointmentsup and and operations more sustainable. it is tomeetthe customer to make the final proof. ings in the city,” he said. The sustainability drive can also involve actions States, with close to 19 million square feet — their home countries and serve as pilots for us.” The first two faxed changes will be madedown at no roughly cost to31 the advertiser, subsequent changes Of course, sustainability for the sake of sustainsquare feet per resident. The city also as simple as dimming the lights, shutting willcomputers be billedatat a rate of $75 Signed ads are considered of the world’s highest densities approved. of foreign ability might not go very far on its own — espenight, or printing onper bothfaxed sides ofalteration. the has one missions within its jurisdiction, so the fact that cially in an era of budget cutbacks across the world. paper. embassies are slowly curtailing ForPlease Christophe Tulou,this director the city’s Mark check ad of carefully. any changes toenergy yourusage ad.boosts But Raes plays the fiscal conservative when he notes that the Dutch embassy looks to save Department of the Environment and a native of the city’s efforts to cut down on waste. Additionally, the exchange of information and $50,000 a year on energy expenses; other embasSwitzerland, the various programs and initiatives If the ad is correct sign and fax to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes undertaken by the forum’s members both help and best practices between embassies and the city that sies have seen similar budgetary benefits to going complement work that he’s already doing. Beyond hosts them goes both ways, said Tulou. “To the green. The Washington Diplomat 933-3552 “By simply looking at your own energy conthe storm water runoff,Tulou notes(301) that energy use extent that we’re able to engage them in an effort is a big priority for him. More than 75 percent of to make their facilities more energy efficient and sumption, you can look for opportunities to save the city’s energy use comes from office buildings, deploy renewable energy, it creates an opportunity money,” Raes said, adding that the Dutch didn’t do Approved __________________________________________________________ to advertise their good performance with folks anything that any other foreign mission couldn’t including embassies. Changes In ___________________________________________________________ January, the U.S. Green Building Council rec- who would naturally be coming to visit, and in replicate. Tulou agrees, and thinks that talking in terms of ___________________________________________________________________ ognized the District as having the most LEED- some cases for them to deploy technologies and certified office space per capita in the United practices that are new to us that they import from cost savings could be appealing to a wider range of
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RichaRd G. LuGaR,
France
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working within the G8 and the G20 “to tackle the roots of the crisis, and to restore confidence through the Deauville Partnership” established in May 2011. “Within the G20, we’ve seen some real results in terms of fighting against tax havens. We are working hard to get the emerging powers on board and be aware of their global responsibilities on every front.” Delattre adds that Standard & Poor’s Jan. 12 downgrade of France and eight other eurozone countries (in France’s case, from AAA+ to AA+) has had “zero impact” on his country’s economy.“The only impact it could have would have been on interest rates, and it had none,” he said.“There was no impact at all, for one simple reason: The markets had already anticipated it.” Many eurozone countries are, of course, in far worse shape than France. On March 14, EU finance ministers gave the green light to the €130 billion ($170 billion) second rescue package for Greece. Commentators said this was a pure formality after a satisfyingly large proportion of creditors agreed to a debt cut for Greece, though Delattre insists that “we cannot accept a default, because that would likely spin out of control.” On a much brighter note, Delattre says France and Ireland are the only two countries in the 27-member European Union whose populations are growing thanks to natural increases rather than immigration. More important, he said, France is in the midst of a “booming entrepreneurship” with more than 600,000 new businesses having been started in the past year alone. “This is a spectacular increase compared to previous years, and a record high for
D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray, left, and Ambassador of the Netherlands Renée Jones-Bos host a pledgesigning ceremony at the Dutch Embassy.
embassies and institutions. “If you think about countries and their foreign embassies, some countries are present in a lot of different countries, and if you take that cost savings and multiply that over a multiplicity of facilities around the world, you really are talking about something quite significant,” he said. And though he fully celebrates the notion of cooperation, Tulou brings a typically American perspective to the sustainability initiatives: competition. “This also creates, within that community, this sense of competition. And it came out during the course of the pledge-signing ceremony. Embassies and their ambassadors sort of said, ‘Hahaha, we’re doing this in our facility,’ and others made note of that and are trying to emulate and, perhaps, sort of surpass the environmental or sustainability performance of that facility.” That competitive streak could also propel Washington as it moves toward a greener future. “We’re not beyond stealing great ideas, that’s for sure,” he said with a laugh.
Martin Austermuhle is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat and editor in chief of DCist.com.
Europe,” Delattre told The Diplomat.“It says a lot about the vitality of the French economy, and the fact that the younger generation in my country — instead of knocking on the government’s door like they used to — now roll up their sleeves, start a business, fail, start again, and at the end of the day, they succeed. The French government has been able to seriously cut red tape. One example of that is today, you can start a businwess online in 15 minutes. “Innovation is our number one, number two and number three priorities without any hesitation,” he continued.“We are investing in France in an unprecedented way in higher education and research. A few years ago, we established 71 innovative clusters all over the country, bringing together the private sector, the universities, research centers — and it works. We draw lessons from the American experience.” To that end, the ambassador says the two countries are cooperating across the Atlantic like never before. “The backbone of the French-American partnership is cross-investment. We are among the top five foreign investors in the United States; 4,000 French companies support more than 650,000 American jobs. Conversely, the U.S. is the top foreign investor in France, and U.S. investment in my country increased by more than 30 percent last year, so the dynamics are huge.” Delattre added: “The fundamentals of the Franco-American friendship are stronger than ever. I’m very confident for the coming years and decades. What we must try to do now is build on this favorable context to bring the Franco-American partnership to a new level.”
Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.
The Washington Diplomat
April 2012