Mayor, Karl Dean established the Green Ribbon Committee on Environmental Sustainability to ensure Nashville is a “livable city with clean air, clean water, open spaces, transportation infrastructure and an energy use profile necessary to provide a prosperous community for current and future generations.”

To do so, the city is improving energy efficiency throughout current and future buildings, and using eco products to create greener buildings. A vegetated roof using common Sedum species, a succulent plant that is drought-tolerant, is currently underway at the Shelby Bottoms Nature Center. Nashville’s historic courthouse also contains a green roof atop the building’s parking structure. The roofs will provide energy savings as they'll insulate the buildings from solar radiation. The vegetation will also absorb rainwater, saving Nashville’s storm water collection system from energy intensive treatment processing.

At Bells Bend Outdoor Center, another Nashville nature center, photovoltaic cells on the center’s rooftop generate power, which will be sold back to the local electricity supplier. The center is expected to generate 4,400 kilowatt hours and is the first public facility that will sell back to Nashville’s electric power company, Nashville Electric Service (NES). Solar power will prevent the park from consuming electricity generated by fossil fuels that contribute to climate change emissions.

The Beaman Park building will use a geothermal heat pump to provide heating and cooling capabilities for the building. The pump generates heat during the winter from the earth’s thermal energy and then transfers the heat in the summer. This feature also reduces the need to rely on electricity generated by fossil fuels and saves greenhouse gas emissions.

Future improvements in Nashville include pervious pavement that will allow water to filtrate through the pavement and capture some of the storm water’s pollutant particles as opposed to allowing the polluted water to wash into creeks, more green roofs around town, LEED-rated buildings, and buildings that incorporate eco design such as passive solar lighting. Additionally, the Parks Department will incorporate low-impact development design features, energy efficient appliances, recycled building materials, and other LEED best practices into their future facilities. These features will work to limit pollution, energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and provide green, open space for Nashville.