HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 3170City of Palo Alto (ID # 3170)
City Council Staff Report
Report Type: Action ItemsMeeting Date: 10/22/2012
Council Priority: Environmental Sustainability
Summary Title: Cool Cities Challenge
Title: Approval of Letter of Intent to Participate in Cool Cities Challenge
From: City Manager
Lead Department: Public Works
Recommendation
Staff recommends that Council authorize the City Manager or his designee to sign
the Letter of Intent to participate in the Cool Cities Challenge (Attachment A)
being organized and implemented by David Gershon, the Empowerment Institute
and its partner organizations.
Background
David Gershon, author of the Low Carbon Diet, co-founder of the Empowerment
Institute (EI), and a leading social change practitioner, has visited Palo Alto on
several occasions in preceding months to invite our participation in the ambitious
Cool City Challenge (CCC) community engagement program. This has led to the
current invitation to Palo Alto to formalize this potential working partnership
through a Letter of Intent (LOI).
The purpose of the CCC is to scale up a proven community-based social
innovation to achieve dramatic greenhouse gas emission reductions in three early
adopter American cities and three neighborhoods in San Paolo, Brazil of
comparable size to the American cities, and then disseminate this model
worldwide. The ultimate goal of the CCC is to develop a scalable social innovation
capable of making a dramatic change to retard climate change.
With international climate change legislation failing to get traction in adoption or
implementation, and the long timeframe required to scale up technological
solutions, there is a need now for viable and scalable strategies for addressing
global warming. Cities represent 70% of the planet’s CO2 emissions and in
developed countries citizens’ daily lifestyle choices represent at least 50% of
these emissions with huge opportunities for efficiency. This provides the potential
for a high leverage opportunity to address global warming if cities can achieve
substantial behavior change among its citizens by taking individual behavior
change to a communitywide scale. Further, this could serve as a demand-side
driver for local green economic development.
The Empowerment Institute—a leader in environmental behavior change and
community engagement—over the past two decades has developed a
methodology to help cities empower citizens to reduce their carbon footprint by
25% through the Low Carbon Diet EcoTeam program and a strategy to achieve
between 25% and 75% household participation. This methodology has been
tested on a smaller scale in over 300 US cities and 6 countries including China. The
CCC is designed to bring this potentially transformative social innovation to scale
(community-wide) first in the three California demonstration cities and Sao Paulo
and then to the wider world based on the experience and lessons learned in the
demonstration cities.
The Empowerment Institute (EI) will provide each of the cities deep technical
assistance in its implementation. This Institute has a successful track record in
designing and implementing successful behavior change programs and
community engagement strategies for cities both in the United States and
Europe. The content of these behavior change programs include Low Carbon
Lifestyles, Green Living, Livable Neighborhoods, and Disaster-resilient
Communities. In particular, their Low Carbon Diet Program has been disseminated
to over 300 US cities with 46 of those cities in California.
To enable this project to be most effectively disseminated after this prototype
phase, EI has enlisted the commitment of major research institutions to study,
evaluate, and assist in the analytics. EI reports that these partners are Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, UC Davis and Stanford.
EI assumes that cities do not have resources to implement this type of social
innovation, and has committed to raising the funds for the cities. One of the
purposes of the Letters of Intent with potential demonstration cities is to indicate
potential participation by cities that will aid in the Empowerment Institute’s fund
raising goals. If EI is successful in raising the funds to provide the support and
staffing in the demonstration cities over the three year program period, then EI
will issue Requests for Proposals from cities for evaluation and final selection of
the demonstration cities to participate in the program. That proposal process is
expected to occur sometime later in 2013.
Discussion
The Cool Cities Challenge gives Palo Alto a chance to contribute to developing a
potentially game changing local solution to climate change. Palo Alto is already a
leader in climate protection in many ways, so this is an opportunity to achieve the
next level and advance our climate action and energy efficiency goals.
CCC potentially provides the City with a platform that allows for integration of its
many sustainability programs and which can be applied literally block by block
across our community. Neighborhood groups would allow Palo Alto to get better
take up in these programs; it also allows for efficiency in the financial investments
that will create and distribute these programs.
The CCC provides Palo Alto an opportunity to more tightly knit together the social
fabric of the community. It also allows for the integration of sustainable
community outreach efforts.
Resource Impact
No significant direct costs to the City are associated with the staff
recommendation to sign the LOI. Staff will continue to work with EI, and other
partners (Cool Davis, California Air Resources Board, Lawrence Berkeley National
Labs), to advance the City’s community engagement goals and our efforts to
reduce GHG emissions.
As indicated in the attached LOI, fiscal impacts associated with long-term
participation in this ambitious program will be offset by funding secured by EI; as
mentioned earlier in this report, the Cool Cities Challenge program will only occur
if EI is able to secure adequate funding. Indirect fiscal impacts associated with the
implementation of a household based demand-side carbon reduction program
are undetermined. While this initiative is based on EI providing new funding to
support this effort, a program as ambitious and as far reaching as this in its intent
and design will certainly draw on existing city staff, Council, and community
capacity. On the other hand, staff anticipates that local businesses and
entrepreneurs could respond as local demand for carbon reduction products and
services emerge as one outcome of this program.
While submission of a LOI by the City signals our serious interest in this initiative,
it commits to no binding obligation. The City will again need to carefully review
the results this initiative may produce and the investment that this initiative will
require, if and when EI issues the formal Request for Proposals later in 2013. By
that point, the City should be able to have a clearer understanding of the costs of
participation that may occur beyond the funding EI provides and a better sense of
our citizens’ interest in participating.
If the Council approves the LOI, and as staff learns of EI’s success in fundraising,
staff will return to Council with a process to test community interest through
targeted outreach to key stakeholders and some method of surveying household
interest.
A good understanding of the receptivity of our citizens to participating in a multi-
year high touch outreach and behavior change program such as this would be
important as a prelude to our submission of any formal proposal to EI when they
issue their Request for Proposals in 2013.
Policy Implications
Participation in the Cool Cities Challenge would assist Palo Alto in implementing
its Climate Protection Plan and is fully consistent with the Greenhouse Gas
reduction goals of that plan.
Environmental Review
Submitting a LOI to participate in the Cool Cities Challenge does not constitute a
project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Attachments:
·Cool City Challenge Letter of Intent (DOCX)
Prepared By:Philip L. Bobel, Interim Asst. Director, Engineering Services
Department Head:J. Michael Sartor, Director
City Manager Approval: ____________________________________
James Keene, City Manager
DRAFT COOL CITY CHALLENGE LETTER OF INTENT
Dear Mr Gershon,
Thank you for the invitation to be considered as a candidate for the Cool City Challenge. We
understand that Empowerment Institute and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are in the
process of raising the finances and wish to have non-binding letters of intent from candidate
cities to share with potential funding sources.
We would like to be considered as one of the Cool City Challenge communities. We have briefly
responded below to the five criteria in the city selection process document and have read the
strategic plan. We feel that we meet these criteria.
We understand there is a two-step process. First we submit this letter of intent and then, when
financing is secured, we will be invited to submit a more substantive competitive application.
We believe we are good candidates for the Cool City Challenge because:
1.Palo Alto has a commitment to bold carbon reduction with a proven track record, deep
commitment, and measurable goals set by the Palo Alto City Council to achieve
ambitious carbon reduction in the short and mid-term.
2.Palo Alto has a commitment to community engagement with recognition by the Palo Alto
City Council of the need to engage community members in reducing their carbon
footprint and a demonstrated track record in doing so.
3.Palo Alto has a commitment to the Cool City Challenge goals with the strong buy-in of
the Palo Alto City Council and other civic leaders to local GHG reduction goals and a
demonstrated willingness to invest political capital in realizing them.
4.Palo Alto has a track record as an early adopter city including a desire to take on big
challenges, lead the way for other cities, civic pride in past accomplishments, high
tolerance for experimentation, and a can-do community culture.
5.Palo Alto has a commitment to be a learning and teaching city:Since this is a bold social
learning endeavor each city needs to be a committed partner with Empowerment Institute
and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the research and learning. And when
feedback dictates, to be willing to evolve the program. Further, since the goal of this
endeavor is to develop a scalable model, to also be willing to serve as a teaching city for
other cities to learn from.
Thank you for considering this letter of intent and for your important work.
Sincerely,
James Keene
Palo Alto City Manager
Attachment A