Policy Update: ICLEI USA draft framework for measuring and reporting community GHG emissions

With over 50% of the world’s population living in cities and approximately 75% of all GHG emissions coming from cities, local governments play a key role in addressing the climate challenge. As typically, one of the largest energy users in a community, the local government itself has the ability to reduce GHG emissions through its own operations, while at the same time setting the stage for larger scale community-wide reductions in GHG emissions from across an entire city. Through their various policy levers, local governments have the ability to enact energy-efficient building codes, or zones, for more compact, public transit-oriented development. Through the emergence of the Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement in the USA, hundreds of local governments have made commitments to reduce GHG emissions.

ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA (ICLEI USA) is a non-profit membership organization with a mission to build, serve and drive a movement of local governments to advance significant reductions in GHG emissions and achieve tangible improvements in local sustainability. ICLEI USA serves a network of more than 600 member local governments in the USA, representing more than 25% of the US population. ICLEI USA provides its local government members with a suite of tools, standards, best practice resources and technical assistance to help them achieve their climate protection and sustainability goals.

In 2008, ICLEI USA, in partnership with the Climate Registry, the California Air Resources Board and the California Climate Action Registry, released the Local Government Operations Protocol (LGO Protocol) for measuring and reporting GHG emissions associated with municipal operations in US cities and towns. The LGO Protocol follows the World Resources Institute/World Business Council for Sustainable Development GHG Protocol framework [1] and provides a standardized methodology for analyzing GHG emissions from the facilities, fleet and other services provided by a local government. However, local governments seek to not only understand the emissions resulting from their operations, but also from their entire communities. Government operations make up approximately only 5% of a complete community-scale GHG picture. To address this need, ICLEI USA convened a multi-stakeholder process in August 2010 to develop a protocol that will assist local governments in measuring and reporting community-wide GHG emissions associated with communities. The community protocol (tentatively titled the Community-Scale GHG Emissions Analysis Protocol) will complement the LGO Protocol, that together will serve as a US supplement to the International Emissions Analysis Protocol (IEAP), which provides an overall framework for local government emission accounting. ICLEI USA’s multi-stakeholder process was implemented through a Steering Committee (SC) that addresses the ‘big picture’ issues in protocol development, and six Technical Advisory Committees (TACs) addressing specific sectors such as: built environment; transportation energy use; material consumption and solid waste; wastewater; agriculture, land use and forestry; and life cycle emissions. SC and TAC members were drawn from a pool of applicants composed of local governments from around the USA, and from government, industry, non-profit organizations and academic research institutions, together providing broad-based expertise and practical knowledge on the topic. The SC & TACs met through the fall of 2010 and released a Draft Protocol Framework in February 2011 that articulates the consensus among various stakeholders on key principles and approaches required to develop a framework for measuring and reporting community GHG emissions [101].

Several key principles agreed upon by the committee drew upon general principles for GHG accounting and environmental indicator development articulated by the World Resources Institute [1] and the Organisation from Economic Co-operation and Development [2] addressing: measurability; accuracy; relevance, including policy relevance and utility for users; completeness; consistency and comparability; and transparency.

In addition, the committee also recognized that one of the main purposes of conducting GHG accounting at the spatial scale of a community is to reduce emissions. However, each community faces unique challenges from each sector and will need to be creative in its actions to address GHGs. No two-inventory profiles will be the same and no two action plans will be the same, hence the principle of policy relevance recognizes the importance of developing a protocol that, “should encourage engagement on GHG reduction opportunities and should not discourage, stifle, or suppress continued innovation to reduce emissions” [101]. The principle of completeness recognizes the boundary problem associated with cities and towns wherein human activities within communities can stimulate GHG emissions outside community boundaries. Thus, the principle of completeness cautions that, “The Protocol should not reward actions that merely shift a community’s current emissions outside its boundary, or increase global GHG emissions” [101].

Following the articulation of principles, an entire section discusses the issue of transboundary GHG emissions arising both from transboundary infrastructures serving communities, as well as trade of goods and services across communities [3]. While community-scale GHG emissions inventories to date have primarily focused on analysis-year activities within the geopolitical boundary, and certain transboundary infrastructures (e.g., electricity power plants located outside the community), the Protocol recognizes the growing desire by leading local governments to report more comprehensively on transboundary emissions, including life cycle emissions occurring upstream and downstream of the community.

The protocol, thus, recognizes that there are multiple ways to report on GHG emissions associated with a given community, and that local governments might seek to report on community-scale GHG emissions for different purposes (e.g., demonstrate accountability/leadership, support integrated urban infrastructure planning, motivate community action and demonstrate regulatory compliance), and to a variety of different audiences. Therefore, the Protocol defines a minimum threshold, called the basic reporting standard, for community-scale GHG emissions reporting, and provides guidance to help users further customize their reporting if they choose to do so. Such a structured approach allows local governments the flexibility to report on emissions activities that may occur outside their geopolitical boundaries, based on consideration of their reporting goals and selection of reporting beyond the minimum requirements in the basic reporting standard. The draft protocol framework articulates a minimum basic standard along with at least three additional and optional reporting approaches.

The basic standard requires reporting of all significant GHG emission sources located within the geopolitical boundary of the community, as well as select sources located outside of the community boundary associated with activities inside the community boundary (e.g., electric power plants that provide electricity used by a community). Community emissions that can be easily and consistently compared across jurisdictions will be included, thereby providing regional or national benchmarks.

Three optional and additional reporting approaches are proposed in the draft framework and are discussed below.

More comprehensive community impact reporting

This reporting approach emphasizes a wider set of GHG emission sources associated with community activities, particularly those related to transboundary infrastructures serving the community as a whole. Local governments might choose to report on this broader set of sources for educational purposes, to motivate community action or to facilitate more integrated and holistic infrastructure planning; for example, inclusion of air travel, transboundary commuter travel, transboundary water, and wastewater infrastructures serving multiple communities.

Local government focus area reporting

This reporting approach emphasizes community GHG emissions over which the local government has a relatively high degree of control or influence (e.g., public transportation).

Consumption-based reporting

This reporting approach provides an alternate consumption-based perspective on GHG emissions associated with community activity by estimating GHG emissions based on community consumption (e.g., expenditure) data across sectors.

Conclusion

It is important to note that the definition of community is different in the last consumption-based reporting approach, which focuses on final-consumption expenditures by households, governments and business capital investments occurring within the geopolitical boundary of a community; thus, energy use for operating local commercial and industrial establishments that produce goods and services exported elsewhere are excluded from consumption-based accounting. By contrast, the word ‘community’ in the basic-, more comprehensive community impact-, and local government focus area reporting approaches addresses energy use (direct and/or indirect) by all homes, businesses and industries located within the geopolitical boundary of a city or town.

Measurement protocols for all four approaches are currently being developed and finalized by ICLEI USA in collaboration with its SC and TAC, and are expected to be released by the end of 2011.

By enabling different ways of reporting and addressing community GHG emissions, ICLEI USA’s draft framework supports innovation and provides a structured way for ongoing cutting edge field-research to be discussed and incorporated into community protocols. Published research on transboundary infrastructure supply chain GHG emission footprinting for communities informs the more-comprehensive community impact reporting approach [4–6], while consumption-based approaches previously articulated for nations (e.g., [7]) or tested only for household expenditure data (e.g., [8]) are informing city-scale efforts toward consumption-based reporting. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages, as discussed in this special focus issue by Wright et al.[9], Ramaswami et al.[3], and Chavez and Ramaswami [10]. Table 1 illustrates how the overarching method and associated research publications are informing the basic reporting standard and additional multiple reporting approaches proposed in ICLEI USA’s draft framework document. Likewise, most up-to-date methods for estimating GHG emissions, for example, from agricultural and waste sectors [102,103], are also integrated in the sections that provide guidance on measurement.

In June 2011, ICLEI USA’s World Secretariat signed a memorandum of understanding with the C40 Cites Climate Leadership Group to coordinate development of an international basic standard for measuring community emissions. This international basic standard will define the minimum requirements for GHG emissions accounting at the community level and allow for standards such as the US Community Protocol to exceed the minimum requirements, should certain countries seek to promote more comprehensive GHG reporting. This will ensure consistency and comparability across GHG emissions inventories between international communities, and will also allow local governments to use the most accurate GHG accounting approaches applicable to their region. The emergence of these standards highlights the leadership of local governments to work together to manage and reduce their GHG emissions on a voluntary basis.

By adopting a basic standard at the present time, while enabling a few additional innovative reporting approaches to also flourish and be field-tested, ICLEI USA’s community GHG emissions protocol framework represents a structured effort to integrate fieldwork, academic research and innovation by local governments to develop robust policy-relevant tools for use by communities, both now and in the future.

Table 1.  Illustrating the overarching method and associated research publications that inform the basic reporting standards and additional multiple reporting approaches proposed in ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA’s draft framework document.

Overarching methodology and associated research	Distinguishing feature; relevance/utility	Proposed reporting approach in ICLEI-USA framework
Purely territorial GHG accounting using remote sensing and atmospheric monitoring (e.g., [11])	Does not relate fossil combustion to energy users (e.g., electricity generated in one location is often used elsewhere). Can be useful for verification of power plant or other reported emissions	N/A (communities agree that this approach does not inform energy use or policy development)
Transboundary infrastructure supply chain GHG emissions footprinting (e.g., [4–6,10]) Considers direct and embodied GHG emissions in transboundary infrastructures serving entire communities (all homes, businesses and industries within a city)	Better informs integrated infrastructure planning in cities, both across the spatial scale and multiple sectors Addresses supply chain vulnerability of community as a whole (all homes, businesses and industries within a city or town) Does not fully show impact of household consumption beyond major infrastructure imports	Basic reporting standard (purely territorial GHG, plus, at a minimum, includes transboundary electricity supply; details to be determined) More comprehensive community impact reporting may include more transboundary infrastructure sectors and supply chains; for example, airline travel and regional commuter travel and fuel supply chain for transportation. Local government focus reporting focuses in on a subset of infrastructures over which governments have operational control, which can vary by city
Consumption-based GHG emissions footprinting (e.g., [7,8]) Considers supply chain of infrastructures and all other goods and services that are consumed by a subset of the community (homes, government and business capital investment only). The operations of local businesses and industries that export goods/services elsewhere are not accounted for locally	Promotes changes in consumption and shifts toward greener supply chain among homes and governments in a community Does not address whole city/town planning where local businesses and industries that export goods elsewhere are also very important (i.e., cities plan infrastructure for all their homes, businesses and industries, together)	Consumption-based reporting

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the following Community Protocol Steering Committee Members for their dedicated effort: David Allaway, Senior Policy Analyst, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Portland (OR, USA); Frank Caponi, Supervising Engineer, Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, Whittier (CA, USA); Shannon Davis, Environmental Scientist (Co-chair, West Coast Forum on Climate and Materials), US Environmental Protection Agency, San Francisco (CA, USA); Jonathan Dickinson, Senior Policy Advisor, New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, New York (NY, USA); Garrett Fitzgerald, Sustainability Coordinator. City of Oakland, Oakland, (CA, USA); Peggy Foran, Policy Manager, The Climate Registry, Los Angeles; Robert Graff, Manager, Office of Energy and Climate Change Initiatives, Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, Philadelphia, PA 19106; Robyn Kenney, Environmental Specialist, US Environmental Protection Agency, Climate and Energy Program, Washington (DC, USA); Chuck Kooshian, Senior Transportation Policy Analyst, Center for Clean Air Policy, Washington (DC, USA); Jen McGraw, Climate Change Program Manager, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Center for Neighbourhood Technology, San Francisco (CA, USA); Tracy Morgenstern, Strategic Advisor, Seattle Office of Sustainability & Environment, Seattle (WA, USA); Kathryn Phillips, Director, California Transportation and Air Initiative, Environmental Defence Fund, Sacramento, (CA, USA); Gary Prince, Senior Project Manager, King County Department of Transit – Metro Transit, Seattle (WA, USA); Anu Ramaswami, Professor, University of Colorado Denver, Denver (CO, USA); Jill Simmons, Director, Office of Policy and Sustainability, Seattle, (WA, USA); Lucinda Smith, Senior Environmental Planner, City of Fort Collins, Fort Collins, (CO, USA); Rachel Tornek, Senior Policy Manager, Climate Action Reserve, Los Angeles (CA, USA).

The authors would also like to thank the following observers for their dedicated efforts: Ken Church, Natural Resources Canada, Canada, and Claude LeFrancois, Natural Resources Canada, Canada.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.