Protecting the Environment
Cleaner Cities Story: Houston and Chicago
Houston and Chicago, participating cities of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, are working with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) to improve the energy efficiency of public buildings. The city of Houston has been working with CCI since 2007 to retrofit its entire portfolio of 271 buildings by 2014 a project that will reduce the city’s overall energy use by more than 30 percent and save millions of dollars per year in utility and maintenance costs. Energy efficiency projects are cost-effective to implement and more sustainable both economically and environmentally in the long term, as proved by Lee College, a building retrofit project in Houston that is already reducing annual costs by 32 percent. Houston also launched an Energy Efficiency Incentive Program which awards financial support to private building owners who want to implement energy efficiency projects of their own. In Chicago, the Daley Center is undergoing a retrofit that will reduce the building’s carbon footprint by more than 2,500 metric tons per year.
Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI)
The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) creates and advances solutions to the core problems driving climate change. Working with governments and businesses around the world to develop programs that are economically and environmentally sustainable, CCI focuses on three strategic goals: reducing emissions in cities; catalyzing the large-scale supply of clean energy; and working to measure and value the carbon absorbed by forests. CCI’s programs prove that reducing carbon emissions can also create jobs and lift economies.
In 2011, the CCI Cities Program and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) expanded their alliance in order to more effectively engage cities in reducing their carbon emissions. The new partnership brings significant resources and infrastructure that will enhance and accelerate CCI/C40 activities. Learn more »
