January 10, 2024 — Environmental Advisory Board Regular Meeting

Transcript

Captions from City of Boulder YouTube recording.

[0:00] Cool before I get into the numbers. One of the things I just wanted to make sure was very clear for you all, because we not had this conversation. I don't believe we've really been thinking hard in the past couple of years about how we evaluate our mechanism based plan of action or decades. Now we've really been pinning our success to metric tons of carbon that is the metric that we use. What we have realized, though, is that while it invokes the intermath geek in all of us, it really is not the right proxy to determine whether we're making effective action on on climate. And the reason for that, I think, is is multi-layer. First of all, when you talk about actual metric tons, it doesn't motivate people. So people aren't inspired to take action by metric tons. No one is ever seen or touched or felt metric time you can't really equate by asked any of you and I won't do it. But we do this game all the time. Multiple choice. What is the average emissions for an average for override? Is it? 5 metric tons, 15 metric tons, 505,000. How many people would know?

[1:06] And does that compel them to take any action? And II would argue pretty strongly. No, it doesn't, and which is why we continue to measure our progress in metric tons of carbon. But we also look at the fact that the big levers in terms of emissions reductions are gonna happen in a different scale. Just why we really shifted our approach to scale systems and scales and systems, thinking why we are active at the State legislature and and the puc. Another regulatory agencies, because the big moves happen when entities like excel energy, who are really the contributors of pollution, vibrating fossil fuels? They are regulated to do things differently versus us at the local level. We, we kind of go out and say, just use less of a dirty product, and we don't have any function. So the big levers is really why we try to focus on the systems level change. That doesn't mean that we abandon strategies and tactics that reduce emissions. Not at all. It just we start to build out a spectrum, to say individual actions lead to collective actions that then roll up into these big system level changes that are pretty meaningful.

[2:17] but it also allow us to really prioritize and think differently about our programming. So rather than people get a little bit hung up on this idea that we should orient our programs to cost per ton. But that means is you can somehow do an algorithm that says a dollar invested results in this much reduction in emissions. And it's not that clean. It's not that simple. Many programs take a while to mature. We don't have good data that equates a dollar to a cop to a metric ton of carbon. Reduction is an example. So what we do know from doing this work for a very long time is that we prioritize things like value. So health and safety and economic productivity and those are all good things. And those are values that our community cares about. And when you orient in those ways, the byproduct typically is a reduction in emissions. So I share all that with you, because this year we did do something a little bit different in terms of how we

[3:17] measure our progress and success. So we again, as I mentioned, since 2,005. We've been calculating our greenhouse gas inventory annually, and that just helps share our community submissions data each year. We measure where our greenhouse gas emissions come from, and we track the community's progress and reducing them. That's that's what an emissions inventory is really intended to do. And we've matured our inventories since 2,005. To really think about the validity of the data. What is it telling us? Is it the right data that we're actually gathering. Are we making assumptions based on that data? And I'm really proud of the fact that we are very rigorous to where we capture that data, how we analyze it, and then really help tell stories from that information rather than just

[4:08] quant just putting out numbers which I think people don't really connect to. And it doesn't really tell a story. We can start to show how we're investing in different ways based on kind of the wedges of the diagram where our missions actually coming from, and what are the trends? And what do we know about those trends? As an example? If you looked at some of our data. Over the last 3 years our inventory tracked what we were seeing nationally and virtually every city was seen. Is that Covid really did have a profound impact on emissions as it related to electricity, consumption, degree in the commercial and industrial space, and transportation related emissions. and we made some assumptions. In 2021, when we saw a pretty significant decline in emissions again. This is a trend that the Us. Saw, and virtually everywhere, so that we were pretty sure that the majority of those reductions would not be durable. We would see some kind of rebound effect

[5:08] as people started going back to work? And we needed to see kind of what that Covid hangover would look like. How long would we see those reductions? And what can we tell from those reductions? I'll give you a really quick example of what I'm talking about? Again. Transportation relating emissions dropped pretty significantly over the past couple of years we knew they would rebound as people started coming back to work. We are not all back to work. We still are in a hybrid situation. So why did we see transportation emissions significantly as they did? Well, what we learned from the data is that people during Covid moved further away they moved out of the city. They moved to Denver. So they're commuting further. And what we had to dig a little bit into kind of some climate forensics is the the impact of our TV service levels had a significant impact on city employees who were commuting in, for example, by bus. If they didn't have the the frequency of service.

[6:09] They started driving in on their own and most people they were not part of a car pool, and so they were driving C. Block, PC. Vehicles into town, and so we did see a spike in trans boundary transportation related emissions. We expected it. but not for the reason that we expected it. And so that helps us think through. About where do we go now? In terms of our funding and our interventions to to really address some of those issues. And I think we're gonna see, we're gonna see that drop back down. Do you know why people moved? Well, we did an employee survey. And what we learned from that was, we understood the data, but not the reason. Behind the data. I think there were a number of reasons, as we saw a lot of people kind of go nomadic during during covid we had people moving out of State and remains city employees. We had people moving to other parts of the State, because again, they had the virtual option to just sit wherever they were and do their work.

[7:06] No one really knew when we would come back, and I think they just kind of gambled that they would still be able to do their work virtually, which they do to some degree. But again we switch to, you know, 2 days in the office a week as as employer within the city. So if you apply this, you know, cross major employers, I think you could see a pretty dramatic impact. So our inventories as we do them follow what's called the global protocol for community scale greenhouse gas emission inventories or Tpc, that is the standard that is the gold standard of of how you do greenhouse gas emission inventories. We've been doing that for about a decade, and I am proud to say that over the past 5 years in a row. We have been rated as an a we've been designated as an a community. So we get the rating of a from the carbon disclosure project, and what they do is they look at the data that you provide. They look at your methodology, they look at your programming, and of all the cities that do greenhouse Gavin press greenhouse gas inventories work through the Cdp. There are only a hundred 19 cities that get a ratings. So we've been

[8:19] a rated for 5 years in a row. Since we've actually started, and it just speaks, I think, to the fact that we take the inventory is pretty seriously when we make sure we're getting it right because people need to understand the numbers. And then again, how we're telling the stories from that, and it affects everything we do in terms of our programming. So this past year we changed a little bit of what what we and please jump in and ask a question like this is improv as you want? The the thing that we did differently this year, and we're always about a year behind, because we have to gather data we go out to the public and private sector to bring information on transportation related emissions, fields, travel, cell data cell phone data that helps us with transportation information on holler data. When it comes to solid waste our energy information, we have to check and double check and triple check

[9:17] because it's not just usage. We have to look at kilowatt hours use. We have to understand how it's used. We have to back out some things like on site, solar and renewable generation. So we do a lot of work to to get the the numbers correct. What we did this year that was different in years past is, yes, we did our annual greenhouse gas inventory, and we also do a city operations and facilities inventory. So it looks at what we do as an entity. And we have different goals. We have more aggressive goals as a city entity. So, looking at our portfolio building, same fleet vehicles and so forth. But the other thing we did this year, if you remember, earlier in 2,023 ben casmosis from our department

[10:03] give a presentation on our consumption based inventory, and if you recall that was to to look more broadly at the impact of emissions from all of the goods and services that we utilize in Boulder. So it pushes further upstream. This is the first year that we launched a dashboard on consumption based inventories. And then the fourth thing we did and hopefully, you've had a chance to look at. You're talking about it before we started is kind of coming back to the idea rather than just putting out numbers and spreadsheets. We wanted to tell stories around impact. And so this was the first year where we launched a climate impact storyboard. It was intended to be a report, and we weren't quite there. In report format. So it is a storyboard, and I can show it if we wanna get there tonight. But it was a way to look at the impact of our work. In ways that were more values based. So how we made lives better through our programming, what do we actually accomplish? And many times you can't just quantify that. And metric tons of carbon or numbers of certain things. It's for quality. So we're starting to get a much better picture of the impact that we're having here locally.

[11:14] And then, sorry. I know I talk a lot on this stuff. I get really excited about it. The other thing that's really important to us is that we continue to build models that we can export, and that's always been part of our DNA in Boulder we've been at this for a very long time. So we have built models, and we have developed methodologies in terms of how we think about climate action, that other cities have have replicated. And so we try to incubate things. And then we push it out. And then, really making sure that we are are focused in all these different dimensions. As I said, earlier, individual actions, collective actions. system scale actions at the state level, federal level, so forth and so on. So we have to use these numbers and our inventories to to help us understand where we've been effective and where, perhaps, we need to make some changes.

[12:05] So I'll I'll dive in, and if you had a chance to look at the information, this will come as a surprise to you, but I'll just give you some top line kind of what? What was the result of last year? What do we know? What are the key takeaways from our 2022 emissions inventory. have all put into this year's cycle. Is there a way you have in mind to measure success of that? Where, for example, like using the storyboard or the storyline impact poofing from individual to collective just systemic action. Is there a way to kind of monitor that response in real time given. The new information output is that, does that make sense? Or I can clarify? Yeah, I think I think I understand what you're saying. Well, but let me just check it. Are are you saying, is there a way to continue to kind of say here that here's the qualitative impact. Is there a way to kind of package it all together in a more real time way, as in no, as in like receptiveness of the community to the information being delivered got it? Got it? Got it? Got it?

[13:20] Yeah, that's a really interesting question. you know, we've never had the ability to to go out and survey people on the inventory as an example. It's a pretty wonky document, II although I have to say if you go out and you search greenhouse gas inventories, community inventories. II kind of do this because I just I'm always curious to see what people are putting out and how they're telling the story. The majority, I will say 90% plus. Most communities put out a spreadsheet. They will say, here are our goals here. Here's where we started. Here's metric tons. Here's a percentage change.

[14:01] It doesn't tell a story in in any way. Our document tries to do that. It's pretty long, but there's a lot of narrative. It's broken down by sector, it talks about trends. What did we see and changes in methodology? So forth and so on. So we never really asked people, how are you connected to this inventory? We have quite a few people that we engage with that do use it pretty regularly, they say, Hey, we see that emissions, or this this way, in that way. We haven't figured out a way to connect back on the storyboard, and actually like to think about that. Because again, it's a website. And so right away, we we kind of excluded storytelling to a number of people in our community that we probably should be storytelling with. yeah, maybe there's a different way that we can do that. We have a new communications person that just started yesterday, in fact. 2 days ago, 2 days ago. So really eager to explore with her how we can be more present. In the community to be able to say.

[15:04] Here's our goals, here's our progress. Here's where we need you to to take some action. How do you connect with this, what ideas do you have? So we're we're kind of on that trajectory coming out of this couple of years of not really being able to do much engagement, and we have a plan for 2024 to get to. Really excellent. And then is it her role in terms of getting the storyboard in this because all the websites, amazing like, is she gonna get it in front of people? I think I I don't know where I found it. It was Googling. But like, how do people? How do we make sure people see it? Yeah, it. It's so tricky, isn't it? And how do you go beyond? How do you use it as a tool? Right? Rather than just say, isn't it interesting? Kind of a one click scroll through it? Some nice pictures, some interesting data, some stories about local residents. And how do you make it? Real?

[16:00] So we haven't explored that yet. We wanted to get it launched. We put out a big press release. We got a lot of people excited about it. Counsel was out there talking about the the new storyboard. and now we need to resurrect some thinking on, where do we go next? Yeah. Good questions. Maybe that will be a good topic to come back to the board and discuss so II can go through the takeaways in as much or little detail as you want. Ii know that this can get a little bit, mind mindoming and just giving you percentages. Probably isn't all that meaningful. So what I thought I would do is go some of the top line takeaways. And then, if we want to, I can show you how we push this information out on our website, we have dashboards. We actually have the documents. If you had a chance to look at the document. I think it's again. I will tell it. I think it's a really nice read and then we have our storyboard and and we can. I can put those up on the screen. We can talk about them. But let me just give you some of the high level takeaways, and then we can go wherever you want to go. So the big one is key takeaways from 2022 is that we did see

[17:16] community emissions dropped 18.2% since 2018. So that is, that is meaningful. We saw a slight decrease from 2021, about 2%. So that's not surprising in terms of that comment I made earlier around the durability of some of the emission reductions you you expect kind of a not a straight line. But you don't expect a lot of lumpiness in emissions reductions unless you have some big lever that you pull. So a lever that would be excel, taking a coal plant online and replacing it with some renewal generation. So then you'd see this kind of stair step these big like, maybe a little bit gradual, and then a big drop. We don't expect to see that because most of the emissions are from factors that we don't necessarily control, like electricity and natural gas

[18:13] being used for the production of electricity or in heating and industrial processing. So what what was the number? So from 2,018, we've reduced emissions just over 18. Yep. So if you looked at any of that chart, and I'm happy to pop it up there you saw that we were. We're seeing this good decrease year over year. No, no, absolutely. This is the community. Okay. bear with me for a second. Yeah, to the dashboard. Let me actually add this queue up.

[19:07] That's testing state trying share screen. But it seems like it worked. Okay. so and and Greg for your benefit, I'll I'll kind of talk through what's on the screen. What? What I have up is one of 3 dashboards. That we have on our website. This is our community Ghg, or greenhouse gas, emission stata, dashboard. and each of the dashboards are part of a larger package. that the city tracks so tracks. We have a whole series of things that are on our dashboard. But we also have one that is renewable energy generation. We have a specific target there. So we have a dashboard on that. We have dashboard and transportation related issues. But if you click through. This gives a little bit of a definition of when we talk about emissions, where are they coming from? And why do we care about them.

[20:05] The next item, of course, is our targets. So our newest targets that backstop all of this is to reduce emissions, 70% by 2030 against that 2018 baseline. So, Heron, you asked, we're at 18%. So we have ways to go. We we have to accelerate. We know that. But we also know that. Ii wanna just emphasize this point. There is this kind of difference of opinion around how you establish goals, are they? Are they measurable? Can we actually do it? And I would argue that I think we took a lot of heat. No pun intended. When we established these goals? All you said, well, how in the world are you? Gonna show me? Show me the roadmap. How are you actually gonna achieve that significant level of decreasing emissions. What I will say is that we have ideas on how we're gonna do that many of them sit at the state level. Which is why we are putting a lot of emphasis on the utility right now, because, as we come back to what we know is that the majority of our missions come from electricity generation. We are getting cleaner, for sure, but we can accelerate as we start to see a lot of those fossil fuel generation units come offline, replace renewables. So we're gonna see some acceleration

[21:21] we know that. And then we have ideas on how to address some of the other numbers that are gonna be in here that I'll show you. So our goals again, we use emissions 70% by 2030 against the 20 team baseline becoming that 0 city by 2035 and carbon positive by 2040. How we're gonna do those 2, those are much more challenging. We don't necessarily know how technology is gonna play a role. We have to think about the policies. So we are forecasting and trying to make sure we're on a trajectory now. So we're not waiting. The trend. So this is what I wanted to show you. this is what I was just talking through. So our community wide emissions decrease 2% from 2021. But we're 18% below our 2018 baseline.

[22:08] We talk about baselines. That is the year at which we start the measurement when we first began this it was 2,000. First of all, it was 1997. That was our Kyoto protocol. The next was next kind of milestone was 2,005. Most cities continued to use the 2,005 baseline. We updated it to 2,015, and then to 2,018, because it is more honest, it's more relevant, and it's harder. If you look at our numbers, we have reduced emissions, 36%, over 2,005 numbers. So we are on the right trajectory for sure. But we wanna continue updating that baseline to make sure that we are tracking in the right way. So not surprisingly, the trend in terms of our largest sources of emissions or electricity use natural gas use on road transportation and aviation. Those are the 4 big ones for us as community. Yes, aviation question is that about Boulder airport specifically, or is this like travel that is travel of all of us travel getting on airplanes.

[23:17] And that is one of the oddly, we actually do have the data from that. And so we do have to make some assumptions on air travel, and some of that is in. If you go into the inventory national inventory talks about the methodology and how we actually capture that so here are. Now you're looking at the actual graph. And you can see where we are, and this is the the dashboard. So you can see on the left hand side our mission reductions against that 2,018 baseline. You can see where we are there and getting to that 70%. And then that the number I just mentioned to you on the right side, that's emission reductions against the 2,005 baseline. So you can see how those 2 things differ a little bit.

[24:03] How do you measure the submissions? II don't understand the question, how do you measure like numbers? Yeah, so good question. And II would encourage you if you the actual inventory. It has the methodology of where we get the information. So as an example. when we talk about energy, so we know what our consumption is in terms of kilowatt hours. So we know in our community. Here's how many kilowatt hours we have consumed. Then, you pair that with a grid factor. So what we know is what is the renewable percentage and the percentage of fossil fuels in that mix of energy. And this is something that excel has to provide by statute. So they actually have to show in order to meet their legislative emission reductions. As a utility they have to show with their grid factor is so what is the carbon intensity of their electricity? So you do some simple math to say, if we consume this amount of electricity, here's our grid factor. What is the resultant emissions from consuming electricity. That's a simplistic way of looking at it, because then you have to look at

[25:14] we have solar on rooftops. Does. Does that just reduce the demand? In most cases? Yes, but there is net metering, so is your electricity flowing back out on the grid. It's a smaller amount. So how do you calculate that? So we have a whole methodology to get to an emissions factor for energy? Then you look at Btus or therms of of gas usage. We also have that information. So we start to look at what? And that gets a little bit trickier because we don't just have one gas provider. There are actually multiple gas providers excel ones, the infrastructure. But we don't know where that gas comes from. Some companies will say that there is some biogas or some environmental elements to their gas, which we just don't necessarily buy into. So then you look at how much gas is being used, and you look at the grid factor. Excuse me, the the carbon factor there. Then you get your heating load. You get your emissions coming from heating, heating buildings.

[26:17] Transportation. Is much more sophisticated than it used to be. We just use Vmt data vehicle miles traveled, and then we would look at where travel patterns where people were commuting to and from, you would say, if and we still do this, if you are driving, let's say, from Louisville, we captured half of that travel. and and Louisville will take half of that, and for their inventory. If they do an inventory they do. But yeah, it will take half of that. Then you start to look at how do you? How does that fold it into? Yeah. So we get all this information from our transportation department. It's not perfect. But we have really gotten to a place that we trust the data. So you look at actual actual vehicles that are registered in Boulder County you start to look at a lot of information to to make some assumptions about car pulling as an example. Now, what cities are doing is actually using a software called street Light. Just name. I'll tell you. But it actually uses cell phone data. So just as we are all tracked on our phone for multiple purposes

[27:23] purposes we also use. There's there's a firm that does this for many cities. And they use cell phone information to be able to track commute patterns and how long and far people are driving. So then we start to very similar circuit assumptions about the vehicles where people are going looking at mileage. And then you get basically the similar type number in terms of carbon intensity of our travel. Then you start to look at where our waste is going. So you go deeper and deeper into each of these in terms of methodology. But I went too long on that one. I could have just said. All of that is in the inventory report, but I love you to take a look at it and and see what it's telling you in terms of process. Yeah. In short, given that, do you have an idea of what the percentage error is like? 2 decrease

[28:15] since 2021. Is that about what the error is on collecting all this data? Is that still like a significant change? It is significant. Yeah, it is significant, I think, that we've been doing this long enough, that we're pretty confident in our numbers what this doesn't do, and this gets back to my opening comments about the usefulness of of carbon or metric tens of carbon to to really track progress. That's why we're doing the consumption based inventory. So if you looked editing information. Our analysis showed that it was about. Let's see, 1.1 point 4 million metric tons to 1.6 million metric tons. So about 200,000 metric tons that we weren't accounting for in consumption based activities.

[29:07] That's significant. So each year we do it, we try to refine and be more honest in telling the story about. You know some cities will just look at kind of the bubble. They'll just put a bubble over their city. They only do scope one which is electricity. Transportation maybe waste. and they make good progress right excel will clean up their grid. They can show that they've made significant improvements in their emissions. They're not doing the upstream emissions calculations. We are doing that because it's the right thing to do so it's a really interesting question. I think. Just so you hear my answer. The 2% I I'm gonna say again, I think is significant. Yep. Okay. So here's that trend. That I was referencing, and you can see from 2,005 to gradual decrease. You see, the big drop between 2019 and 2020. That was anticipated

[30:08] 2021 fully expected. The rebound ours was not as significant quite frankly, as a lot of cities. Many saw a big drop and then a huge spike back beyond where they were in 2,019. So honestly we were, we were comfortable and pretty happy with the results. We expected 2022 to actually continue to rebound a little bit higher, and so. when we saw that there actually was a decrease in 2022. We replaced with that. And we're gonna see that I anticipate that we're gonna see the trajectory going back down on that same trend line that you saw that you can see from 20 or 2,005 down to 2,019 effectively. Then we're actually gonna see some pretty significant drops over the next 5 to 7 years. As a direct result of a lot of our actions at the State. A lot of the carbon intensity of our grid power is going to be significantly changed over the next 5 to 7 years, as we see some of the coal and gas plants retired.

[31:13] So that'll be a big, a big shift here. That doesn't suggest, though, that we're we have a big issue to address in terms of transportation related emissions. We know that not only is it becoming a bigger piece of the pie as energy gets smaller, the actual emissions. Are not going down at the pace that we want them to. So we have some work to do there out of curiosity. Will you guys be keeping track of since our TV change their fare structure? Is that considered a knob to monitor kind of a start date to monitor, to speak. decrease. Oh, nice! If we did look at we worked with Rtd to understand the impact of their 0 fare program this past summer. What did that do to ridership. And could we, could we calculate some type of emissions data from that where people getting out of their cars onto the bus? Always you have to be careful with the assumptions that you make. But I think it's interesting data points.

[32:24] Yes, sir, yeah. So you know, you said that there's a decrease by 2, and so is that make it so that we would be reaching our 2030, 2035, 2040 objectives? Or do we need to get to 2.5. What? How are how are we doing as detectives? Yeah, no really good question, Greg. So the the current trajectory is not sufficient to meet our 2030 goal we are going to have to accelerate, and this is not unexpected.

[33:05] which is why it is helpful to look at the information and say, Where can we intervene? How do we start to steepen the curve to to get from 2022 to 2030. you know, I. And I wanna say this not not in a potentially kind of way. But it's also important to say that we set the goal. We established our goal our 2030 goal based on what science is telling us, we need to establish. You know, global. I mean, it's a global scientific target. It's not just the city target. But I wanna say that we are really working hard to hit that target. And if we if we make it close. I don't call that a failure. I think it's success, because again, so many, the factors that control our emissions are outside of our direct control. So I think the trend is a positive one. I think there are. There are a lot of things that we need to be doing

[34:05] to accelerate, to, to steepen the curve. And we know what those things are, and we've been setting up for those big moves for many years now. And that's why I made that comment that we're gonna see a steepening over the next 5 to 7 years. I am confident I'm gonna say this, I am confident that we're gonna hit our targets. II and I don't say that because I have to say that I say that because II honestly believe it. A a follow up question, then, is, as are some of those a things that were that you're planning. Does it talk about like what is a per capita energy use need to drop, or or, you know. carbon drop per person like, what am I at in Boulder? If I live in boulder. On average, we use this much. And why per person we need to get.

[35:02] you know, to this much. Is there any kind of yes, yes, it's all, it's all in our our inventory. And actually we break it down by community based emissions and per capita. And then where do we need to be in terms of absolute metric tons of carbon equivalent as a community and per capita. So that that's all in. I can pull it up if you will. The number right now. Or I'll just send it to you. I can pull it out and send it to you directly. If that's helpful. Yeah, later we'll talk about it. Yeah. cool. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. let me do this, then let me switch. If if is there any other, do you have any other questions on the community inventory? Yeah. Compared to the like, maybe the county or the Us. I remember when, like, we had that discussion like this one couple of years ago. I think. We were better than the Us. Average. Is that train still the same? Or okay? Yes, yeah. And when you say better? Do, do you mean? I think we have reduced? II really remember because it was a couple of years ago, I think, like we had reduced our emissions from 2,005

[36:13] or something like that, maybe 25%. Whereas the Us average was like 1518 or something. So we're like ahead or forwarding our goals. So I wonder? I was wondering if the trend still continues with this new data. Yes, yes, but it does. But as we continue to refine our methodology, which is why I keep coming back to the idea of consumption based inventories. Right? So if we're starting and saying, if if we just did scope one, I mean we'd be crushing it. We've been knocking it out of the park, but that's not honest accounting. That's when we started to look at. Okay, let's do scope one scope. Let's do scope 3. Let's look at everything. Now let's start to look at consumption based emissions. So what the result of that is is that our our admissions

[37:02] we keep stacking more on top, that we have to reduce which I think again, is the right thing to do. This trend line is is very normal. This is what you're seeing in in most communities, although, as I mentioned earlier, I think many saw a much larger bump up in 2021 in 2022 than we did. Which is good, but in terms of per capita. Yeah, we we're we're doing great. We still have work to do on the transportation like an emissions. For sure. That's that's gonna be the one that we really need to solve for. And it gets very messy because it also becomes a land use issue and a housing issue, and it all gets tangled up in in a very complex algorithm. And so it's not as easy to say, we gotta get people out of the cars. Yes, it is. But we have to solve the the fundamental problems that that kind of result in more transportation related issues.

[38:06] I wanted to. These are great questions. By the way, thanks, and I'm I'm happy to I'm happy to go as long as you want on this. But I wanted to go to the next one here. Okay, city operations. similar to the the community emissions. I want to show you our target is a little bit different, though. So we have a 50% reduction by 2020 target and an 80% reduction by 2030. That tracks with the community. But we are working up a 2,008 baseline. We need to update that. But we're still working on some internal information. So we can actually do that accurately. So our trend has been has been positive. We reduce total emissions from city operations and facilities 43% between 2,008 and 2022.

[39:09] So II would highlight this next sentence, which means that we honestly believe that we can achieve our targets by 2030. We think we can do it a little bit sooner. One of the challenges that we have been facing a chorus is, we don't own all of the buildings we have buildings that are old that are not as efficient as they should be. So we've been doing a lot of work. And, in fact, tomorrow tonight Council will get an update on the facilities, master plan, talking about how we are. If we really start to orient our decisions around maintaining our buildings from a a climate perspective, we would make decisions differently than we are today. And that is the direction we are going in as an organization pretty significantly. So really starting to say, what would it look like to reduce emissions in our billing portfolio? How would you do that? It might mean selling off some of our inefficient buildings and replacing them. Looking in embody carbon.

[40:06] So starting to really think more more holistically about our billing like responsibility of the owner. And who's going to say we're talking about deconstruction. I don't know if that's last time, but recently. You know. if the city would try to handle that building in a more climate energy, efficient way, as opposed to selling off and someone else using it. No less effective way is that part of the conversation at all, or is it? We're just trying to hit the city target? And once? No, because again, I think, what we're trying to create is more of a community culture. Around our our building portfolio. using our building codes as a great example. So I'll answer it this way. There are a few things that are that are affecting, how we think about our overall portfolio buildings. We are campus style. Obviously we have a number of buildings in the downtown area. We have a number of buildings that we either lease or rent or and don't own. We have many that are slated for

[41:19] to go away because they're in the flood plain in this downtown campus area as an example. So that's why there's been such a such momentum to consolidate, and the Alpine falls from the old hospital side is where all of the majority of our operations are going to be centrally located by 2027. So what does that mean in terms of the buildings that we're leaving behind? If we don't own them, someone else is gonna lease them. Do we want to sell them? Do we want to think about who we sell them to, and what purpose are going to be used for? Do we want to do the upgrades that are necessary now, if if they're going to have some life expectancy still in them. These are all conversations. Accounts will be talking a little bit about tomorrow night. Cool?

[42:02] Yep. just really quickly. I did want to flag a couple of things on our citywide information. We were a little bit surprised. So we we knew that we had an issue with some inefficient buildings we saw an uptick in any missions from energy use here could show you that trend line here. But I mean, you can see that trend is is pretty significant in that downward trajectory. So that's not necessarily the concern. We did see an increase in transportation related emissions. Again. Not surprising, but it was a a bigger increase than we anticipated. Going back to the comment I made earlier again, like, Why is that? I don't understand? We have more people driving electric vehicles for electrifying our fleet. We have a commitment to do so, and it really came down to what I said earlier employees moving further away, commuting further, not having transit opportunities. So we did see a spike in transportation emissions from in community and trans boundary.

[43:09] free transportation as city employees. So it helpful information. So now we start to think with our colleagues in transportation. How we want to address that. Okay? Again, these documents, the actual full reports on our website feel free to dig into them. They'll put you right to sleep. Actually. So so the reduction is like the acceleration of the yeah, like, it's almost like like a a couple plateau, you know. Well, I mean it did slow. I think that's if you look at this graph right here. And, Greg, what this is showing is specific emissions from buildings. Employee commute materials.

[44:07] solid waste, street lights and traffic signals, vehicle, fleet and water and waste water treatment. So if you look at each of those lines. You can see some of those trends over time. And they're not. They're not decreasing, like we thought they were gonna decrease. And in fact, some of them just popped up a little bit. So that that's, I think the interesting thing is you dissect. But very similarly. we use the same energy as our community uses. So we're gonna see some of those big drops coming up relatively soon, and we do what we can do as we really prioritize efficiency and conservation of energy and our own buildings. We electrify our fleet more. We start to electrify our buildings more. Really, driving gas out of our building portfolio when we own the building. So we're gonna see that really start to to drop a lot quicker. Wait, didn't you say transportation ticked up?

[45:01] But that's the purple line, didn't. Yeah, this does not show. there! Sorry. There, now, you can see it. It was only I just realized it was on this only on the screen to 2020. Yeah. So if you look at that bottom line, you see that the purple line down there at the very bottom. That is, your employee commute and business travel. That's the one that that went up. And then that orange line in the middle. That's materials just because there was a hiatus on a lot of some of upgrades and some building stuff that was done. But those go up and down pretty regularly. How are we doing? Okay? Great. I don't need to get too far into this one. But I did want to just show you a couple more spots on our dashboard. Get back down here. So here's that consumption based inventory lot of details here. Specifically, when you start on the overview, Ben worked on this for quite a while. So you can understand how the things flow together. How does the consumption based inventory relate to our overall community based inventory. Lots of good graphics here that I believe he shared with all of you. So, looking at what? What's in what's out of that scope

[46:28] what I wanted to show you. There we go. This is that. Now I'm gonna test whether I got this right. We we were talking a little bit earlier about the 2, and that margin of error. And I just wanted to come back to that because the consumption based inventory really highlighted, that a typical boulder household, not per capita, but a household, is responsible for around 38 metric tons of annually. There is a per capita there about 17.5 metric tons per person.

[47:03] So that gives you this idea of what's attributable to residents in boulder. So this takes out the commercial one industrial piece. This is just people. So what that shows is you compare that to our traditional inventory. What you see is that a total carbon footprint of 1.4 million versus 1.6. So there's there's that difference in terms of the calculation. We're accounting for more emissions than we were previously. When we start to look at that upstream. Impact. So some key takeaways. Not surprising. And I don't need to go into these. I think Ben talked about these a little bit. It it. It seems like it differs but it really doesn't. Transportation food and services and largest overall categories. But if you look at what that means. So again, transportation tracks as we expected. housing is just household energy. Use home construction, maintenance, the things that we buy for our homes, materials that go into to building buildings, all that kind of stuff. The food one was was interesting, and I think it was a little bit surprising. And we have some thoughts to do around that one. So this is not just food. Miles traveled but really thinking about diets.

[48:23] And we typically try to stay away from that argument and trying to tell people what they shouldn't shouldn't need. But I think giving people, the information and data is really important. So this gives a good sense of emissions coming from agricultural forestry, land use changes, specific diets. And so we try to incorporate that information. Eco data labs had to make some assumptions there. But again, Boulder and Boulder County. We both did this consumption based inventory. And then there's this discussion about goods and services, emissions attributable to those kind of things. and I believe we do have a

[49:01] dashboard there it is the dashboards look a little bit different on on the consumption based inventory. So you can look at household emissions per capita. And then how emissions are changing, based on those different sectors here. And I just kind of flowing. This was the one I remember. You all had some interesting feedback on. I don't get to consume that in all of the way. But these are all those categories. Broken down into transportation, housing, food, goods and services, and what each of those means. So you know, transportation is air travel, vehicle expenses, vehicle purchases gasoline. So that's the gray bar on the left, so you can break it down even further from just saying transportation related to see where the big chunks are. So I have a question about transportation is very broad, but given

[50:00] the amount that Colorado and and Boulder rates tend to drive to outside adventure activities as opposed to work. Is there like any way. if that information can be gathered of what is transportation for commuting purposes as opposed to? Or, yeah. I believe so. our transportation department gathers transportation data. They. They are very sophisticated, and how they do it. Let me check and see if they have broken it down that way, you know. If we knew that information, would that help change any approaches to transportation reduction? Yeah, it's interesting because a lot, most of the trans boundary emissions are are from commuting. And we get that information. Obviously, it's like people coming into the morning leaving at night versus. yeah, kind of the more recreational based travel. So I'd be curious to see what they have on that. Yeah. Happy to happy to dig into that.

[51:06] Alright, I promise I'm almost done. Thanks for being attentive and listening to the ramble on. Oh, let me do this really quickly, too. There we go! This is. This is the other one. We're freaking out, too. So what's that, Greg. we're we're geeking out as well. So there's our 0 waste aversion data dashboard. So you can see again trends. There are path 0 waste. We're there at 51%. But great, similar to your question earlier kind of on the per capita. This dashboard breaks it down. Pounds of residential waste per day pounds of commercial waste. You can see some really interesting trends in some of the graphs that are on here in terms of annual waste aversion by streams.

[52:14] And this is gonna be interesting. And to help understand the impact of the changes that we had to make to our organic stream. So we'll getting this updated relatively soon, and then the other one that is on here, that I'm just kind of blew me away. We set this target with no clear. I mean, I had to be honest with council when we did. I'm like, I don't know if we could do this. Let's try it. Let's see where we go. This is our local, renewable energy generation dashboard. So how much local generation is actually installed? Installed capacity in city limits. And if you can see that number. That is 84. That is a huge amount of renewable generation installed in a city our size, I mean, like by orders of magnitude more than what you would expect.

[53:04] So our target, was 50 megawatts by 2,020. We easily surpassed that, and our next target is 100 by 2,030. We're at 84, and we have no doubt we're gonna say, we'll pass that probably in about 2 years, right? So that tells a really interesting story, too. Okay. so the last piece that I just wanted to talk through and maybe, do you, since I sent this to you. Do you want to pull up the storyboard, or I'm gonna have to like I could do. I also have to search for it. I just happened to have that one, so we stop my share. This won't take long, I know. Look at that, ready to go. So I just wanted to highlight this for you as well as I. As I mentioned this idea of how do we measure our impact? How do we tell a good story? So this is the the storyboard that we created and launched in November.

[54:07] we, as I mentioned, we still have some work to do, and thinking about, how often do we update it? How do we make sure people find it useful and go back to it? How people connecting to it, how is motivating them? But it was. It was we just wanted to get it launched frankly. And I'm really excited by the stories that it's telling, because again, we wanted to put in some videos and testimonials and really show how our work is having a pretty significant impact. I'm just gonna keep talking. Yes, please do. Thank you. So I have to fix that really quick, totally fine, totally fine. So what we will probably do this upcoming year is actually develop more of a report out of this that we can actually start quantifying putting in some of the qualitative metrics, quantitative metrics, and aligning with the city's Sarah framework, which is our sustainability, equity and resilience framework. So, looking at some strategic goals, how the city is really orienting around those things, and how we're supporting it. So

[55:12] when you go here, if you want to, just you just scroll a little bit right there, so you can see those headers getting started who we are impacted, a glance, climate, justice, making climate action easier, sustainability and businesses. So these are kind of the headers there. So if you just click on, for example, climate justice heather just just one. Okay. this links. This talks about why climate justice is so important. It links to our our racial equity plan. And then we give examples of how we are supporting that that outcome through our work. So talking about recovering from climate disasters, disproportionally impacted community members. Why, we are orienting our funding and resources in this way. And what's the impact of that? So as you flow down, I think there's maybe one more page

[56:02] you can actually see. Here, then, we have a we have some quotes and some actual dashboard information about the number of homes that have actually been repaired through our climate funds. The number of projects, and where we've already done, probably 20 or 30 more since then. And then we talk about how we engage in standards, codes policy work to achieve some of those outcomes. So anyway, spend some time. If if you're bored, poke around on the storyboard love to hear your thoughts, any input, any thoughts you have to make it better. And this question that you asked which is, how do we make it relevant and accessible to everybody? And I make it a tool, I guess, is the point. Yeah. So there's a lot. And here are solar grants reducing energy burden. That's really been our metric. How do you reduce burden? so lot of good information here, and it's a great place to to kick your call from

[57:05] so I just threw a lot at you, realizing I probably should have done a Powerpoint now, and give you all something to look at and formality for asking questions, though. So what does this bring out for you? Any broad questions, any lingering things that you want to talk more about. yeah, I'll just stop talking. I'm curious. Do you know how transportation is planning to take on some of these problems? Yeah. So the transportation master plan is, you know, regularly updated and traditionally, the approach has been looking at strategies to reduce the Mt. And that doesn't. It's always aligned with reducing emissions or congestion, meaning

[58:03] strategy. To reduce Vmt might increase emissions, or vice versa. You could reduce emissions and increase vmt. So what is the metric that you really want to target. So as you start looking at solutions like more tncubers and lips on regular routes, for example. You might see more Vmt, because you have cars that are just kind of circling all day long. But their evs reduces congestion because there's fewer cars. It just happens to be that that car is on the road all day long. So I'm just giving you an example. So how they kind of creates an interesting tension. But we've been having a lot of really good conversation and alignment between transportation and the climate department to really think about. How do we think about this hierarchy, which is always been looking at strategies like 15 min neighborhoods. How do we look at multimodal transportation options? If you look at those as outcomes

[59:08] similarly saying, Well, how we do submissions! How do we reduce congestion? How do we get people traveling less to the places they need to be micro mobility. Land, use conversations, fleet electrification. And so this hierarchy of if you have to drive drive electric. But that doesn't mean that we don't. We don't jump to driving. It's what are all of those other options getting people to use alternative modes of transportation? First and foremost. So that's all. Still built into the transportation master plan. And now we're starting to build out kind of these other modules that are really climate and resilience based. So II would say, stay tuned for how we're really gonna move in this space. But I would say we've done the hardest part which is creating that alignment

[60:00] where there hasn't been a ton. And that's not a criticism. It's just been the transportation master plan. It's been in place for a very long time. And it's really been anchored and rooted in its specific objectives. How does the transportation master plan work with like housing and density? Because that do they include that when they're talking about transportation in terms of ye. Yes, but very similar to what I just said. I think we're starting to see how critical those connections really are where it's really showing up is more around transit development. Thinking about the idea of, are we designing? For are we designing our buildings in our roads for cars? Are we designing our roads and and buildings for people? and how does that kind of connect in in terms of development patterns and requirements and code versus behavior. How do we want to think about driving the behavior that we want? So parking is a great example. You know, full contact sport involved in the 2 things like, whew!

[61:11] But we're starting to see how connected each of these areas is to one another. You can't talk about land use without talking about housing. You can't talk about housing without talking about climate. You can't talk about climate without talking about open space. So, finding how connected those pieces are where we have been kind of utilities. You guys do your thing. Transportation. You guys are responsible for your master plan and roads and stuff. And you know, climate, you guys do whatever you do over there. And now we've we've really created some really powerful alignment more than I have ever seen. And it's it's really just in the past year or 2. So we're starting to kind of work together across the departments for kind of these strategic purposes.

[62:00] Yeah, Jonathan, I have a question about the interconnectedness of it all. and and that is that like a lot of us in Boulder buy all these new Evs. And and you know the electric bikes and all the things that we buy from Amazon. And so I'm just curious is there accounting for? How much does it cost to replace my gas-powered engine in a car? Electric vehicle now in like then getting rid of. you know some called stove and replacing it with a new one. Or. Yeah, how? How is the carbon counted for that kind of back to the yeah, Greg, it's it's a good question if I understand what you're asking. There, there are a number of ways. First of all, when you look at some of the the big items right in terms of their body carbon, you know. We don't have a methodology necessarily to say, Hey, Greg, we need you to tell us like, what model of stove you're getting rid of. So we can go research the embodied carbon in that stove and make sure we account for that. What we are accounting for is

[63:20] what you're buying, that we have the ability to start to track a little bit more effectively. So it's not perfect at at all. How do you do that? Huh? No, we we when not necessarily with stoves? But we make some big assumptions, and that's what's built into that consumption based inventory. And this is new space for every community. We are kind of pioneering, this work of how do we assume? How do we calculate the goods that people are buying. What are they buying? Are they? Are they appliances? Are they

[64:01] just more knickknacks for your shelves? I mean, what are you buying from Amazon? How many trips is Amazon making? What's the carbon to that we need to account for in those goods? So right now there's been a lot of data collection. in in conjunction with Amazon and others. And then we're extrapolating that data. Eco data labs has access to kind of that algorithm to say alright. Generally speaking, we know the amount of, of. say, Amazon activity in Boulder. How they get that I'm not quite sure to figure that out, and then they start to to tease out a little bit of assumption. So we can say, Here are are the estimated emissions from the stuff that we are buying upstream. We are only a year into this. No one has really done this. A few cities are are maybe a year ahead of us, but still wrestling with that same issue. Okay. So then, do you like last, was it just last month that we were talking about. you know, like the trash that's going into our waste. And you sense you told me some number or told us numbers, and you know, like.

[65:07] if we're producing so much waste, you could use that and compare it to another city. Yes, maybe. Yes. yeah. That's where the per capita information is pretty helpful work versus total. Right? Okay? But but you do raise an interesting point. that we always try to struggle with right, which is. And and we're an affluent community. So find a bunch of Tvs. Well. great. So what about the vehicles that you're getting rid of? How do we want to account for that? And there's no perfect solution. Right? I mean, there isn't body carbon in building new Evs. No question. We have to deal with second life battery applications. It's a. It's a new kind of pioneering area that we can think about. Which is why, you know, we just want to tell people go out and buy a bunch of electric cars and electric bikes. It's consuming more and more stuff.

[66:05] So trying to balance and let that comment I made earlier. If you have to drive drive electric. So we're trying to think about ways to to talk to the community. that that give a little bit of a hierarchy of needs and and good decision making. But it's a tough one. Yeah. yeah, yeah, do people know? Like, okay, I've got this gas powered car is is, you know, is the offset of lower carbon. Of having electric vehicles. Is that and that positive or net negative than just keeping my old car and not buying a new one. you know. like that would be information. I think people would want to know what's what's the cost analysis. both in my budget, monetarily, but also

[67:02] full carbon accounting. or you can get really wrapped around the axle, though. Depends on the car. How long you gonna keep it. It gets really tricky. So we try not to go into that level of detail if people are armed and they ask questions, so we try to help them some analysis, but but sure that's a good point. Makes my head span. Okay? And that seems like it'd be a good thing to best gate, so that what you know help us as as citizens know. Should I cause I keep hearing things like that, like. you know, news articles about Evs are not all that great, you know, and because, you know, there's all these costs. And and yet we're trying to reduce the carbon. So what do I do? What do I do.

[68:00] You want someone to tell you? Well, and obviously, nobody's gonna be able to tell me exactly, because it's it's not easy like you're saying. But you know? Like. yeah, I think a lot of people have that kind of question of satellite even. How do I even start to think about it? Cause if it blows our mind, then obviously, it's gonna blow somebody's mind who's doesn't think about this all the time. Doesn't geek out. Wouldn't surprise me if that was like an ongoing research. All I will say to that is that we need to work hard to help people make good choices and feel like they are part of creating solutions. but the tension is in terms of the magnitude of the impact. that's why I keep coming back like we want to support individual actions.

[69:04] How do we then think about what is a collective action in terms of ev purchases and getting rid of all? And does internal combustion engines, collective action. What impact would that have? How do we go to the system scale and change the rules? Right? We talked about this in terms of like waste like we're always dealing with the waste on the back end. Why don't we go to the producers and say, Stop making the crap so changing. The system on the front end is so critical. And it's that whole spectrum that we really send it ourselves into making sure that we are supporting. But it's it's tricky. Yeah, like, I mean, have wondered about. a way of looking at the the expected lifetime. the the lifespan of a product. whether it's of single use. Coffee cup. you know, or grocery bag to a couch that you keep for 20 years

[70:01] versus A. You know some little table that some college student comes and buys. And 3 years later it's out of the dump on the track or whatever I have one final question, that may take maybe more than a moment, but so one of the metrics on there that was pretty high is water and like water treatment plant. and that seems to be moving more to the community beyond the individual side of things. Do you know what actions can be taken in that arena that help produce those numbers like more driven more by the efficiency of the water treatment plant, specifically. relatively recently make upgrade stars. We we did so. This is illustrated, I think in the report there were some significant construction projects. And we accounted for emissions from those activities. And the energy, I mean is our biggest energy user for sure.

[71:08] And so that that's why we saw Spike there another great alignment between us and our utilities department. Really strong synergy, really looking at ways to to align around energy use and overall mission. So yeah, no good. Good flag. Okay, guys, I would like to wrap up this conversation. So we have time to discuss. Yeah, next time. So thank you, Jonathan, I appreciate the update. That's a number that's nice. so yeah, the next item is, or annual letter to counsel. And this is basically an opportunity, for as as as a board to tell the decision makers at the city level, what we think their priorities should be so. Oh.

[72:01] I don't know if you had a chance to see letters from previous years, but we usually talk about policies and goals. and this year I would like it to be a little more action focus. So, Jason, do you mind giving a little overview of this process and how it's working it through the years. And I guess what the whole thing entails. Yeah, sure, I'll try to make it super quick, since you listen to my voice a lot tonight. So each year City Council asks for a letter which is basically a summary of your recommendations as support to counsel. So what they're looking for is, here are the priorities that you recommend council. Take up for their next 2 year work program. So remember in the audience, right? They are policymakers. what they do then is they get their letters from each of the boards and they take those and they may. The Council member may say, Oh, I really like what I'm seeing from tap Transportation Advisory Board, or for I'm from the Ev. And I wanna advance that as one of my key priorities in the Council retreat which would be held in March.

[73:09] Remember, this is usually write the letter in the fall, because the retreat is typically in January. They've changed the cadence. It's gonna be in March. So a couple of points that I would suggest for you all as you think about your letter this year, and that is a really prioritized idea that they are policy makers. the the way boards have sometimes used their letter is to de direct a work program within a particular department. I'm I'm not opposed to to that at all. I just don't think it's an effective use of your voice. We can have a conversation, and if you say, Hey, I would love to see you all think about this in your work program. Let's talk about that. Versus going to council to then tell Maria to tell me it just is not efficient and amplifying your voice in terms of hey? These are things that are large priorities for our community, that we, as the Environmental Advisory Board, recommend council. Take up as a priority.

[74:11] Those could be things that are cross, departmental. They may be things that ultimately flow down. And we as a department as the climate edition department. Oversee. But environmental issues obviously are not just subject to my department. They cover so many different departments. And so my recommendation is thinking about those items that would really be cross cutting. That would be high enough level. So it's not just a work program. Item. But you might illustrate to say, the result of this thing could be these things that are work program items in the next 2 years. Is that helpful? Yeah, I think so, because I mean, I've seen 3 letters to counsel so far, and I felt like I think one of my goals now is chair was to be more specific, like in previous years. the way those letters were directed away to me. They were a little generic like the priority, for the board is air quality. Right? I feel like, yeah, air quality is important. But it's also like, kind of like the jurisdiction of the county. And there were no specific actual items for the Council to be like, Okay, Council, do this. It was more like, we cared about air quality. It's so important, which yeah, it's important. But

[75:20] one of the things that they will read. And we're like, Okay, yeah, neat. But there were no like steps steps for them to do, decisions to make, or recommendations to make it to stop. There was a little do just big goals without specific questions for them to to answer. Or actually, so I think you know. I think my goal was chair now will be to kind of direct the group to be to work more than actual items. I think that the Council can actually take make decisions. So and then you go talk to Nuria and then make it, you know, during distribute the work across departments, including, that's like an initiative. One.

[76:03] I think for that I will. We will need some guidance, because I don't know exactly what we do propose in terms of like specific action items for council. So I think in previous years we look a lot about like quality, I think is being in every single letter. But again, I feel like that's mostly jurisdiction of the county. And there was no specific items. We have to talk about Urban Key Islands, which which is undergo much direction. I feel like council to be honest. There's a cool boulder project, but that's I think that was kind of like independent from our letters. and couple more things like, I think, a carbon economy measuring which kind of sounds like a little what you guys have done with this inventory? But in terms of specific action items, I'm not. I definitely need some guidance, I think. Well, I think we could kind of come up with a general topic and then dive into specifics like for me. One thing that came up in all this transportation as an area focus. I know that

[77:10] counsels problem. perhaps receptive to some big pushes and transportation areas. So that's like one area. We could look at open other areas, too. And then once we kind of decide on the area, we want to talk about them to get more specific. I don't know. Do you know, Jonathan, how receptive counsel tends to be is kind of cross cutting boards, you know it. Is it more favorable or less favorable to be sort of intertwined with something like transcription. They want us be staying in our way. Environmental Advisory Board, as you have mentioned many times. So record. Ii would encourage you to to be bold with your recommendations. I wouldn't worry about stepping on any toes with other boards. I think you can craft a letter that is thoughtful, recognizing that there are boards that have purview over elements of transportation, and if transportation is the theme

[78:20] you you could think as a board about what? What is, what do you want? Counsel to do with transportation? What's what's the ask again, to your work program policymakers? Giving them some specific to dos versus because I think what has happened, and Heron appreciate the way you said that it's been high, level, and generic. We where, as a council member reads the slide. I'm like, yeah, air quality. Of course I care about our quality. Great. Thank you. I don't know what I don't know what to do with this. So it's a, it's like, if there's a specific focus, it's council. We recommend really bringing together

[79:03] multiple departments to really kind of curate some ideas around achieving the transportation master plan and the climate objective. So I'm just step up right now. I think those are the things that are based in a a deep value. But it's also actionable within the timeframe that a council member could be like. Yeah, II could make that a priority. and then real quick, logistically on timing. We don't have to write this in 20 min, right? No what it is. Maybe brainstorm a little bit if we have time, and we will work on this letter separately, like like the way we done the previous year since. we have a shared document, and we edit it as we go. So we'll like to have some sort of draft by the next meeting, perhaps, or at least like at least have, like the focus areas specified.

[80:01] And yeah, the letter will have to be submitted like A or March meeting will be the one where we're like, okay, yeah, like, we're, we're, we're we approve it. so yeah, the other idea that I had. So I don't know if this works at all is this, is there anything around pushing counsel to do more of the state level? Because in terms of like, where there's big lever points, I don't know if that's even within per view of just thinking about having this. You know, majority in the state level right now, that's is there something there? I don't know. Just brainstorming. Love. It, I would say, is there II have 2 ideas, and I would love to hear anybody else's ideas, and then then we could kind of like talk about

[81:00] what you know is, is anything inspiring for all of us to. you know, to to to fill out and make more, you know. actionable, or whatever. and so cause I heard transportation. And from this conversation here. you know, one of the things that came to my mind was when we have an unstable environment? IE. You know everybody's covid, and it's all up in the air. suddenly something like our TV suffers because they can't seem to move as quick but I'm fascinated by this idea of a company called swift rails and they

[82:02] have an idea of creating rail systems that have little light cars on them. So it's like a light rail. But it's actually light. not 100,000 pounds, or whatever it is for train. that could be used. Iii read somewhere that there was a gondola idea between the Hill area and like with the new Conference center and downtown boulder. and I think The swift rails would be better idea, you know. But I don't know the research. I don't have the background, so it's something that. And I would love to throw out there as a transportation kind strategy to have more more systems in place that can handle higher

[83:01] loads than buses that are on roads. But it's also very costly, potentially costly. In the beginning. 2. The other idea was something around building codes and being really progressive. With what kind of city do we need to be for this future? Considering higher heat. more potential for flood. I'm more potential for fire. So you know, if we were in Florida, you know, there's a place called Babcock Ranch. where they built a of a neighborhood that had a huge Solar farm, and it's completely a Oh.

[84:02] what's the word storm resistant? And so it got a direct hit a couple of years ago very minimal damage. So can we work with the city code building codes to allow people to start making things more environmentally friendly, doing something more with passive solar, passive eating something that's more fire resistant. You know, I hear people say one of the reasons why we can't innovate with our building is because codes prevent it. And can we be more forward-looking? and less restrictive like? I think it's great to have more ev parking spaces, but in a way that's restricting people as opposed to opening up the

[85:01] the. the availability of what we can do on an individual or whatever basis. So those are my 2 ideas. I'd be willing to wrap some stuff on my ideas, just to give one thing to think about with the like. swift rails, I think it was called. It's 2 years. This is like a 2 year plan. So that seems like scope, a larger scope. So kind of thinking about like, what's a what's a reasonable 2 year? I mean, if if people were into it, it could certainly be a let's research it, you know. Put that on the plate to have transportation. And maybe Jonathan, you know. Yeah. Maybe there's people in transportation that could look at it and say.

[86:07] not a good idea. Okay, let's stop it. But yeah, my gut, is it? Isn't realistic just in terms of like house costs and culture change and how long it's taken us to explore the light rail from older to Denver and within the budget of the city. Well, so actually the difference, though, is that swift rails, you know, like I've talked to them a couple times, and and the cost of doing a swift rails. Installation is about twice as much as a a cost of building a road. Currently. So it's not. It's not extravagant.

[87:00] and it's not. It's it's costly. but not not to the level of of what a light rail system cost is. Do they require like certain amounts of open space? No cause it's above. It's just like a gondola. It's it's mounted, you know. on structures that lift the vehicles up above the road. So yeah. yeah, let's hear other ideas really is my. oh, I didn't know, cause I know we have another item to get through, is it? Do we like? Should we be putting together a document where we each put down a few ideas with some kind of basic, overview individual research we've done. And then

[88:06] and then we can like tailor. It maybe choose maybe 3 for items, you know, that would like to be just one page. So it's easy to read digestible wait. And I agree that having sorry when I was saying, each of us bring forward ideas for for us to discuss. But then, I think, focusing and choosing one together, kind of voting on one to focus on, and then hitting the points as Jonathan mentioned. I don't think we should be having a smattering of ideas in the letter, but I think giving everyone the opportunity, including Brooks, and she's not here to get their ideas out there. So we can all 3 3 things. 3 3 ideas, or like one idea with like a few examples of like focuses. So I think, like we should like, I can create a document we can

[89:03] put in there or priorities. And then we can just eliminate the ones that we don't agree on. And ideally. like 3 things, 3 topics like, okay, these are the actual. This is the problem, what the community wants or what we want. This is the actual item. This is another thing we want to. The community wants is the actual item. And then this is what it really wants. And this is the actual item. Do you feel like that would be received? Well. where they can choose one of 3, or do you think it's better to have one and just no, II think it's fine. They don't have to adopt all of them. They find one thing and want to move on it. That's great. The other thing that it's really nice to kind of cross references. The work plan that we know is going to be happening and maybe shaping it in a way that maybe isn't already in motion. So just. And I know we got other stuff to make this quick. So Grace comment about codes, it's an it's an intriguing one to be able to say

[90:02] we're moving forward with the energy code update. In a month we, we are researching our building code to really look in body carbon and really thinking about how we use our package of codes to achieve our desired outcome in terms of our buildings and our build environment. what would you want to say? To council as they think about this package of code adoption as we go through prioritizing XY and Z, really thinking about aligning around specific environmental outcomes addressing issues that we don't normally think of in terms of ecosystems and using different tactics to achieve certain code requirements like Greg was talking about. We don't normally think about cooling like achieving specific cooling load requirements. That is done with technology and H back with things like trees. So what about a tree preservation ordinance that extends over into private properties versus just public properties.

[91:03] So you could say, look at the suite of code adoption that is coming forward with an eye towards the boulder Belly Comp plan, which is being updated in 2 years. That's a really important, really, really important policy document. Then we need to be aligning all of our code and all of our decisions towards in the next year or so. So that could be a really interesting thing to really emphasize in our policy work. So chosen. will you compile like the work plan that the Council is kind of heading towards. And the things are gonna encounter in the next year or 2. So we can also like use that as this, because I mean, if we go for things that are somewhat and Jane show things are really gonna starting point in motion.

[92:02] I don't know if you want to answer this question. But is there anything that would be you, as the climate department needs more support behind to get in front of council, but would be supportive. It's funny you ask that because you. You know I'm reluctant to do that. I don't want to be self serving, but what I will say is, I think there are some citywide priorities that if they were elevated to councils level and put before them. What I don't wanna do is like, use the board and the Board's letter to get to counsel to then direct action or work plans of other departments that maybe I'm not getting support, and that's not what I'm saying. But I do think there's a whole other area of resilience that really needs to be elevated. We need to reboot our resilience strategy in in the next year, and we had a resilient strategy in 2,016. It's a great document within needs some dusting off. It needs some updating. It needs some integration across the city organization.

[93:06] if and I know I've talked with council members who are eager. I know that our city leadership is eager. It needs a nudge. Yeah. I think my only idea. So far, it actually relates to the item the next item which it was the 6 a the boards and commissions recommendations I would like to include in the letter that they rethink. but they think like how to restructure these boards to kind of like what what we would like the environmental board to be. I mean, we're talking about how. when it comes to housing and transportation environment is also important plays a role. So how can we make sure that the input from the board also gets to those ports as well like, I would like them to start thinking about that. Perhaps if we're being ambitious, like updated charter, I go. I don't know if you guys know the charter for the Environmental Restory Board 12 from the seventies.

[94:00] but it it dates like or purview is like waste management and ecosystems. and there's no there's not a climate is no mention. Once in that charter. I think we could include, we could ask, you know, like, Hey, these are like recommendations from the board, like, we know, you guys are thinking about this and you're gonna be restructuring how these boards were. This is how we would like our work to be. There's a whole be envisioned to be an mission in this. You know, this century, basically like updated to our needs, currently. So that's something like I was like, do I come right about? I can. I can put in a document as well. Do you think the letters the right slot, or is it part of what they're reviewing? Right? I think we'll be good. I mean, it's part of the it's just like a a little council with them policies, priorities for the next 2 years as a board, have a voice as opposed to one of us showing up at a council meeting.

[95:06] speaking as a board member, but that doesn't carry us much. There will be dinner like there are multiple council members. If we propose more than one, we make it a support. Yeah, like somebody may champ your transportation. Somebody check for this idea, you know, like that. Resonance with me so like a little bit kind of like a spaghetti kind of thing. See what sticks, but also like some sweet balance there. Right?

[96:00] So it's almost 8 guys. I think, in terms of like just to wrap up this conversation. Yeah. Upgrade a document Jonathan. People send us the work plan check, and then we can start like just iterating on this document. in terms of I don't. old business of. Can we have anything right now? I didn't. 6 a ports and commissions, recommendations. All I wanted to say is that I would like to include or recommendations in this letter. So I don't. I don't think I have anything else to say about that. Just what I just what I just said it. Little bit of gold so, Jonathan, if you wanna go ahead with 6 V and create and talk about the calendar if there's anything to discuss there. Yes. so this is things to put on your radar and know that I'm gonna be scheduling a few things for the board tomorrow night. There are 2 items that if you wanted to pay attention to them, one was the community survey results so there'll be a presentation from the consultant to counsel tomorrow night again. This was a survey. That was done. We do it typically every few years we had that one since 2018. So it just talks about trends.

[97:19] Not much in there that, I think, is super relevant. Normally, there's a lot around environment and climate, so forth. But most of the airtime was around safety housing a lot of the things that people are concerned about. The other item that's on tomorrow night is update on the facility master Plan. I mentioned it a little bit earlier, so we'll be talking to council tomorrow night just about this long term plan around maintaining our buildings. Well, thinking about orienting around climate and resonance more deliberately so tomorrow will be a good conversation with them, and there'll be an opportunity to bring that back to for potential changes or recommendations on the look ahead. If we did have some items that were scheduled. But we had to juggle them around.

[98:03] we need to land on when our actual energy code is going. I don't even know now. It it is. It is going back to council for first reading. Obviously you all had a chance to provide some input to to Carolyn and and the team there. We've had a lot of discussion with stakeholders about affordability. And it's been one of the concerns and just issues related to some of the requirements. In the energy code. Obviously, with respect to driving gas out of the portfolio, what that looks like. So feel really good about what we're bringing forward to council talking to council members individually about that couple of the other items that I just wanted to like for you. We will be bringing an update to you all. A little a little bit connected to tonight's conversation. our partnership with excel energy. This was our our new partnership. After we abandoned or say abandoned. We set aside our municipalization effort in 2020 big piece of it is tied to their emission reduction targets that we set for them. We said, as long as you meet these targets. That's great. If you don't, then we can exercise, and out of the franchise and go back to municipalization if we choose.

[99:14] So we wanna bring forward some information about their missions, targets, and the partnership in general, we will be taking that update to counsel sometime in the first quarter, hopefully as well Bonner social streets. There's gonna be a discussion that hasn't been calendar love for the Board to weigh in on that piece. Social streets was really kind of the outpouring from the closure of West Pearl, where people really enjoyed having more kind of what is it? What's the term? It's kind of really bizarre term just utilizing public spaces in different ways, but also so right outside the tea house this past summer. There were Fridays that it was like, Bring your dog down, or it was skateboarding. And so we wanna expand that into other parts

[100:04] parts of the community. And I think there's some real value. And having you all think about some elements that should be included as it's designed, as it continues to roll out. Update on excel energy. And then, we're we'll be scheduling time to come back to you on any recommendations that we take on the noise ordinance and guess before discussion. So can't wait for that one. Yeah. Interesting one for sure. That's a tough one, right? But one. See? Also, we want to push that out just a little bit, because we know that there's some legislation making it through right now. That May, depending on how it goes, could address the issue. Monetary, like. yeah. The tricky part is, do you ban the use? Do you ban the sale? How do you deal with the equity issue, which is, you know, what is the real problem. It's it's being put out there as a climate issue. It's really not much of a climate issue. It's a noise pollution issue.

[101:12] so what's that true? Yeah, absolutely. No, II don't. I totally agree. But going to electric isn't necessarily going to change that that impact. So people like we just need to electrify everything they still make sound. So what's the real problem that we're trying to solve. How do you enforce it? So we did this amazing study. Well, I I don't remember if you were on the board yet, but we had pretty small, and they consulted the community. They consulted a lot of my landscape workers, and basically like even I, one of them contacting me directly and say, You know the day I

[102:05] I talk to my provider, and this is how much it will cost me to switch my fleet to electrical, and it was like 4 times or something. It was ridiculously expensive, and they don't last as long so they were like. And then they would look at what equity, too, because if somebody's in gas leaf lowers, they're gonna be most likely. So basically a migrant worker. And then, if you make it like more fans and the police can go. Somebody put in the micro worker as a police. And so the technology wasn't there. The call for prohibitive. There was an equity issue. So overall, it didn't seem like a ban, was the right approach. Some of the points you raise. What we realized is that the technology is there? You just require, like the charging in the field all day long, to be a little bit tricky. So you had to have extra batteries, which is an added expense for sure.

[103:02] And you know the health implication is a big one. We do care about that. So for the workers themselves and the ozone impact. I mean, those are big. And so we do wanna deal with the pollution issue. Our recommendation was to not do a ban right now, and I think it came to a lot of people's surprise that we didn't recommend the ban to do a little bit more analysis, and then to see what's gonna happen at the State, because they are looking at a ban on use. Our recommendation is will likely be that we can ban the use on during certain times, hot summer days where you actually do have a pretty significant ozone impact. But otherwise, yeah. rather than just saying, let's just figure out how to deal with all the graphical things. Why don't we think about a more holistic approach to overall

[104:04] landscaping and more 0 escaping, more climate, friendly landscaping practices that you don't have to go and mow when big. My quote that made it in the paper was something ineffective. If the only feet touching your your lawn or yours when you mow it. We have a problem, something to that effect. It was a question about turf and and public spaces. So anyway. that's my report. That's what we have right last time on the agenda, I guess. Just saying that the next meeting is scheduled for February 7, at 6 PM. And with that I support the motion to adjourn the meeting. Thank you. Alright. Good thanks, everybody.

[105:01] Thanks, Greg, from the banner.