Chattanooga has the foundation in place to achieve its sustainability goals

No question, Chattanooga, Tenn., is firmly on the path to a greener future, says Erik Schmidt, the city’s director of sustainability. “While Chattanooga has made great strides in reducing its energy demand (27 percent), and forging great and meaningful plans in One Chattanooga, the Parks and Outdoors Plan (POP) and the Climate Action Plan, the real work remains ahead of us.” He notes, for instance, that city officials are identifying, planning and applying for state and federal funding opportunities that are critically needed to bolster the municipal budget.

In addition, Chattanooga officials are partnering with organizations, such as utilities, academia, community-based groups, neighborhood leaders and service providers. “To this end, the city just convened its first Chattanooga Sustainability and Resilience Committee with membership reflecting the sectors above, in hopes to leverage synergies between our respective organizations’ efforts, as well as combine resources where possible to pursue funding opportunities and expand the reach of our impact and efforts,” Schmidt explains.

The Tennessee city has won awards for its sustainability initiatives. In 2019, the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE) recognized Chattanooga for achieving its Better Buildings Challenge goal of reducing energy use intensity by 20 percent. Chattanooga was the top local government performer that year, and third overall across public and private sectors.

Maria Vargas, head of the USDOE Better Buildings programs, visited Chattanooga with her staff in late 2022. Her team checked out the regional wastewater treatment and recovery facility Moccasin Bend Environmental Campus (MBEC). They put a spotlight on the MBEC team and their efforts to reduce energy consumption through plant upgrades. MBEC managers simultaneously deployed a 4-megawatt solar array to provide improved resilience and decarbonization of campus operations.

In 2023 MBEC was nominated for and received the Tennessee Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award for Energy and Renewable Resources for the array of energy-efficiency, resilience and water quality improvements ongoing at the plant. “It should be noted that despite all of these substantial plant upgrades, no sacrifice in continuity of operations or impacts to water quality have occurred. In fact, storm sewer overflows have been dramatically reduced and continue to improve based on the myriad campus upgrades,” Schmidt tells Co-op Solutions.

And there’s room for more achievements, Schmidt explains. He notes that local governments, as well as state governments, utilities, manufacturers and businesses across the southeast U.S. are rapidly adopting ambitious carbon-reduction (neutrality) goals. He adds that Chattanooga has a plan to achieve carbon-neutrality for municipal government operations by the year 2040 and has set a similar goal for the community by 2050.

Yes, the sustainability targets are ambitious, Schmidt explains. “This will require commitments from any goal-stating entity to take a real look at developing actionable plans to address emissions from fleets and facilities—the largest drivers of greenhouse gases. Metro Nashville’s government is a great example of being ahead on this, executing a portfolio-wide feasibility study for host-site suitability for rooftop solar installations, and yearly benchmarks for achieving a 100-percent conversion of light-duty vehicles to electric.”

Schmidt points to a complementary initiative: “Many cities are reinvesting in their public green spaces to achieve a greater balance with the pressures of rapid development, in order to strike a better balance and quality of life for residents, as well as help to offset air quality impacts from increased emissions.”

He adds that one other ingredient is part of the mix: “Critically, all of the above necessarily requires applying a lens of equity across all facets and addressing the disparities of historically and presently underserved and disadvantaged communities. As a result, additional focus is needed in developing plans that restore balance, resilience and benefit for all citizens.”

The Chattanooga procurement team buys goods and services through more than 800 contracts; many of them are on multi-year cycles. The city, says Schmidt, is working to boost sustainability and cut waste and inefficiencies in a variety of ways, such as reducing the actual number of products the city procures (i.e., printers, paper, vehicles, etc.); selecting Energy Star electronics or electric-powered landscape equipment; and using grant funds such as the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC)-administered (VW) Diesel Mitigation Fund to purchase new technology for expensive capital items such as compressed natural gas (CNG) refuse vehicles.

Taking these steps, says Schmidt, gives the city opportunities to try new things. “In addition, these efforts can potentially change the way we do business for greater community benefit, such as reducing vehicle emissions in neighborhoods while reducing fuel and maintenance costs.”

Schmidt says it’s crucial that local governments establish a baseline of how big their carbon footprint is as they move forward on the sustainability path. He notes that it can take substantial time to capture historical utility and fleet use for hundreds of accounts and thousands of vehicles, but the effort is well worth it. Chattanooga uses the free EPA Energy Star Portfolio Manager dashboard as a starting point.

“The dashboard enables us to drill into anomalies and heavy energy-use properties, so that we can begin to devise solutions to address energy and often occupant-comfort-related issues. From a project standpoint, making the switch to LED lights is relatively inexpensive and can yield fast payback and reductions in energy costs and related emissions that last well beyond useful life.”

He says investing in a building automation control system (available from numerous vendors) is another sustainability step that cities should consider. “The system allows you to let your buildings ‘go to sleep’ while no one is at the building. After all, why would you keep your TV or computer running 24 hours a day when you might only use it for a few hours a day?”

All of these strategies, Schmidt believes, allow governments to make incremental but meaningful changes and savings while not putting undue stress on capital budgets. “Alternatively, for procurement items such as vehicles, substantial progress can be made when they reach the end of their useful life. Not only does combustion engine vehicle transportation continually rank highest as a driver of greenhouse gas emissions, it also has been shown that overall lifetime cost of electric vehicle ownership is now at parity with traditional combustion engine vehicles due to significantly reduced maintenance and fuel (energy) costs. In the case of vehicles vs. buildings, the improvements to air quality in your community are immediate and direct, amplifying the value of making the switch.”

Michael Keating is senior editor for American City & County. Contact him at [email protected].