by Brianna Crandall — February 17, 2014—The mayors from 10 major U.S. cities recently announced they will undertake a united effort to significantly boost energy efficiency in their buildings, a move that combined could cut as much climate change pollution as generated by 1 million to 1.5 million passenger vehicles every year, and lower energy bills by nearly $1 billion annually.
The mayors will be participating in the new City Energy Project (CEP), an initiative from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Market Transformation that is designed to create healthier, more prosperous American cities by targeting their largest source of energy use and climate pollution: buildings.
The following 10 cities will be the City Energy Project’s first participants: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Orlando, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City. Funded by a partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation, the City Energy Project will help the 10 cities craft customized plans for boosting energy efficiency in their buildings, multiplying their efforts and accelerating their progress through learning from each other’s successes.
Largely due to their electricity consumption, buildings are the largest single source of U.S. carbon emissions, representing 40 percent nationwide—more than either the transportation or industrial sectors, says the NRDC. That number is even more dramatic at the city level, with more than half of carbon emissions in most U.S. cities coming from buildings, and in some cities as much as 75 percent. Much of the energy these buildings use, however, is wasted, adds the group.
Fortunately, the technology and best practices do exist that can make buildings vastly more efficient, says the NRDC. Working together in partnership with the private sector, these cities can make significant progress in reducing their contribution to climate change, as well as giving their local economies a boost.
Projected Economic and Environmental Benefits
As the NRDC reminds, boosting building efficiency reduces the pollution that is turbocharging weather across the country, reduces demand for new power plants, and makes cities more resilient to energy-related crises. It also helps clean up the air people breathe by reducing other hazardous air pollution.
The CEP is projected to cut a combined total of 5 million to 7 million tons of carbon emissions annually, which the NRDC calculates is equivalent to taking 1 million to 1.5 million passenger vehicles off the road per year, the electricity used by roughly 700,000 to nearly 1 million American homes annually, or taking three to four power plants offline.
Significant economic benefits are also anticipated from the program, including creating jobs in a range of fields and skill levels to implement the efficiency measures, raising property values, and lowering energy bills, thereby reducing the cost of living and doing business, and freeing up money that can flow back into the local economy. The CEP is projected to save ratepayers a combined total of nearly $1 billion annually on their energy bills (at current prices).
How it Works
Through the new project, the cities will develop their own locally tailored plans to advance energy efficiency and reduce waste in their large buildings, which can represent roughly 50 percent of their citywide square footage. These plans, which will include multiple integrated strategies, can make more progress in each city than any one program or policy could alone, asserts the NRDC.
The City Energy Project will offer energy expertise to help guide the cities through the planning, designing and implementing processes. The energy efficiency solutions that CEP will help the cities develop are flexible to each city’s unique situation, supporting the following goals:
- Promote efficient building operations: Strong building energy performance can be achieved through efficient operations and maintenance, and the training of facilities personnel.
- Encourage private investment: Common-sense solutions to financial and legal barriers to energy efficiency should be adopted to increase private investment in building energy improvements.
- City leadership: Cities should lead by example and reduce taxpayer-funded energy consumption in municipal buildings, and encourage the private sector to match their actions.
- Promote transparency: Building energy performance information should be transparent and accessible to enable market demand and competition for energy-efficient buildings.
