City of Atlanta Press Release
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
.
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