Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions

Fairfax County, Energy Efficiency and Climate Change: What’s Up

genlack-dev, January 18, 2017

    There have been real, important successes on climate change in Fairfax County – and much still to be done.   Fairfax County Public Schools are stellar examples of committed leadership from School Board Chair Pat Hynes, staff champions Deputy Superintendent Jeff Plattenberg and the incomparable lead of Get2Green Elaine Tholen, and principals, buildings maintenance staff, teachers, students, parents and volunteers. In 2016, the schools created a public, transparent and easy to use energy dashboard showing the energy, water, waste and recycling of every building. 

Below are screen shots that show the overall District-wide energy, greenhouse has, sewage, water, trash and recycling.

district overview

 

Below that, the level of detail for individual schools, here I’ve just randomly picked on elementary school near where I live in Reston:

energy data

Such data transparency forwards priorities for renovation, public support for construction bonds, pride and pressure to improve.

             garfield                         woodley

                                 Garfield ES 75kWh/ft2                                                                                         Woodley Hills ES 84kWh/ft2

                                      Renovated 1990                                                                                                    Renovated 1984                                                  

 


      ravensworth                       haycock

                              Ravensworth ES 27kWh/ft2                                                                                       Haycock ES 29 kWh/ft2                              

                                Renovated 1990                                                                                                          Renovated 1990

 

 

These data have inspired principals, faculty, staff and students in five schools to compete with other schools nationally on environmental stewardship.   Fairfax vies with New York City for having the most Eco-Schools in the National Wildlife Federation’s program. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments gave FCPS its Climate and Energy Leadership Award. FCPS has experienced an 11% reduction of greenhouse gases, more than 39,000 tons of CO2; with real energy savings of more than $8.5 million and an anticipated $95 million in savings by 2025.

FCPS award
What about Fairfax County? Though sharing the same geography, the same residents, the same taxpayers, even the same utilities and building management software, Fairfax County hasn’t produced an inventory or an energy dashboard.

Every year, the Environmental Quality Advisory Council makes recommendations to the Board of Supervisors and records whether the previous year’s recommendations had been met.  In the last six years, this citizen board made 24 recommendations on climate change and energy:  2 were scored completed, 10 incomplete, and 12 not completed.   In 2014, 2015 and 2016 only one of 12 recommendations was met.

Some supervisors and county staff have suggested that environmental challenges are regional, and that they require regional solutions.  That is true – at least to some extent.  However, there is a well understood economic phenomenon, the tragedy of the commons, which clearly shows the fallacy of thinking that addressing climate change is solely a regional responsibility – and hence, none of our responsibilities individually.   The “tragedy of the commons” is an economic theory of shared resources, where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their individual but collective action.   Commons have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as in over-fishing), but there are also examples where communities use common resources prudently without collapse. To prevent the “tragedy of the commons”, we must act as individual users of a commons to manage it prudently, together, maintaining common resources efficiently.

Other jurisdictions within our region face the same challenge of the commons –needing to manage our common resources – the clean air, a healthy environment to pass to our children – that is a shared responsibility with other local jurisdictions, states, federal government, business, transportation planners, homeowners – diverse constituents.  Other jurisdictions in our region have identified responsibilities they own for the shared commons, and have found ways to address those responsibilities.  Arlington County, Montgomery County, and D.C. have all established offices with mandates, staff, authority and budgets to reduce the jurisdiction’s contribution to climate change.  These offices have measurable goals and are accountable for achieving them – transparently, sharing progress with the public.  Others are acting locally to impact our regional climate.

The Fairfax board of supervisors committed to cut greenhouse gases throughout the county by 2% every year from 2010, with the goal of an 80% reduction by 2050.    To all appearances, this is not being achieved.

Although the County’s recent public energy display lacks detail, the graph of energy use by County buildings does not appear to be reducing – at all.


graphs

Though there is no detail in the graphs, it appears that county buildings used about 130 million kWh in 2010 and about 130 million kWh in 2015 – if there were a 2% reduction every year from 2010, the bar for 2015 ought to be more like 117 million – a visible decline.  The use of natural gas has visibly increased since 2010.

 

The Faith Alliance specifically recommends that the county:

  1. Develop and implement a comprehensive plan to meet the stated goal of a minimum 2% annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions within the county geographic area, leading to an 80% reduction by 2050.
  2. Establish a staffed Sustainability Office with a mandate for meeting the county’s goals, funded permanently by the county budget, and having a director reporting directly to the County Manager.  The office’s activities could include proposing and implementing such programs as those related to energy efficiency, transportation, renewable energy adoption, public outreach and education, and engaging the business community.
  3. Issue annual reports on progress toward the goals, with the municipal energy dashboard as a good first step, to ensure that the county’s work is transparent and accountable.

Chairman Bulova announced last week that she will reconvene the Private Sector Energy Task Force.   The county directly produces less than 5% of the Greenhouse Gases emitted in the county.   We applaud her decision, and hope that she will continue to show leadership by showing that the county is serious by reducing its own greenhouse gas emissions – 2% per year would be a good start.  

 

Faith Alliance would like to thank our chairman, Eric Goplerud, for this informative piece!