By Justine Brown
Energy Biz
America’s cities are increasingly taking action to improve the sustainability of their jurisdictions, though many with energy and climate-related goals have difficulty quantifying progress toward those goals, according to a report from the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The report, “City-Level Energy Decision Making: Data Use in Energy Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation in U.S. Cities,” examined what U.S. cities are doing to reduce energy use and how they are incorporating data into their energy-related decisions.
“Cities are increasingly housing the world population, and they are huge energy consumers, so they are great testbeds for programs centered around energy efficiency, clean energy innovation, etc.,” said Alexandra Aznar, lead author of the report. “We’ve also seen a lot of city leadership in action in this area over the last 10 years, so it’s a busy space. With this study we wanted to try to get a lay of the land to understand it better.”
A study by the United Nations Environment Programme found that urban areas generate 60 to 80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, yet energy savings of up to 50 percent can be achieved in cities with limited investment and encouraging behavioral change.
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