City Council Study Session Agenda and Packet 2014 07 08

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4.1 Benchmarking to Surrounding Communities While determining the total emissions in a community may be important for tracking reduction progress, it is important to benchmark several descriptions of consumption to compare with other cities, states, and nations. Louisville was benchmarked to US national averages19, Colorado State19, Denver, CO19, Golden, CO20, and Broomfield, CO21 in several consumption categories Table 5. All measured parameters were in line with the benchmarked communities, showing that Louisville's emissions are greater for some activities and less for others. The telling metric is that per capita emissions fall within US averages and those calculated for communities located near Louisville, CO. 5. Sustainable Action Planning Sustainability as it is currently understood encompasses the three E's: Economics, Environment, and Equity. In the context of the environment, sustainability refers to the efficient use of scarce resources like water, energy, and minerals. In a larger context, sustainability entails facilitating human activities that simultaneously promote economic development, environmental protection, and social equity in the present and into the future. 5.1 Developing a Sustainable Action Plan A Sustainable Action Plan for a community includes: 1. Conducting a baseline energy inventory to understand fossil fuel use and associated GHG emission in basic human activity sectors; 2. Defining a set of practical, attainable sustainable action goals; 3. Developing a set of actions that can be taken in each of the sectors to promote energy efficiency, conserve resources, save money and/or create business opportunities while mitigating CO2e emissions; 4. Choosing and prioritizing among available action options based on aforementioned reduction goals, local economics, culture, civic engagement and political support to 21 23