California Case Studies

Below is a summary of case studies organized by cost-saving strategy. These case studies highlight greenhouse gas emission reductions and cost savings achieved by cities and counties in California. Please let us know if your local government has been able to reduce climate impacts in one or more of these categories. We'd like to feature your actions and showcase them as part of this Local Government Toolkit.

Energy Efficiency and Conservation

Berkeley

Berkeley completed energy retrofits to all city-owned buildings. Through this effort, they are now saving 2.1 million kilowatt hours of electricity and 37,520 therms of natural gas. Berkeley is saving $370,000 of taxpayer’s money annually. Completing energy retrofits to city buildings is expected to save about 1,200 tons of CO2 annually.

Sacramento

Sacramento estimates that by retrofitting existing city buildings, the upfront cost would be about $5 million. However, the return on investment for these energy efficiency improvements would total $500,000 annually. The simple payback period would be 10 years for this type of investment.

San Francisco

By increasing incentives and technical assistance, expanding education and outreach, strengthening legislation, codes, and standards, the City of San Francisco anticipates an annual CO2 emission reduction of 801,000 tons of CO2 annually.

Renewable Energy

Leading Cities in California

SustainLane estimates that 50MW of renewable energy is equivalent to reducing 300,000 metric tons of CO2 per year. Leading the nation, Oakland purchased 17% of electricity from renewable power in 2006. Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose tied for second place by purchasing 12% of electricity from renewable energy. Palo Alto established a goal to purchase renewable energy to provide 10% of total power by 2008 and 20% by 2015. San Diego is in fifth place with 8% of electricity generated by renewable energy sources. California cities rank highest because of the state’s RPS, which requires utilities purchases of renewable energy for the state’s electric grid. That standard requires a 20 percent renewable energy total for the state’s utilities by 2010, while the Governor has set an expanded goal of 33 percent by 2010, while the Governor has set an expanded goal of 33 percent by 2020.

Berkeley

Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan identifies several strategies to green the city energy supply including development of more decentralized renewable energy generation, greening the energy mix, and community choice aggregation. The City of Berkeley anticipates that by the year 2020, at least 25% of the grid-available energy mix will be from renewable resources. City staff conservatively estimates that this energy mix could reduce 15,000 tons of CO2 per year.

In order to encourage residential and commercial building owners to install renewable and solar technology, Berkeley has launched a program called Berkeley FIRST – Financing Incentive for Renewable and Solar Technology. The City of Berkeley is allowing residential and commercial property owners to pay for energy efficiency improvements and solar system installation as a voluntary long-term assessment on their individual property tax bill. Berkeley launched the pilot phase in fall of 2008.

San Francisco – Solar Roof Incentive Program

San Francisco’s Solar Roof Incentive Program offers $3 million annually to local homeowners to receive $3k to $6k. Businesses can receive up to $10k and non-profit affordable housing providers can receive up to $30k.

Water Efficiency, Conservation, Recycling, and Reuse

Town of Windsor

According to the Local Government Commission, the "Town of Windsor is saving about 275 million gallons of drinking water a year by irrigating 400 acres of golf course, vineyard, parks, pasture and fodder croplands with recycled water. " An estimated 1,057 tons of CO2 is avoided each year through this water reclamation and reuse effort.

Santa Clara Valley Water District (San Jose, CA)

This water management agency helped the community reduce water demand by 55,000 acre-feet, or 12 percent of present demand, through conservation and water recycling. They have plans to further reduce demand for water. The district uses an array of innovative programs, which includes using satellite imaging to inventory and measure irrigation landscapes, educating the public about the link between water efficiency and its positive impact on energy demand and air quality, and protecting salt marshes by reducing the amount of freshwater released from wastewater treatment facilities.

San Diego

Landscape irrigation runoff and other water restrictions are being enforced in the City of San Diego. According to WaterWeek staff, “the San Diego City Council approved a more stringent emergency water conservation plan that bans landscape irrigation runoff and most ornamental fountains, sets outdoor watering schedules, restricts car washing and requires restaurant customers to ask for water. Violators of the mandatory restrictions could be charged or have their water restricted. Mayor Jerry Sanders had asked for a voluntary 10 percent reduction in water use this year.”

Waste Reduction

Government Compost Program Case Studies

The California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery offers case studies on cities and counties that have implemented compost programs.

Waste Programs for Communities

US EPA offers waste prevention, recycling and composting lessons learned from 30 communities in the US. These case studies illustrate ideas to set up recycling programs, one-day community collection events, and expansion of recycling programs.

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

Santa Monica

While Santa Monica’s purchasing structure is fairly decentralized, the City charter requires purchasers to choose the “lowest and most responsible bid,” regardless of the size of their purchases. To determine whether a bid is the lowest and most responsible, purchasers may use, in addition to price, criteria such as “the quality of the material or services offered” and “the 16 character, integrity, reputation, judgment, training, experience, and efficiency of the bidder.” This gives City purchasers wide latitude to engage in sustainable procurement.

King County, WA

The King County Environmental Purchasing Program provides county personnel with information and technical assistance to help them identify and evaluate, and ultimately purchase, economical and effective environmentally preferable products and services. In the past year, King County agencies purchased 41 million dollars worth of these products, saving $875,000 compared to the cost of conventional products.

Green Building

San Francisco

City officials estimate that more than 60,000 tons of CO2 could be avoided through passage of a local green building code. A total of 220,000 MWh of electricity and 100 million gallons of drinking water will be conserved through green building efforts. Municipal buildings over 5,000 ft2 are required to be certified to LEED Silver standards. In March 2008, the Building Inspection Commission approved green building standards. The Board of Supervisors approved the new code, which was signed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in November 2008. San Francisco is leading the country by passing the most stringent green building standards, which require residential high rise buildings over 75 ft2, commercial buildings larger than 5,000 ft2 and renovation buildings larger than 25,000 ft2 to comply with LEED. All new residential buildings must comply with Green Point Rated.

Green buildings provide a cost-effective strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to a 2007 cost analysis study, “there is no significant difference in average cost for green buildings as compared to non-green buildings.” (Matthiessen 2007) Early studies indicated the average cost to construct new green buildings ranged between 0% and 6%. The average cost premium for a LEED green building was found to equal 1.84%. (Kats 2003) However, when green building goals are clearly established early on in the project, additional upfront capital costs can be avoided. An integrated whole-building design approach where architects and engineers work cooperatively to develop design elements can also result in avoided additional capital costs and reduced operating costs over the life of the building.

Many local governments and building owners recognize green building as an investment. Cost savings from energy efficient and water efficient equipment and fixtures are well documented. In new buildings, an estimated 30-40% energy savings and 20-30% water savings have been documented for green buildings. Typical utility expenses range from $1.40 to $2.50 per square foot. About half of these expenses can be avoided (a cost savings in the range of $0.50 to $1.40 per square foot have been documented) by incorporating energy and water efficient technologies into green buildings. These savings can be much higher for existing buildings.

Challenging Local Residents

City of Davis

A pilot program was initiated in fall of 2008 to challenge local residents to go on a "low carbon diet." Davis offers a workbook to assist households with measuring GHG emissions and developing individual action plans. Since the residential sector contributes approximately 23% of city-wide GHG emissions, the low-carbon diet challenge represents and opportunity to reduce a significant portion of GHG emissions.