U-Med District: Its Significance in Anchorage and Alaska

The U-Med District is significant as both Anchorage’s and Alaska’s leading workplace for education, health care and social services. The U-Med District accounts for over 9,000 jobs in an area of approximately 1,130 acres. Our organizations have long had neighborly relationships, and with our Green designation, we are taking this opportunity to create effective working relationships to address both the urgency of budget challenges and climate change by exploring how we can leverage our geographic proximity and purchasing power to realize potential benefits through reduced energy costs and other consumption-related expenses. By designating the U-Med District as Anchorage’s and Alaska’s first green district it provides U-Med organizations, along with the Municipality of Anchorage, Green Star and the Alaska State Department of Environmental Conservation to:

• Jointly explore each organization’s priorities and activities to address climate change, reduce carbon emissions and develop sustainability practices;
• Jointly identify those priorities and activities that are common to the U-Med organizations;
• Jointly identify potential benefits of these priority activities to U-Med organizations and the Municipality if they were accomplished;
• Jointly identify the Municipality’s role to advance these priorities and activities; and
• Jointly report back to the Municipality and Anchorage community with its findings and anticipated action plan.