Visit Orlando's Magical Dining® Is Back for 2022
Music After Dark at Universal Orlando Resort
Look at this cool new tool for exploring Orlando!
West Orange Trail Bikes & Blades Co. in Winter Garden
Orlando is a destination where dreams come true — and our dreams include a sustainable future. Here, eco-friendly practices are a priority. It’s why we’re ranked as one of the greenest cities in America by WalletHub, a top city for urban farming and voluntourism, and one of only five cities awarded the Smart City Council Readiness Challenge grant in 2017.
From venues and businesses, golf resorts, and LEED-certified lodging, to restaurants, activities and theme park conservation efforts, Orlando prides itself on being environmentally responsible. See how our local government agencies, businesses and residents are working together to make the Theme Park Capital of the World the most sustainable and resilient community in the Southeast.
Not just for our benefit and that of our shared planet — but for you and your family, too.
Orlando’s theme parks are more than unforgettable places to visit. They’re also helping Orlando achieve its dream of a sustainable future.
Universal Orlando Resort annually recycles 10,000 tons of food waste, cardboard, metal, glass, plastic and paper. LED fixtures have also been incorporated throughout the parks. It has committed to using alternative fuels in 100% of its service vehicles and mobile equipment, too, resulting in 260 fewer tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Save on discount tickets: Universal Orlando Resort
SeaWorld® Orlando offers recycled fiber napkins, compostable soda cups, and biodegradable, vegetable-based inks. It also eliminated plastic straws and bags, and recycles about half of its waste. The park even employs certified sustainable seafood and “Rainforest Alliance-approved” coffee.
Save on discount tickets: SeaWorld Orlando
In 2017, Walt Disney World® Resort reduced its new emissions by 41%. Currently, its solar facility uses over 500,000 solar panels that can effectively power two of the four theme parks. The company opened a new Mickey-shaped solar farm in 2019 that spans 270 acres. In addition, Walt Disney World now exclusively offers paper straws instead of plastic, single-use straws.
Save on discount tickets: WALT DISNEY WORLD Resort
Have fun while being green at these unique activities throughout Orlando.
Part of Loch Haven Park north of downtown Orlando, Orlando Science Center is the first nonprofit in Florida to be LEED Gold certified and was the first building in Orlando to be LEED Gold under the Existing Buildings and Operations Maintenance Standards. A roof equipped completely with LED lights along with exhibits that actively promote the real-world benefits of renewable energy and conservation make the center an asset to an environmentally conscious community.
An antique farm store with a you-pick grove offering 50 varieties of citrus, Showcase of Citrus is in Clermont, just west of Walt Disney World. Other activities include an eco-tour in one of the world's largest 4x4 vehicles and freshwater fishing.
Located in Winter Park, Little Green Spa specializes in organic treatments using Éminence Organic Skin Care. The treatments are vegan and are free of parabens, mineral oils, petroleum and sodium lauryl sulphate.
Created in 1985, GreenUp Orlando encourages groups to plant greenery, beautify neighborhoods, raise sustainability awareness in Orlando, and promote the benefits of ecofriendly volunteer efforts. It also partnered with the City of Orlando’s Parks Division and Keep Orlando Beautiful to bring together people and resources to protect the city’s scenic views.
The Florida Green Lodging Certification Program is a voluntary, non-regulatory effort from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that recognizes environmentally conscientious lodging in the state. More than 60 Orlando hotels have received green certification. The DEP recognizes 18 Orlando hotels in the top two tiers of the program.
Learn more: Places to Stay in Orlando
Other green hotel initiatives in Orlando include:
Some of Orlando’s most iconic venues are helping to lead the way to a greener tomorrow.
In partnership with the Orlando Utilities Commission, the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) is committed to sustainability with its “Orange to Green” campaign. The implementation of its one-megawatt rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system — the largest one in the southeastern United States — and its recycling efforts helped the OCCC become the first U.S. convention center to receive the EMS (environmental management services) ISO 14001 Certification.
The PV system utilizes high-efficiency flat-plate collectors and occupies approximately 200,000 square feet (60,960 square meters) of roof space on the North/South Building. Other green initiatives include purchasing recycled products, using reclaimed water for landscaping irrigation, installing xeriscape plantings, using Green Seal-certified cleaning products, and installing waterless urinals and low-flow faucets. In addition to its facility-related green initiatives, the OCCC works closely with event organizers to support their efforts for green events.
Part of downtown Orlando’s Parramore District, the Amway Center is the first NBA facility to earn a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) new construction certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Home to the Orlando Magic, Orlando Solar Bears and Orlando Predators, and host to a wide range of concerts and special events, the venue uses 20% less energy and 40% less water than arenas of similar size.
The Amway Center’s eco-friendly features include preferred parking for hybrids and other energy-efficient vehicles, high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, ultra-low-flow toilets, a reflective and insulated roof that reduces cooling costs, high-tech monitoring systems that shut off the lights when a room is empty, bicycle racks, showers and changing rooms for workers who bike to work, systems to treat storm runoff before it can pollute nearby lakes, and recycling bins for fans and concertgoers.
Located east of Orlando in Christmas, Orlando Wetlands Park is one the largest man-made wetlands in the world. The structure was designed with a hydraulic capacity of 35 million gallons per day of reclaimed wastewater.
The water is transported through a 4-foot diameter pipeline for approximately 17 miles to the influent distribution structure of the wetlands. Seventeen cells and three distinct wetland ecosystems were created to remove residual amounts of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, from the reclaimed water.
These ecological communities include deep marsh areas, mixed marsh, wet prairie and hardwood cypress swamps. The site added 2.3 million aquatic plants, including 200,000 trees, to build these thriving environments. The reclaimed water meanders through the various habitats and eventually arrives at the two outfall structures for the wetland system. The flow leaves the Orlando Wetlands Park via a canal and flows into the St. Johns River.
UCF’s Student Union has a 1,600-square-foot (1,486-square-meter) Green Roof that provides 43.3% energy savings during the summer. When these roofs launched in 2007, UCF was the second location in all Florida and the first university to implement this technology.
The building’s planted greenery makes an 80-degree difference in the roof’s temperature, extends the life of the roof membrane, and cuts energy costs. It also retains 80% of the average storm water volume, which is then used for irrigation purposes. What’s more, UCF’s physical science building, recreation and wellness center, College of Medicine Medical Education, and Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences are LEED certified.
Orlando is at the forefront of testing autonomous vehicles and piloting new projects with businesses headquartered in the region. In 2019, our first driverless shuttle bus was launched, with interest to expand through downtown Orlando and the tourism corridor to help efficiently move people throughout the community. Central Florida was also deemed an autonomous vehicle proving ground by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Orange County was awarded a $20 million grant to create Local Alternative Mobility Network (LAMN) in Tavistock Group’s Lake Nona community in the City of Orlando. The BUILD grant is going toward creating new and modifying existing infrastructure in Lake Nona, including multi-modal corridors with autonomous vehicle lanes, bicycle and pedestrian pathways, an integrated and multi-use mobility hub, and support for autonomous vehicles (AV), which have already been deployed as the Beep shuttle service.
Orlando is an ideal place to test autonomous vehicles because it provides a range of weather conditions, it’s home to many tech universities that provide talent, and the state of Florida has favorable regulation for self-driving cars. No wonder we’re home to Luminar, which designs lasers and sensors for self-driving cars to navigate roads. Also of note, the SunTrax test facility is a 2.25-mile track designed to test high-speed travel.
Construction and expansions at Orlando International Airport (MCO) and Port Canaveral, as well as expansions to passenger rail, continue to increase the number of sustainable transportation options in the region.
Building a sustainable future is a team effort. Here is how Orlando’s business community is helping us achieve that goal.
Launched in 2007, the Green Works Orlando initiative reflects Mayor Buddy Dyer’s commitment to sustainability and his goals to enhance quality of life and wellbeing, generate diverse economic growth, and create equitable access to resources and services for the entire Orlando community.
Mayor Dyer assembled the city’s first Office of Sustainability and Resilience to implement the Green Works Orlando initiative by coordinating with city departments and community stakeholders to ensure the effectiveness of immediate and long-term sustainability planning efforts. Some of the earlier successes of Green Works Orlando included the development of a “Sustainability” chapter in the city’s Municipal Code.
The Green Works Municipal Operations Sustainability Action Plan was adopted in 2012 and focused on municipal operation actions that the city and its employees could take to ensure that Orlando is leading by example across each key area of sustainability practices. The 2012 Municipal Plan identified 12 goals and more than 100 strategies for achieving them. In January 2017, the city published a Municipal Plan Progress Report, which detailed the city’s advancements toward its goals and the associated benchmarks, identified areas that need additional resources, and also added a focus on resiliency.
Following the adoption of the Municipal Plan, the city prepared a Community Sustainability Action Plan in 2013 and released the most recent version in 2018. Through an extensive engagement and collaboration process with community representatives, the Community Sustainability Action Plan has served as a roadmap, including ambitious goals, strategies, and reporting targets and metrics, to help guide Orlando to become one of the most sustainable U.S. cities by 2040.
To date, the city has implemented various programs and policies that support residents and businesses in making their homes and communities more sustainable. Highlights include:
Orlando has begun powering city facilities through onsite solar installations and subscribing over 50 facilities to community solar. These include all city parks and neighborhood centers, 17 fire stations, the Orlando Police Department, and City Hall.
Through the 2030 Solar Pledge, the city is committed to powering its facilities with 100% solar power within the next decade. We have also partnered with Solar United Neighbors (SUN) to offer an annual purchasing cooperative to make it easy and more affordable for residents to go solar.
As a result of these efforts, Orlando was recognized for achieving the LEED for Cities Gold certification for its citywide sustainability and resiliency efforts, the highest level of performance for any city in the Southeast United States, as well as an EPA Green Power Partner for its growing use of renewable energy.
Our city was approved for a $17.5 million green bond to implement energy efficiency retrofits to 55 city buildings, which saves over 23% energy use and up to $2.5 million per year. Orlando also enabled more than $500 million for Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), an innovative program that provides financing for energy efficiency upgrades and solar installations.
We’re proud to be the first city in Florida to pass a Building Energy and Water Efficiency Strategy (BEWES) ordinance to drive energy and water efficiency in the city’s largest buildings. And we’ve committed to meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver or higher standards for all newly constructed city buildings.
Orlando created the Good Food Central Florida Food Policy Council to address gaps in the current local food system. We’ve increased food assets, including six farmers markets, 149 grocery stores and more than 700 community garden plots within the city limits.
Recent landscape code amendments have enabled front-yard farming and edible landscaping, while urban agriculture pilot programs on public land model sustainable food production. We’ve even established an urban chicken policy that allows up to four hens to be kept on single-family residence sites.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Orlando also implemented food rescue and recovery efforts, with more than 25,000 pounds of food donated to local charities and shelters.
Continually expanding, the Orlando Main Streets program supports local businesses while increasing economic vitality, including a new Parramore Main Street. Others include the Audubon Park Garden District, City District, College Park Main Street, Curry Ford West, Gateway Orlando, Ivanhoe Village Main Street, The Milk District, Mills 50 District, SoDo District, Thornton Park District and West Lakes District.
Our One Person, One Tree initiative has provided over 12,000 free trees to residents in order to increase the city’s overall tree canopy. We’ve also expanded the amount of green space and park space within diverse neighborhoods, and have been recognized by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) as a certified wildlife habitat community.
Orlando has implemented a residential composter program that has delivered more than 7,000 composters to help residents divert their food waste and create healthy soil. We’ve also deployed monitored and unmonitored food waste drop-offs for residents.
Simultaneously, the city has shifted to once-a-week collection of recycling and expanded recycling bins in downtown Orlando and public parks to increase participation and overall residential recycling rates. That’s on top of the “Orlando Collects” mobile app and “What Goes Where” online tool to share information and educate residents on how to properly dispose of items.
With a goal of providing safe, comfortable and convenient access for all users, Orlando has adopted a Complete Streets policy. As part of that initiative, we’ve expanded bicycling infrastructure with a total of 250.5 miles of on-street bike lanes and 36.2 off-street bike trails.
Orlando has also implemented electric bike and scooter share programs that resulted in 1,241,609 trips for a total of 1,293,383 miles between January 2020 and January 2022. We’ve partnered with LYNX to convert LYMMO downtown circulator fleet vehicles to zero-emission electric buses, with eight buses in operation currently.
You will also find more than 100 new electric vehicle charging stations in city parks, neighborhood centers, parking garages and public venues. And we’re committed to converting 100% of the city fleet to electric or alternative-fueled vehicles by 2030.
Orlando is taking steps to conserve water, including decreasing average water consumption by 9 million gallons per resident per day. We’ve also installed 25 hydration stations near public parks to reduce disposable bottled water use, and have recycled 15,000 gallons of used cooking oil into biodiesel.
In Orlando, sustainability isn’t just a buzzword. It’s an ideal we’re deeply committed to, as evidenced by these pacts with external stakeholders.
See the many sustainability accolades and endowments Orlando has received since 2014. As always with our destination, the best is yet to come.
Orlando's Only Official Website