CINCINNATI — The Cincin­nati Chap­ter of the U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil (USGBC) has awarded Larry Falkin, Direc­tor of the City of Cincin­nati Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­ity, the Green Per­son of the Year Award.

Larry Falkin has been cen­tral to the impact Cincin­nati has had locally, region­ally, and nation­ally. Cincin­nati enjoys the dis­tinc­tion of being the lead­ing city in Ohio with the Cincin­nati Sus­tain­abil­ity Plan, hav­ing the most LEED reg­is­tered and cer­ti­fied build­ings, and hav­ing the most exten­sive devel­op­ment plan orga­nized around pro­vid­ing incen­tives for devel­op­ers to build green using the max­i­mum allowed prop­erty tax rebates. All of these efforts are cen­tral to attract­ing and recruit­ing young pro­fes­sional tal­ent to Cincin­nati and pro­vide a higher qual­ity of life for all citizens.

What sets Larry and his OEQ team apart is the abil­ity to not only achieve envi­ron­men­tal return on invest­ment, but also finan­cial. In the two years of the exis­tence of OEQ, the City of Cincin­nati has received over $20 mil­lion in grants, saved over $800 thou­sand annu­ally in energy costs, and over $1 mil­lion in recy­cling costs.

The Cincin­nati Region is for­tu­nate to have an extra­or­di­nary array of indi­vid­u­als com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able prin­ci­ples. The USGBC Cincin­nati Regional Chapter’s Green Per­son of the Year Award is our high­est honor and is bestowed upon the per­son that has the most trans­for­ma­tive effect on our community.

About U.S. Green Build­ing Coun­cil – Cincin­nati Regional Chapter

The United States Green Build­ing Council-Cincinnati Regional Chapter’s vision is that all build­ings and com­mu­ni­ties will regen­er­ate and sus­tain the health, pros­per­ity and vital­ity of all life within a gen­er­a­tion. The Chapter’s Mis­sion is to trans­form the way regional build­ings and com­mu­ni­ties are designed, built and oper­ated, enabling an envi­ron­men­tally and socially respon­si­ble, healthy, and pros­per­ous built and nat­ural envi­ron­ment that improves the qual­ity of life. Learn more about USGBC-Cincinnati at: http://usgbc-cincinnati.org.