Carbon copy, please
Private sector urged to join gov’t in cutting emissions
New York City might prefer to be No. 1 in many things, but greenhouse gas emissions is not one of them. As it stands, the city’s GHG outputs are one-third the national average, but the mayor’s office, angling for an even smaller carbon footprint, has thrown down a greenhousegas gauntlet of sorts by challenging the private sector to match it in reducing emissions 30% by 2017.
“It’s a goal that’s ambitious but achievable,” says Jenna Tatum, coordinator of the New York City Carbon Challenge. The challenge, which started in 2007 by asking local hospitals to reduce their carbon outputs by nearly a third over the ensuing decade, has expanded over the years to include universities, commercial buildings and, most recently, multi-family residential buildings.
“Our current participants alone will reduce citywide emissions by between 1% and 2 % and we’re expanding, so definitely that will i ncrease,” Tatum says. “We have essentially all the universities and hospitals in the city signed up for this goal and by adding the commercial businesses and multi-family buildings, we expect to get 150 million square feet of space signed up to reduce their emissions 30% in 10 years. That’s 5% of citywide emissions. They’re having a measurable i mpact on citywide greenhouse gas emissions.”
The New York City Carbon Challenge is a voluntary undertaking, but one that could help private entities not only cut their greenhouse gas emissions but costs as well. The incentive being that doing so could lead to energy cost savings i n the l ong run. It also helps the city reach its greater goal of reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2030, a pledge that’s well within reach according to Daniel Zarrilli, di-rector of New York City’s Office of Recovery and Resiliency.
“We’ve actually achieved 19% of that 30 % already, so we’re t wo-thirds of the way there,” Zarrilli says. “There’s a bit more to be done, but we’ve been seeing substantial progress because of programs like this. The quicker they achieve it, the sooner they stop emitting the carbon and start saving money.”
Hurricane Sandy highlighted New York City’s need to become a more sustainable and resilient city as a whole. Figuring out how to go about it is an ongoing effort, but initiatives like the New York City Carbon Challenge are a good start as it casts a wide net in terms of its intention to cut carbon emissions across multiple sectors within the city. “This is step one, and there’s a lot more to be done,” Zarrilli says. “We’re one city among many, and we’re trying to point the way towards how this can be achieved globally.”
In many ways, the New Y York City Carbon Challenge is a piggyback project picking up w where other energy efficiency in initiatives left off.
“A 30 % reduct ion goal m might sound really ambitious b but some buildings need to c complete energy audits that w will give them a list of all the e energy saving opportunities,” T Tatum says. “Those audits are b basically pathways forward to a achieve this goal that they can u use to meet the goals and part ticipate in the challenge. So (w (we’re)just building on initiati tives and energy efficiency alr ready existing in New York.”
While New Yorkers aren’t e eligible to participate i n the c carbon challenge individually ly, they can still get involved b by cont act i ng t hei r bu i ldin ing management or calling th their condo board. “They can s sign up through the property management company,” Tatum says. “We have a list of all the currently participating companies on our website. We have 16 of them, they include some of the larger firms like FirstService Residential, Douglas Elliman, Rose Associates, Prestige management. If a resident is in a building that’s not managed by one of our currently participating companies, they should reach out to their company and encourage them to sign up. Or they can email our carbon challenge email: carbonchallenge@cityhall.nyc.gov.”
So far, six universities and hospitals have met the challenge’s goal of 30 % emissions reductions well ahead of schedule, and in total, participants have cut annual carbon emissions by 148,842 metric tons — that’s equivalent to saving $60 million in energy costs annually.
“In a larger sense,” Zarrilli says, “the efforts to reduce our carbon emissions as a cit y is g loba lly important. New York City isn’t going to alone solve the climate change problems, but I think we can show people how it can be done.”