Green Efforts Will Yield Over $1 Million in Annual Savings for Atlanta

By Mandy Schmitt, Director of Sustainability, Atlanta (USA)

Achieving the City of Atlanta’s sustainability goals is a critical part of the our strategy to cut costs and improve efficiencies in operations. The Office of Sustainability and the Office of Enterprise Assets Management are focused on the implementation of no-cost energy and water conservation measures that will reduce both utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

Leading examples of the City’s efforts include reprogramming heating and air-conditioning controls to ensure that systems shut down as much as possible during unoccupied periods.  This is expected to result in 15-20% energy savings in City Hall and will correspond to annual cost savings of over $120,000 for this building alone. 

Other cost savings efforts include:

• Power to Change Campaign: The Power to Change campaign engages all city employees on what they can do to help green operations and reduce costs. The campaign focuses on energy and water conservation, recycling, and commute alternatives. The City can decrease energy by at least 10% through aggressive action by employees. The decrease in energy use will yield $500,000 or more in annual savings to the general fund.
• Utility Management System: The City is finalizing the installation of a computer-based utilities management system that will track utility costs on an individual basis for all facilities. This will allow the City to identify the least efficient facilities to establish priorities for ongoing conservation efforts. 
• Green Revolving Loan Fund: The City is working to establish an internal Green Revolving Loan Fund that will loan money to City departments to finance building efficiency and renewable energy projects. The loan fund will be seeded by outside funding and create a revolving mechanism for the City to recover its investment through the utility savings. A prime example of a target project is to install solar thermal panels on the city’s indoor natatoriums. 
• Carbon Reduction Efforts: In 2005 in Washington, DC, Mayor Franklin signed the U.S. Mayor's Climate Protection agreement and pledged to reduce the City’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012. The City projects a 15% reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions on General Fund facilities through the currently planned energy reduction measures. Concurrently, the Department of Aviation and the Department of Watershed Management are also reducing their greenhouse gas emissions through similar measures.
• Teleworking and Compressed Work Week: The City will officially roll out a city-wide teleworking and compressed work week program in January 2009. Studies show that these strategies increase productivity in the workplace in addition to saving employees money. 

“The Office of Sustainability is working with departments across city government to improve current programs and policies and implement new ones that will not only be good for the environment, but will save the City money overtime,” said Mayor Shirley Franklin. “We are confident that we will accomplish these objectives by exploring more efficient ways the City can conserve energy and increase cost savings.”

For more information, please contact Mandy Schmitt, Director of Sustainability, mschmitt@atlantaga.gov or 404.865.8965.