The Path to Green Energy: A City's efforts to help businesses lower energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions

Business recognition of environmentally sound practices and their desire to lower energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions has grown considerably over the last decade, as they have become more aware of actions that can both improve the environment and reduce their operation costs. Voluntary programs, such as Climate Wise in Fort Collins, CO, assist businesses in this endeavor by conducting assessments of business operations and facilities, and providing recommendations on improving their operations in areas such as water conservation, energy, and transportation. While most research on implementation of these recommendations is based on cost, a lack of research on the time associated with recommendation implementation begs the question, “Which recommendations are most frequently given out and then implemented? What are the “implementation rates” for these recommendations? Examination of the aforementioned Climate Wise program, in Fort Collins, CO attempts to answer this question.

This project uses quantitative analysis and the construction of a data set of Climate Wise business reports and recommendations from 2008 to 2010 to determine the average implementation time of energy recommendations as well as the frequency of implementation for each recommendation. This valuable information will assist Climate Wise in determining which recommendations are and are not being implemented and why, and will act as a template for Climate Wise to better understand the weight behind the recommendations it gives out.