Listen to this week’s radio clip about Fairfield’s green efforts.

What makes for healthy living?

To find out, head over to Fairfield, Iowa where the economy and environment are thriving.

This is the Iowa Environmental Focus on sustainable communities.

In 2009, MSN.com named Fairfield Mayor Ed Malloy one of the 15 greenest mayors in the country and it’s not surprising.

In 2008, he formed a committee to write a green strategic plan which included all sectors of the community.

Now, in this small southeastern Iowa town, you’ll find, among other green feats: more solar-powered homes and buildings with green features than anywhere else in the state, a hundred acres of greenhouses powered by wind and solar energy for the year-round production of organic food, a 15-acre Ecovillage where families conserve energy and water and preserve the landscape, and more than one fourth of all food is grown locally.

All the while, Fairfield’s small business driven economy is booming.

So congratulations to Fairfield for trailblazing the way to a greener Iowa.

For more information, visit IowaEnvironmentalFocus.org.

I’m Jerry Schnoor, from the University of Iowa Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research.

Thank you.

Check out these other resources about Fairfield’s green focus:

• Iowa Independent – Fairfield ‘blazing a trail’ for other Iowa cities eyeing sustainability
• Sustainable Living Coalition
• Mother Earth News -12 Great Places you’ve never heard of: Fairfield, IA
• Radish Magazine – Fairfield First: town adopts groundbreaking sustainability plan
• The Iowa Source – MUM’s Sustainable Living Center