The Sustainable Design and Energy Committee hosted a presentation Monday by graduate students in the Energy Analysis and Policy certificate program in an attempt to establish a carbon baseline for reducing energy consumption.
The presentation worked to create awareness of sustainable energy initiatives and give the city an idea of where it stands on these issues, Corey Singletary, a UW-Madison graduate student heading the project, said.
Data was collected from the city of Madison's government operations in 2007, which includes buildings, facilities and vehicles such as garbage trucks.
The inventory established a carbon baseline using which means 2007's data will be used as a reference point in future research comparisons, said Lacey Dart, a UW-Madison graduate student presenter.
According to Dart, establishing a baseline sets a target for the city, facilitating cost-effective greenhouse gas reduction strategies and environmental leadership.
""You can't form good policies to reduce carbon emissions unless you have a thorough inventory that gives you better ideas to inform the decision-making process,"" Singletary said.
The presentation was compiled using software created by ICLEI, an international association of local governments and regional government organizations for sustainability.
Local government operations protocol was used with CACP software to allow for standardized greenhouse gas inventories.
The methodology divided the information into two parts—local government emissions and community-at-large emissions. Protocol and modeling software took into account input from all city electrical usage, natural gases, various other sources and generators of greenhouse gas emissions, Singletary said.
City operations' total energy use indicated roughly 41 million kilowatt hours of electricity and over 704,000 gallons of gas in 2007. Taking greenhouse gases into account, 94,000 metrotons of carbon dioxide was expended in the year.
Presenters discussed the importance of maintaining inventories to monitor progress.
""I think it's an important first step. You can't make progress if you don't know where you are,"" Dart said.
