How Berkeley Tracks Climate Action Progress

A Quick Look at Berkeley’s Website

The web page for each of the City’s climate action strategies (Building Energy Use, Waste Reduction and Recycling, etc.) follows a similar format. It lists a summary of performance highlights, followed by the goals within each strategy. Under each goal, readers can click to a detailed pdf describing a given performance metric that City staff chose to track.

For example, the goal to “Enhance energy services & standards and encourage energy upgrades for existing residential properties" lists three performance metrics: annual residential energy consumption, annual energy saved through CYES program, and rebates & jobs created through Money for Energy Efficiency (ME2). The pdf status report reveals that while the number of households in Berkeley increased 2% between 2000 and 2010, total residential sector energy consumption decreased 10% in that same time period. 

5 Reasons to Track and Report Progress

Burroughs offers five reasons for tracking and reporting climate action in this way.

1. Community engagement
Progress reports -- pushed out via e-newsletters and other communications channels -- can generate greater interest in the plan among community members, and inspire them to incorporate climate-friendly actions into their lives.

2. PR generation
A progress report is a news goldmine. Burroughs used the data about reduced household energy consumption to help create a press release that generated local coverage and shined a positive light on Berkeley’s climate action commitment and success.  “The press release wouldn’t have been as effective without the data to show trends in energy use,” says Burroughs, who adds that the City will continue this PR strategy with other metrics, such as water consumption.

3. Accountability
“Our plan was developed with a lot of input from the community, residents and businesses, and so our website gives us an effective way to keep them up to date on outcomes and progress,” explains Burroughs. But it’s also about internal accountability. “Our plan is very dense with a lot of goals and recommendations that can get lost if there isn’t a strong mechanism for accountability,” he adds. Showing progress over time proves that your climate action plan isn't collecting dust on a shelf, but is a dynamic, active plan that you are committed to.

4. Easy access
Berkeley’s climate progress is captured in a full annual report, but breaking up the progress categories on web pages makes the information much easier to find and read. How often is great information buried in a lengthy report that few people have time to read? And when the data is easily available, adds Burroughs, you can quickly answer unexpected questions from elected officials or funders by pointing them to the website.

5. Strategic planning and project management
“We’ve done a lot of work to gather this data and communicate it on our website,” says Burroughs. “The next step is take internalize this information and derive meaning from it to determine whether a policy was effective or whether resources need to be reallocated. It is valuable for workplanning as well.”

Setting Up Metrics to Track

As you might image, the heavy lifting in this effort is the initial setup for the performance metrics. “You start by asking yourself as a city staff, What are most effective ways we can communicate progress toward our climate action plan goals?” says Burroughs. “My office coordinated that conversation, and asked staff from other departments, What do you suggest we track and report on progress for the plan?”

Staff came up with a broad list of metrics, which were narrowed down by asking two key questions:

1. Is the data available, accessible, and reliable?
   
2. Does the data tell the story and communicate progress for the goal you’re trying to track? Is it easily understood by your audience?
   

“You want to choose a manageable set of indicators,” explains Burroughs. “One hundred is too many, five is too few.” City staff identified three categories of metrics to track:

• System-level metric: These measure the overall impact of a combination of strategies (e.g., total residential energy use)
  
• Program-level metric: These measure impact of a specific activity/program (e.g., bike parking, city hall energy retrofit)
  
• Milestones/Status Updates: These illustrate whether or not a specific action has been taken (yes/no)
  

After data for such metrics was collected, Berkeley staff vetted and cleaned it up, and entered it into Excel.

Getting Buy-In From Staff

“Getting the data is also a negotiation process with staff, and getting staff buy-in can sometimes be a challenge because everyone is already overstretched,” says Burroughs. “Our message to staff is, This is an opportunity for you to highlight the work you’re already doing, such as planting thousands of trees and recycling tons of waste. We know this, but the city council and community may not, so let us help you communicate it more effectively."

To learn more about City of Berkeley's experience with climate action tracking, view this presentation (pdf) given by Timothy Burroughs through the EPA State and Local Climate and Energy Program.