It’s often said that federal governments talk and cities act. Nowhere is this more evident than in our North American cities. While federal governments have failed to produce effective climate policies, North American cities have shown that smart, aggressive climate action is doable. Since 2005, when more than 1,000 mayors signed on to the Mayors Climate Protection Initiative, committing their cities to meet the targets set forth in the Kyoto Protocol (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels), several North American cities have surpassed the Kyoto goal. For example, the cities of San Francisco and Toronto have each reduced their community-wide GHGs to 15 percent below 1990 levels, and one of our newest members, Washington, D.C., recently announced that it has achieved a 12 percent reduction since 2005.

And we’re growing economies in the process. Vancouver has grown its population by 27 percent and increased jobs by 18 percent while simultaneously achieving the smallest per capita carbon footprint of any city in North America. The City of Austin, which recently received the only Green Power Leadership Award ever given to a city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has seen some of the strongest job growth in the U.S. over the past five years while aggressively implementing its sustainability agenda.

Other North American cities are championing some of the world’s most groundbreaking sustainability policies and programs:

• New York City’s Greener Greater Buildings Plan targets energy efficiency in these large existing buildings in the 15,000 buildings that account for 45 percent of total GHG emissions in the city.
• Portland’s pioneering “ecodistrict” movement is testing new strategies for integrating building and infrastructure projects with community and individual action.
• The City of Chicago has created the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, a new public-private partnership to leverage up to $1.7 billion to help finance needed improvements in the city’s streets, public transit, public buildings, and utilities.
• Los Angeles is soon to complete one of the most ambitious street light energy efficiency projects in the world, retrofitting more than 140,000 street lights with LEDs, increasing efficiency by 63 percent, and saving the city more than $5 million annually.
• Houston’s award-winning Green Office Challenge has fostered voluntary energy efficiency upgrades of between 10-50 percent in more than 400 commercial buildings.
• The City of Philadelphia is more than 80 percent of the way toward achieving its ambitious goal of providing easy access to open green space for all of its residents.
• New Orleans is taking aggressive steps to reduce future flooding and other climate change risks by elevating homes, rebuilding levees, and restoring wetlands.
• Seattle has led the way in green energy and green buildings, as the first city in the U.S. to mandate Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for municipal building projects. The city’s electric utility, Seattle City Light, was the nation’s first large electric utility to become carbon neutral.

Our North American cities have demonstrated incredible climate leadership, and there’s much to be proud of. But we still have a long way to go. We have some pretty big challenges to confront, including building cities’ resilience to the more frequent impacts of climate change, tackling the next round of harder-to-achieve GHG reductions, and doing a better job of “building the business case” for sustainability investments which grow economies and create jobs. The good news is that there are many lessons to learn from, and best practices to share with, other cities around the world as we all confront similar challenges.

I look forward to working with our North American cities to take on these challenges, and to continue to demonstrate that climate change can be addressed one city at a time.

Johanna Gregory Partin is North America Regional Director for the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Prior to coming to C40, Johanna served as Senior Policy Advisor on Environment to San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, where she advised Mayor Lee on citywide sustainable energy, climate, transportation, green building and other programs promoting sustainability for San Francisco. Ms. Partin served in the same position under Mayor Gavin Newsom from 2009-2010. Ms. Partin also served on the Board of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and is a Faculty Member for the Climate Leadership Academy. Previously, Ms. Partin worked as Renewable Energy Program Manager at the San Francisco Department of Environment, and as Program Manager for international clean energy programs at Winrock International. Ms. Partin has over 20 years’ experience in the fields of climate change, renewable energy, microfinance, sustainable development and gender equity, and has worked both locally and in more than 15 countries around the world. Johanna has a Master’s degree in Energy & Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and Anthropology from UC Santa Barbara.

The agreement will expand an existing car-sharing service operated by the two companies since January, and will specifically facilitate the use of the Nissan LEAF, the first 100 percent electric vehicle manufactured on a large scale. The agreement with NH Hoteles enables Respiro to offer its car-sharing service at 53 pick-up points across central Madrid that customers can reserve via phone or internet.

General Director of Sustainability for the City of Madrid, Elisa Barahona, attended the signing event. The city administration is an important collaborator in the implementation of sustainability programs, offering such assistance as free access for vehicles to residential priority areas, exemption from municipal street parking regulations, and up to a 75 percent reduction of the municipal tax on motor vehicles.

To read more about the project (in Spanish), click here.

Latin America is flourishing. Rising urbanization, expanding population, and trade growth are all surefire signs of increased prosperity and development across the region. Yet, as we accommodate this growth, we will also be faced with new economic and environmental challenges as our expanding urban areas consume more energy and produce greater carbon emissions.

In a few years, Rio de Janeiro will proudly host two of the most significant sporting events in the world, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, putting our city at the center of the world stage and drawing in thousands of visitors who will contribute to our city’s energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Because of this, we made a commitment to improve and develop sustainable mobility in Rio through deployment of new technologies and improvements in network services, fleet management, and new operational techniques.

Rio joined the Hybrid and Electric Bus Test Program, an initiative designed and implemented by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative, and with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), to help us meet these goals. C40-CCI worked with our local government and regional bus technology companies to successfully test hybrid electric buses throughout the city and assist in developing mechanisms that make sustainable mobility a financially viable reality.

As a C40 city, Rio is proud to continue to lead by example. In 2012, we completed the pilot phase of the project, which will soon expand across Latin America with the goal of incorporating an additional 30,000 buses and reducing CO2 emissions by 10 million tons over the next 10 years. We continue to work with C40-CCI to demonstrate that creating a business case for the introduction of these technologies is possible. As a result of our program’s success, we are showing other cities in the region that hybrid technology is not only an environmentally responsible option, but also a necessary tool for increasing the quality of life and enhancing the overarching strategy of sustainable mobility and functionality in growing cities.

There are more than 900,000 buildings in New York City alone. These structures, both historic and contemporary, literally define a city like New York. Landmarks like the Empire State Building draw in thousands of people every day for work and tourism. Yet these structures also place a high demand on our environment and national resources. Across the United States, the operations of existing buildings account for more than 36 percent of total energy use and over 65 percent of electricity consumption. In major cities, such as New York City, commercial and residential buildings consume 75 percent of total energy use.

I believe this is actually good news. With our pioneering work at the Empire State Building, the most famous office building in the world, we have proven that there is a business case for implementing a program to substantially reduce this impact. Eighty percent of the buildings that exist in New York City today will still be here in 2050. While there has been significant progress in energy and sustainability performance requirements and guidelines for new construction, there has been less of a focus on developing quantitative and transparent processes and case studies for owners and stakeholders to follow to green older buildings like ours. Yet our work with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) and its partners has shown that retrofitting existing buildings is the best way for a city to become environmentally sustainable. Investing capital in making buildings more efficient has one of the best ROI’s an owner can make.

When CCI approached us about retrofitting the Empire State Building, we realized we had an extraordinary opportunity to not only reduce our environmental impact and cut our expenses, but also to create a replicable model for other developers to do the same. In one day, the Empire State Building alone consumes as much energy as 40,000 single family homes. The energy retrofit will save $4.4 million annually in energy costs, and reduce 105,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 15 years—equivalent to removing 25,000 cars from the road. In addition, we retrofitted 6,514 windows in the building, which helps reduce summer heat load and winter heat loss, and retrofitted HVAC units to optimize the existing building control system. Our retrofits have also helped to stimulate the local economy while creating more than 250 local and regional jobs over the course of the retrofits, from manufacturing to construction and engineering.

In retrofitting the Empire State Building we not only wanted to lessen our impact on the environment but, more importantly, to provide an example for developers and governments around the world that sustainability is an economically feasible reality. If the largest 20 percent of buildings in New York City alone replicated the Empire State Building’s commitment and reduced their energy usage by 40percent, New York City’s energy usage would be reduced by 25percent. This commitment is not based on the owner’s dedication to environmental stewardship. This commitment is based on the team’s commitment – and contract – to deliver a minimum 38percent energy reduction, saving $4.4 million annually with a 3.1-year payback.

It has been a profound privilege to act as the program manager for the development and implementation of the replicable process, implementation of energy projects, and ongoing Measurement & Verification of the performance of the energy retrofit of the Empire State Building. The retrofits demonstrate that greening buildings has immense environmental and financial value. Already during the retrofit process, we have had several instances of owners, vendors, loaners and developers who were driven to take action themselves. They recognized that the process, tools, and strategies we used are easily adopted and fulfilled with a brief payback period and significant annual savings. I believe that the Empire State Building alone has changed the way people view their ability to make a difference while making a profit. Just think what a difference we can make in reducing energy usage while generating revenue. We have demonstrated that the two go together successfully. I have never worked on a project where we were not able to identify energy projects with a five year payback or less. Now, it’s time to get started on the other 899,999 buildings in New York!

So we were interested to read about a team of innovative Microsoft engineers that has developed a promising new software that improves building management systems and efficiency with potentially widespread applications, based on a recent blog post on their corporate website.

According to the report, cities in particular can benefit from observing how Microsoft achieved energy and cost savings through the use of new software.

“Smart buildings will become smart cities,” said Darrell Smith, the team’s lead engineer and Microsoft’s director of facilities and energy. “And smart cities will change everything.”

In 1986, Microsoft’s headquarters comprised a four-building complex on 88 acres. As business grew rapidly, the company was forced to work with various contractors and construction schedules to quickly expand the headquarters. It is now the size of a small city, encompassing 125 buildings across 500 acres and nearly 42,000 employees. Unfortunately, the lack of comprehensive planning during development required that Microsoft use disparate building management systems to maintain the buildings’ 30,000 unconnected, sensor-enabled equipment — that is until Smith’s engineering team developed a data-driven software to identify opportunities for energy savings across the headquarters’ buildings.

The software receives and organizes data from thousands of building sensors tracking things like heaters, air conditioners, fans, and lights, providing deep insight into building performance and opportunities for improved efficiency. Moreover, engineers can often use the data to detect and fix problems from their high-tech dashboard that once required the attention of on-site technicians.

A test run of the program in 13 Microsoft buildings generated millions of dollars in saved energy, maintenance, and utility costs. With commercial buildings consuming an estimated 40 percent of the world’s total energy, the software’s potential for increased efficiency and emissions reduction is huge.

“Give me a little data and I’ll tell you a little,” said Smith. “Give me a lot of data and I’ll save the world.”

To read more about Microsoft’s innovative new software click here.

C40 Chair and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the results of the Hybrid Electric Bus Test Program — an initiative designed and implemented by C40 in partnership with the Clinton Climate Initiative, and with financial support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) — during the New York Times Building Sustainable Cities conference.

Through the participation of local governments, bus suppliers, and bus operators, the Program measured the emissions from, and evaluated the technological performance of, hybrid and electric buses in Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Santiago de Chile.

Some of the Program’s key outcomes include:

• Hybrid and electric technologies produce smaller volumes of GHG emissions and local air pollutants and are more fuel-efficient than standard diesel buses.
• By reducing harmful local pollutants and other externalities (such as noise pollution), adopting hybrid and/or electric bus technologies brings significant environmental and social benefits.
• Hybrid and electric technologies are cheaper in the long run. In spite of the higher initial purchase costs of low carbon buses, the total life cycle costs (calculated over a 10 year period of assumed operation) is equal to and in many cases lower than the cost of conventional diesel buses.

The report featured remarks from Mayor Bloomberg, President Bill Clinton, and IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno:

“The transportation sector has a significant impact on rising greenhouse gas emissions levels, so shifting vehicles to cleaner energy sources remains a vitally important challenge. In New York City, we have increased the size of our electric vehicle fleet and made our yellow taxicab fleet more fuel efficient, and this year we will begin a pilot program to place electric vehicle charging stations around the city. Cities across Latin America have also been working to improve their transport systems to achieve better air quality, and this report can provide a roadmap for cities around the world to help achieve similar outcomes.” - C40 Chair, Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg

 

“By making investments in low carbon transit solutions such as hybrid and electric vehicles, we are able to better address major global issues including climate change and our reliance on oil. This low carbon transit program demonstrates that clean energy technologies have the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas, and is a catalyst for other cities and governments that want to make long-term investments which are beneficial to both the economy and the environment.” - President Bill Clinton, founder of the Clinton Foundation

 

“The Bank is committed to climate change mitigation and supports sustainable transportation initiatives in the region. The Hybrid and Electric Bus Test Program demonstrates opportunities to promote clean technologies in public transportation systems, and the interest of cities in adopting them.” - Luis Alberto Moreno, President IDB

To read the full press release, click here.

To download the report, click here.

“I want to applaud the commitment of the 10 companies making the Carbon Challenge pledge, as well as the universities and hospitals that have already taken steps to become more efficient. Their leadership on this issue is not only going to move our city toward a more sustainable future; we also hope it will inspire others to follow suit.”

The Carbon Challenge – which includes 35 university campuses and 11 of the largest hospital organizations – started in 2007 as a complement to the city’s ambitious plans to reduce citywide emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Mayor Bloomberg also announced this morning that the city is more than halfway to meeting its 2030 target, and the expanded participation in the Carbon Challenge will no doubt help the city reach its goal even faster.

“Through the Mayor’s Carbon Challenge, the City, State and private sector have formed a successful partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that impact our environment and the quality of life for millions of residents,” said President and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority Francis J. Murray, Jr.

The ten companies joining PlaNYC’s Carbon Challenge include:

• American International Group
• BlackRock
• Bloomberg LP
• Credit Suisse
• Deutsche Bank
• Goldman Sachs
• Google
• JetBlue Airways
• JPMorgan Chase
• PVH

For the full press release, click here.

The Mayor is driving smart innovation and investment to manage demand more efficiently with smart grids and have more of the capital’s energy generated locally, which deliver lower cost and lower carbon energy as well as taking pressure off the national grid.

Through the planning system and being the first to apply for a “junior electricity license,” which will allow smaller generators to sell their excess electricity at a much better rate, the Mayor is de-risking the investment in London’s energy infrastructure. He wants to attract £4-7 billion of investment to deliver his vision of 25 percent of London’s energy being generated locally.

London has a mix of new developments and older infrastructure to retrofit, which makes it the perfect laboratory for smart city innovation to deliver a more secure, more affordable and more environmental energy future. And what can be delivered in London can be scaled up and delivered anywhere in the UK and indeed the world.

This guest post was written by Matthew Pencharz, Environment & Political Advisor to the Mayor of London. Matthew Pencharz’s blog post originally ran in excerpt for a piece published in The Sunday Telegraph, March 31, 2013.

“Light rail gives us a chance to revitalise the entire city centre, not just transforming George Street but also the laneways that run off it, making the city an exciting place to explore,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.

The city isn’t working alone, however: they’re looking for input from the locals on everything from how much space should be reserved for pedestrians to whether the light rail system should have overhead lines and barriers. To help Sydneysiders envision the future project, the city has installed an exhibition called Next Stop: 21st century George Street, which is arranged to give an idea of how the project will look when completed.

Sydney city center – today

Sydney city center – proposed

“At the moment, George Street is choked by day and drab at night. This exhibition shows we can make it a wonderful wide boulevard where people will want to walk, shop, dine and meet up with friends,” said Lord Mayor Moore. “To get it right demands good design. That’s why we are asking people who live, work and visit the city to come to the exhibition, to see the designs and tell us how we can make them the best they can be.”

To read the full press release, click here.

“There has never been a more important time to make a commitment to conserving water in the District of Columbia and across the country,” noted Mayor Vincent C. Gray. “I proudly stand with the Wyland Foundation, Toyota and mayors from across the country to urge residents to conserve this important natural resource and build a more sustainable future.”

The initiative – not coincidentally timed during Earth Month – asks residents to sign an online pledge to conserve water in their own lives, by taking actions such as fixing leaky faucets, taking shorter showers, and washing only full loads of laundry. The pledge extends to other conservation measures as well, including reducing electricity usage, recycling, using alternatives to cars to get to work or school, and minimizing food waste.

Last year residents from more than 1,000 cities representing all 50 states participated in the campaign; their pledges represent saving an estimated 4.7 billion gallons of water, reducing bottled water use by 1.1 million bottles, and eliminating 60,000 pounds of hazardous waste from entering watersheds over the ensuing year.

For more information on the program, including last year’s winners, clickhere.

To take the pledge, click here.