City of Palo Alto to Save More than $2M and Cut GHG by 15% Over Next 3 Years
- Goal – Reduce GHG 5% in 2009, manage & track CAP (Climate Action Plans)
- Solution – HaraTM Environmental and Energy solution for auditable GHG Inventory and CAP planning, across city residences and companies
- Results – Projecting 2009 savings of $2.2M in electricity & gas costs
In 2009, the Climate Protection Team of the City of Palo Alto, California conducted a competitive process to select an auditable greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory application that would allow the City to streamline human resources required for greenhouse gas (GHG) and Climate Action Plan (CAP) management and tracking. The City’s immediate goal was to reduce GHG emission by 5% at minimal cost to the City’s Sustainability Team Budget. The City chose the Hara Environmental and Energy Management solution to enable them to achieve that goal.
The Hara solution allows tracking of emissions from 13 departments while providing transparency and replicability across emission sources such as electricity, gas, and solid waste. The Hara application automatically uploads utility data from City utility meters and the City’s SAP system. Additionally, each employee can enter commute and other data that impact overall City emissions. Having the Hara application to easily collect these data inputs ultimately enables the City to develop, model and manage emissions reduction plans and develop reports to share with residents and businesses on the City website and also to produce automated reports to various agencies such as the California Climate Registry.
The City of Palo Alto staff is working with Hara to develop additional functionalities in their Environmental and Energy Management solution. These functionalities will expand the City’s environmental reporting and analysis capabilities. The City of Palo Alto staff strongly believes that the Hara software as a service (SaaS) approach will enable them to meet their goals in terms of human resources, emission reduction and cost savings.
In the coming years, the City expects to see a significant reduction in human resources required for GHG management and tracking and an increased ability to identify and implement GHG reductions. Over the next three years, the City projects an annual savings of $600,000-700,000, mainly as a result of reduced electricity, water and natural gas use. Other savings are expected to result from reduced waste collection and paper use. The return on investment (ROI) for this deployment of the Hara Environmental and Energy Management solution is expected to be less than three months.
