For years, cities have been taking on efforts to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
For years, cities have been taking on efforts to reduce their carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet little has been done to verify if such work has the intended outcome.
New research from the University of Kansas found that completing a greenhouse gas emission inventory indeed moves the needle toward mitigation. “Sustainability” can refer to any number of efforts a municipality can employ, but research has found that when American cities conduct a greenhouse gas emissions inventory, they reduce their CO2 emissions significantly more than they would have otherwise.
“We found evidence that the construction and development of a GHG (green house gas) emissions inventory was causally linked to fewer fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions,” said Rachel Krause, professor of public affairs and administration at KU and the study’s lead author. “Inventories reflect considerable investigation into the source and amount of local emissions, and we hypothesize that this information increases ability to manage efforts and allowed for change.”
Completing such an inventory, as well as employing sustainability directors or professionals in city government, are two of the most common methods cities have used to boost sustainability and reduce emissions, and researchers wanted to examine the understudied area of how effective those efforts are.
Read more at University of Kansas
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