The list of initiatives is impressive: there’s an electric truck program (that has garnished interest around the world), a toughening of emission standards on everything coming into and out of the port, a carrot and stick initiative to punish negligent businesses and reward socially-responsible ones, and a comprehensive attempt at recognizing the value of labor and pushing truckers away from (what sounds like) an exploitative free market system that keeps private contractors splitting ever smaller profit margins. Essentially, they came at this thing from every angle, and built a program that got both area Environmentalists and local Unions on board.

One of the largest problems facing the greening of our current society is basically a modified version of the prisoner’s dilemma: it says that I can’t afford to improve my business by going green, because my competitors aren’t, and I can’t let them under sell me. This issue is a problem for everyone from individual truckers in a competitive market to giant port-operators competing for large shipping contracts. This is why it is so vital for people with the clout of Mayor Villaraigosa to play a roll; you need a regulatory body to remove the downward pressure of a “free” market and replace it with the upward pressure of strict (though manageable) environmental regulations.

However, with this pressure to play by what might be a more expensive set of rules, its important to plan for the individual workers (think: independent truckers) who would not be in a position to take an advantage financially of everything being offered. The PhilanthroMedia brainstorm was that the city of Los Angeles should set up a group to reach out to the contract workers and make sure that they have the opportunity and ability to organize. An individual trucker might not be able to take full advantage of the new Green Trucks: a group of truckers could.

It’s always exciting for eco-dreamers like me to hear concrete practical solutions actually being put into practice, and it’s especially exciting when the scale of the thing is as large as it sounds like this one is. The plan is creating real change, both in local living conditions around the port and in a dramatic reduction of greenhouse gasses across the state.

This plan represents a real version of the New Environmental movement in action. I’ve recently been reading Van Jones’ “Green Collar Jobs,” a book that highlights the necessity for a green economy that is inclusive for all Americans, and, sitting through that presentation, it felt like everyone was channeling Mr. Jones throughout. Mayor Villaraigosa’s project has an across-the-board awareness of everyone that would be effected by stricter environmental rules, and each group so effected had a seat at the table.

Hats off to Mayor Villaraigosa for not listening to the people who said that a plan couldn’t be worked out, and hats off again for designing something that, at least on paper, looks like a flagship version of a new generation of real-life comprehensive environmental action. And, what the heck, I have a lot of headwear: hats off to him a third time for designing a project that can be used as a blueprint for people like Christopher Ward (The Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and a panelist at the DMI event) in remodeling large “dirty” institutions going forward.

This post, by the way, is so connected to my other thinking that I also posted it here, at my blog Living The American Green.