Our 225th City is ... City of Chattanooga, Tennessee
Friday, October 15, 2010
This month Planet Footprint welcomed its 225th local government client, the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee. They join 224 cities, counties and towns that are actively managing energy, water, fleet, waste - costs, usage and greenhouse gas emissions - on a continuous basis.
Many of these 225 communities have made mayoral pledges, developed energy and climate change plans and compiled greenhouse gas inventories. Whether or not they've taken these preliminary steps, they should be applauded for going much further, by making the constructive commitment to direct and ongoing management and accountability in their own local government operations. By putting in place effective management of energy, water and other resources they are helping to ensure financial savings and energy and environmental performance improvements throughout and beyond the current wave of stimulus funding for local government energy and conservation programs.
In early 2010 the City of Chattanooga created the Office of Sustainability, directed by Dave Crockett. One of Crockett's priorities is to reduce energy usage in City-operated facilities by having better accountability and understanding of costs, usage and GHG emissions. The City consulted with experts on municipal energy efficiency and management, including Dave Konkle, who ran a very successful energy program for the City of Ann Arbor for 20 years. Konkle told Crockett, "You can't do anything until you've got the data, but you don't want to spend all your time managing the data." The City has over 1,000 electric, gas and water accounts monthly, so managing the data is not a trivial task. Planet Footprint's Energy and Environmental Scorekeeping Service will independently track, report and benchmark historical and ongoing energy, fuel and water performance, letting the Office of Sustainability get on with improving it.
Chattanooga's Office of Sustainability has already made great strides in engaging city employees and the community. Outreach Coordinator, Callie Klenner, has brought together 19 existing sustainability projects involving the City and the community. Gene Hyde, Chair of the Chattanooga Green Committee is working with the City's Finance department and Planet Footprint to integrate the City's 2008 baseline greenhouse gas inventory into the Planet Footprint Scorekeeping Service. The service builds on the inventory by providing important ongoing energy use, cost and emissions information that's needed to achieve the objectives of the City's climate action plan.
As at October 2010, Planet Footprint has local government cients in 7 US states: Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon and California. Planet Footprint communites range in population from under 5,000 people to over 280,000 people.