'Long way to go': Challenge cutting carbon emissions in Worcester buildings

WORCESTER – Of all the to-do items in the Green Worcester Plan to fight climate change, one of the most pressing is reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated by the city’s thousands of buildings.

John Odell, Worcester’s chief sustainability officer, touched on this point and several accomplishments in an interview immediately after Monday night’s Green Worcester Advisory Committee meeting, when he gave members the city’s first update on the progress of the Green Worcester Plan.

"There are a lot of of older buildings. A lot of them need attention. It’s not inexpensive to retrofit older facilities," said Odell after the meeting. "We want to do this in an equitable way, so there is a long way to go."

The Green Worcester Plan was unanimously adopted by the City Council in April 2021 and includes three primary goals:

● By 2030: 100% renewable energy for municipal facilities

● By 2035: 100% renewable electricity citywide

● By 2045: 100% renewable energy in all sectors including heating and transportation

Monday’s update was a draft and Odell is expected to report back to the committee next month with specific steps on how the Green Worcester Plan will move ahead in 2024.

Odell ticked off some of the plan’s accomplishments over the past two-plus years, including the establishment of the city’s Department of Sustainability and Resilience, with its 11 employees including two part-timers whom Odell oversees. However, with 108 to-do items in the Green Worcester Plan and 56 of them underway, Odell noted he could use more resources to get the job done.

The department's budget in fiscal 2024 is slightly more than $527,000, including $278,000 for salaries.

Another accomplishment, according to Odell, is the city’s electricity aggregation program. It saved participants more than $12 million since it's launch in 2020, said a city press release. It also generated more power from renewable sources, cutting more than 155 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, an amount equal to emissions spewing from more than 15,000 gasoline-powered cars in one year.

Worcester's adoption of the state’s new specialized stretch building code is another win, said Odell. It requires new construction meet strict energy-efficiency standards.

More work to do

Odell acknowledged there’s more work to do to cut carbon emissions from Worcester’s existing residential and commercial buildings. They account for roughly 65% of Worcester’s emissions, and while Odell said the aggregation program made a “significant dent” in cutting emissions, more work is needed in the years ahead to achieve more reductions.

A setback was the city’s inability to partner with neighborhood groups on a geothermal experimental project managed by Eversource. Odell explained that Eversource decided to develop the project in Framingham, where it had direct access to gas and electric data. Eversource supplies gas and electricity to parts of Framingham.

The draft also included an action item to establish a “Building Disclosure Policy," essentially requiring owners of commercial and industrial buildings to report their greenhouse gas emissions. Odell had no comment on the policy because the city hasn’t started the work to develop it.

Equity piece: 'Very real'

There’s a balancing act, said Odell, because while the city will likely start targeting the biggest buildings to cut emissions, equity is an issue. This means residents of moderate income must have access to heat pumps, electric vehicles and other technologies to cut emissions and reduce their energy bills.

“The equity piece of this is very real,” said Odell. “We want to lower emissions as quickly as we can but do it equitably. That's a balancing act that we haven’t solved yet, but that we’re actively working on and that I think is one of the top priorities for this year and the next few.”

Meanwhile, there are state and federal funds, plus incentives through investor-owned utilities, that are available to help defray the cost to retrofit buildings to cut emissions, said Odell. He stressed it’s important the city give residents and businesses clear and complete information on how to tap into these resources.

“There’s nothing worse than the feeling that you left a $3,000 rebate on the table because you didn’t know about it. We want to make sure that gets avoided as best we can," said Odell.

Need the numbers

Another priority in 2024, said Odell, is to update the city’s Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventory in order to get a handle on how to aggressively cut building emissions. The last inventory was done in 2022, covering a 10-year period from 2009 to 2019. It did not include the electricity aggregation program, because it started after the inventory was done.

The 2022 inventory showed:

● 92% of Worcester's greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings and transportation.

● Emissions from city-owned operations dropped 16%. Those operations represent roughly 2.5% of Worcester's total emissions. Meanwhile, there was a 3% decline for the rest of Worcester.

In that realm, Odell mentioned the city’s efforts to finalize a new contract with Honeywell. The company is Worcester’s energy services contractor and tens of millions of dollars were spent over the past 12 years upgrading the energy efficiency in more than 90 city-owned buildings and schools, plus installing energy-efficient streetlights and solar projects.

The current contract runs through fall 2024 and the next step is auditing the environmental impact of Honeywell’s work. Audit results will help Worcester zero in on future efforts to cut carbon emissions.

As for electric vehicle charging stations, the city added a total of 18 last year at municipal parking garages, six apiece at Pearl Elm, Worcester Common and Federal Plaza.

Meanwhile, the draft plan states that 20% of residential and business parking spaces will be required to be wired for electric vehicle charging due to updated building codes.

Contact Henry Schwan at henry.schwan@telegram.com. Follow him on X: @henrytelegram.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Challenge cutting carbon emissions in Worcester buildings