Salt Lake City and Asheville win honours for local climate change efforts

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker and Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy have jointly taken honours in the Seventh US Mayors’ Climate Protection Awards, an initiative sponsored by the US Conference of Mayors (USCM) and Walmart.

The annual awards programme, recognises mayors for innovative practices in their cities that increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. An independent panel of judges selected the winners from a pool of applicants.

“Mayor Becker and Mayor Bellamy are great examples of the strong leadership at the local level working on climate protection,” said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, outgoing President of the US Conference of Mayors. “As others debate these issues, mayors are acting on real climate solutions, showing how to curb both energy use and climate-harming emissions.”

The Salt Lake City Public Safety Building will be the first public safety building in the US to achieve a Net Zero rating. To reach this goal and ensure the building produces as much energy as it uses, the city employed a host of innovative technologies including rooftop solar and an off-site solar farm, planned LEED Platinum certification, locally-sourced and environmentally-sound materials and high efficiency mechanical systems.

“We are committed to doing what we can right now to address the climate change impacts that are already being felt at a local level, and will only become more challenging,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Becker. “Setting goals for ourselves like constructing net-zero public facilities is one of the many things we can do as a community to help address the mitigation and adaption necessities that will ensure a vibrant and sustainable future for our city.”

Joint winner Asheville in North Carolina was awarded for establishing a goal to cut carbon emissions in its municipal activities by 80 percent by 2030. In the five years following the adoption of this target, the city has achieved a 17.67 percent reduction in emissions, and it has also established a self-sustaining funding source that recycles energy savings to invest in additional sustainability programmes. These energy savings and dollars are directed into the Green Capital Improvement Program (Green CIP) which funds the city’s ongoing initiatives to make further progress on its 80 percent reduction goal.

“The City of Asheville is honoured to receive this award,” said Mayor Bellamy. “By reinvesting our energy savings through our Green CIP, we are reducing air pollution in our region, making neighbourhoods safer by installing high quality LED lights, and demonstrating fiscal responsibility by recycling tax dollars.”

“Mayors are leading the way on climate protection just like so many other issues before the nation,” said Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran. “In their cities, we can see the innovation and imagination that leads to new strategies to combat the growing energy and climate challenges before us.”