Reducing emissions has been a hot topic the last few years, especially because of ongoing climate change conversations. In fact, right here in Reno, actions are being taken to combat greenhouse gas emissions, and those actions have gained some national recognition. The push to reduce our carbon footprint here in Reno saw a big push in 2019, when officials pledged to drop carbon emissions by over 1 metric ton.
“It's important for air quality, health of our citizens, climate change issues,” said Suzanne Groneman, Sustainability Program Manager for the City of Reno.
The pledge made by city officials was to reduce emissions from city buildings and fleet vehicles by 28%. But the problem they were running into was how to measure the exact level of emissions.
“Our first priority is operations sustainability and operational efficiency, and we just don't have any way to measure that," said Groneman.
And that's where the local start-up company Ledger 8760 came in. Allowing precise day-to-day measurements of the cities carbon footprint and energy use.
“Understand those impacts from an operational standpoint whether it's city hall or a fire station or vehicles or street lights," said Chief Policy Officer for Ledger 8760 Josh Griffin.
This information, now available thanks work from Ledger 8760, which will allow the public to view the cities progress, as well as potentially save tax dollars while reducing emissions.
“You can then make operational decisions. When's the best time to charge an electric vehicle? Well, obviously you have a much greener resource in the afternoon," said Griffin.
This is also part of a bigger push to 'go green,' as the City has replaced at least 13 gas vehicles with electric, which accounts for about 2% of the fleet, with hopes of expanding in the future.
“Heavy equipment, weather you are talking snow plow or street sweepers, that stuff is starting to come to market, but it's in its infancy stages and it can be really expensive, so those are the things we are constantly looking at, we are eager to get into, but some of that technology just hasn't been there," said Zac Haffner, Maintenance and Operations Manager for the City of Reno.
While reducing carbon emissions is not cheap, the City was able to use previous saving from environmental rebates.
“Through savings and rebates from other projects that we have done, so when we have done lighting retrofit projects we receive a rebate from the utility, we've been putting that away and that's how we have funded this program for the first year," said Groneman.
Ledger 8760, which stands for the number of hours in a year, along with the City of Reno hope that by making all this data public and showing the effect they are having in reducing emissions, that they can act as a role model, so others will join in the fight to do their part for the planet.
