Gov1 recently hosted a Roundtable Discussion at the National League of Cities event in Houston, Texas. A group of municipal leaders gathered to discuss their unique approaches to energy efficiency and sustainability at the local level.
The Basics
Maria Koetter, Director of the Office of Sustainability for the city of Louisville, discussed the city’s sustainability plan that aims to reduce per capita energy use by 25 percent by 2025, as well as:
- Protect the environment and reduce Louisville’s carbon footprint
- Ensure the health, wellness and prosperity of all citizens
- Create a culture of sustainability
The Sustain Louisville initiative was launched in March 2013 after several months of in-depth research identifying what Louisville needed to put forward to become a sustainable city. The energy efficiency plan addresses specific goals within six main areas:
- Energy
- Environment
- Transit
- Economy
- Community
- Engagement
Within each of these focus areas are 17 specific goals and 67 initiatives to achieve results, some with immediate deadlines, other more long-term in nature. Louisville wanted to take a very broad, comprehensive look at energy use and sustainability across all areas of operations. The sustainability plan aims to proactively correct a wide array of inefficiencies with stringent metrics and aggressive timelines.
“The sustainability plan is meant to be a living, fluid document,” Maria Koetter told Gov1. “We can evaluate and refine the goals and initiatives each year to see if they need to be more accessible or technically accurate. Of the 67 initiatives, many are currently underway or may begin in three to five years.”
Koetter explained the sustainability plan is intentionally designed to with a full range of active projects alongside goals set for decades in the future. Each initiative is a learning experience to strengthen the next project.
Setting a Baseline
One of the most significant challenges for Koetter’s Office of Sustainability was to set goals for the city without any baseline for comparison.
“That is why the goals were set broad, we did not have a specific baseline to set standards against,” Koetter told Gov1. “We continually refine goals over time as the programs become more mature and robust.”
Koetter said to set aggressive goals, her team had to develop metrics to measure program progress and success. Identifying gaps and collecting benchmarking data is especially difficult for climate change and energy consumption purposes.
“That is a big beast to try and tackle, a city’s energy consumption,” Koetter explained. “Determining the extent of a city’s carbon footprint is difficult to measure accurately.”
60% and Go
Because the research and benchmarking was an on-going process, Koetter said there is no clear path toward goal achievement. Rather, Louisville decided to spend less time drawing up detailed, step-by-step strategies for how best to achieve each goal, and instead hit the ground running after the big picture was realized and a foundation of initiatives were in place.
“We have created a very lofty goal to decrease the city’s energy consumption per capita, which will require significant coordination, awareness and unified efforts to achieve,” Koetter told Gov1. “The department wasn’t mature enough to know how we were going to achieve our goal citywide, so we pushed toward immediate progress and results while creating the roadmap along the way.”
Louisville’s sustainability plan is unique in that no best practices were laid out from the start, but are being realized after projects launched and empirical results started to illustrate successes and failures. As the department constantly reevaluates initiatives and tactics, the plan remains highly responsive and flexible to new paths toward the overall goal.
Energy Savings Performance Contracts
Louisville has an energy savings performance contract in place to deliver sustainability gains that benefit the city and its residents both socially and financially. The Johnson Controls team, Louisville Office of Sustainability and Office of Management and Budget created a plan to implement $27 million in energy efficient upgrades and repairs in city-owned buildings.
Under the contract, Johnson Controls will pay initial costs for facility improvements, which will be paid back in savings generated from the upgrades. Johnson Controls will assume financial liability if savings fall short, so the city will not lose valuable taxpayer dollars.
In The Future
Looking ahead, Koetter has big plans for Louisville. Koetter cited the growing trend of cities requiring municipal and public buildings of a certain size to benchmark their energy consumption and meet improvement goals.
“I would like to model these initiatives and launch benchmarking and disclosure programs,” Koetter told Gov1. “These efforts are becoming more common and push the sustainability conversation forward within the community.”
Furthermore, Koetter would like Louisville to develop a policy or requirement centered on heat assessment within the built environment. Louisville has been documented with a serious urban heat island issue that Koetter would like to see addressed through upgrades and new requirements for future developments.
“Our downtown is warmer than the surrounding areas due to lack of green space, density of buildings, dark building surfaces, etc.” Koetter explained. “I think Louisville should require heat impact assessments for future developments to ensure more efficient practices are in place to reduce our heat island issues as well as overall consumption.”
Koetter said small changes such as cool roofs and curbside parks can have an immediate impact, while building regulations will help sustain long-term improvements. She intends to waste no time moving her ideas forward.
“If you are serious about solving the issues, you must be proactive and innovative – not afraid to jump right in,” Koetter said. “When it comes to heat impact analysis, I would like to lead rather than follow.”