City of Greenville, NC Greenhouse Gas Accounting and Emissions Reduction Plan

Abstract

As we near the International Panel on Climate Change’s 2030 deadline to halve global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, cities are being called upon to proactively manage the negative effects of urbanization. Greenville, North Carolina aims to join the growing list of American cities who are taking responsibility for their role in climate change by generating a comprehensive inventory of the GHGs emitted by their municipal operations. Our team’s objective was to catalog the city’s greenhouse gas footprint and make recommendations according to our findings, working in coordination with the City Manager of Greenville, NC. Specifically, we were tasked with creating an emissions inventory that could be used as the city’s baseline, against which future years’ inventories could be measured and compared to track reductions over time. We produced a baseline GHG emissions inventory of municipal operations from fiscal year 2019, as that was the most recent fiscal year which experienced no operational interruptions from the Covid-19 pandemic. The inventory identifies activities and sectors with high emissions contributions, and we used this data to recommend the emissions reductions measures that would be most beneficial to the city. Our GHG emissions accounting methodology utilized the standardized framework for local governments created by ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection Campaign. Using ClearPath—ICLEI’s GHG emissions inventory tool—we generated an emissions report which includes an emissions inventory, projections of future emissions, and forecasts that predict the effects various potential reduction measures might have on Greenville’s GHG footprint over a 10-year period. The emissions report contributed to the development of a sustainability project work plan with benchmarks and targets to track municipal emissions reduction performance over time.

Key Findings: 1. The majority of Greenville’s emissions are Scope 1, or direct emissions from operational activity. 2. The greatest contributing sector of municipal operations to the city’s emissions inventory is Vehicle Fleet. In this instance, “Vehicle Fleet” encompasses both municipal vehicles and transit vehicles, though future inventories should distinguish between the vehicle types to better target possible areas for emissions reductions. 3. Greenville’s emissions per capita for municipal operations are not directly comparable to other North Carolina municipalities. The City of Greenville does not have operational control over some activities and sectors included in their peers’ inventories of government operations.

Key Recommendations: 1. Implement energy efficiency improvements within Greenville’s vehicle fleet to reduce the sector’s contribution and the overall emissions footprint for municipal operations. 2. Disaggregate data into individual records within ClearPath to better understand which activities by sector have the largest contribution to better select emissions reduction measures. 3. If data is available, use the same process to generate a 2005 emissions inventory for the purposes of setting goals and measuring progress. 4. Continue the momentum from this project by making sustainability a permanent fixture within city operations through the hiring of a sustainability professional.