This nominee is propelling Philadelphia’s future in sustainability.

Philadelphia’s SustainPHL Awards highlights and celebrates these community changemakers. Join us to honor them and announce the recipient at the SustainPHL Awards on October 19th at the Academy of Natural Sciences. 

Jessica Noon (PHL Airport)

Jessica serves as the Sustainability Manager for both Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) and Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE). In this role, she takes the lead on various airport initiatives, including climate resilience, green energy, carbon emissions reduction, recycling, and ensuring sustainable design standards are integrated into capital projects.

Jessica’s work is instrumental in safeguarding the City’s airports in the face of climate change while simultaneously promoting environmentally friendly airport operations. She plays a pivotal role in ensuring that airport projects, both in terms of capital and operations, adhere to green principles. Her efforts span a range of sustainability measures, from solar energy and electric vehicles to LEED certification, Envision sustainability standards, recycling programs, and carbon accreditation.

Moreover, Jessica is highly regarded as a manager, known for her exceptional leadership skills, humility, and empathy. Over nearly a decade, she has demonstrated her commitment to her team’s success and consistently leads by example, making her a valuable asset to the department.

Vicinity Energy

Vicinity Energy is taking significant steps to transition away from fossil fuels. They are currently in the engineering phases for electric boilers, which run on electricity from renewable sources, and industrial heat pumps that harness heat from the Schuylkill River. They have also adopted biogenic fuel, sourced from vegetable oil from restaurants, and shifted from a chemical water treatment process to a mechanical one, resulting in substantial reductions in the production and transport CO2 footprint of those chemicals.

Recognizing that buildings are a major source of emissions, Vicinity offers a cleaner source of heating and cooling through district steam, with plans to transition to renewable production of that steam for building owners.

In addition to their environmental efforts, Vicinity sponsors and supports sustainable organizations and companies such as SBN, Divert, Circular Philadelphia, WRADRB, PDE, and SWEP. They are committed to reducing their carbon footprint and promoting sustainability in various ways.

The Philadelphia Floral Guild

Philly Floral Guild has brought together multiple local farmers producing amazing floral products using sustainable methods. These women-run regenerative organic farms are treating the land with the utmost care, using innovative methods to slowly but surely impact the floral industry by selling higher quality flowers to designers. The wedding florals industry in Philadelphia is literally being changed by PFG.

All of the growers use sustainable and organic farming practices. They have removed single use plastic from their supply chain and focus on sustainability in all aspects of their business. Not only do they use sustainable practices but they have created a community of designers in the Philadelphia area that is spreading the word about changing the industry away from so many imported goods and waste.

They teach members environmentally conscious farming techniques, avoiding harmful chemicals and pesticides while creating a habitat for birds, insects, bees, and other wildlife.

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher