Urban Sustainability Directors Network

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) helps local government sustainability practitioners build equitable, sustainable, thriving communities that support the well-being of all residents. Over 220 member cities and counties across the United States and Canada utilize USDN to form peer relationships, share knowledge, receive training, and forge partnerships to accelerate building electrification, clean and equitable mobility, climate communications, and more. The Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, a project of USDN, enables leading cities across the globe to collaborate on transformative change to achieve carbon neutrality.

While conventional climate actions available to cities have focused primarily on efforts to reduce emissions, USDN’s Urban Drawdown Initiative (UDI) supports cities in natural carbon removal strategies like composting, urban forests, wetland management that improve the social, economic, and environmental resilience of communities. UDI initiated the development and testing of the first urban carbon management planning and assessment tool, which will be available to hundreds of cities across the United States by the end of 2021.