Town and County 10×10: What it is and how it began
In 2007, the Jackson Town Council and Board of Teton County Commissioners took action to improve energy efficiencies and reduce heat trapping gas emissions by forming an Energy Efficiency Advisory Board (EEAB) tasked with improving energy efficiency in local governmental operations. In order to provide focus for the newly formed Board, the Town and County adopted an aggressive energy reduction target for local government operations, committing to 10% reduction in electricity and fossil fuel use by the year 2010 (10×10).
The EEAB is composed of seven community leaders that work in close coordination with citizens and Town and County staff serving on Action Teams. Action Teams have formed around seven key areas to assess government energy use and provide input and ideas for steps to meet the 10×10 challenge. These areas include: fuels and fleet, facilities energy use, green building, communication, baseline data, land use, and transportation.
Energy demand to support Town and County operations continues to grow despite historically high energy prices, mounting concerns over energy security, and the recognition of human effects on global climate change. The decisions made now regarding our energy supply and demand can either help our community address these challenges or complicate our ability to secure a stable energy future.
Improving the energy efficiency of local government buildings and facility operations, as well as reducing fossil fuel use are two of the most constructive and cost-effective ways to address these challenges. Increased investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy conservation can lower energy bills, reduce demand for fossil fuels, help stabilize energy prices and energy system reliability, and help reduce air pollutants and heat trapping gas emissions.
Looking forward, the 10×10 Action Plan, approved in January 2008, recognizes that meaningful investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy conservation in Jackson Hole cannot happen based on the work of Town and County operations alone. Through ongoing efforts by the Town and County to advance land use planning, improve multimodal transportation systems, expand recycling and use of consumables, and update building standards, Local Government can engage the larger community energy efficiency work. As efforts to achieve 10×10 result in energy savings in Town and County operations, opportunities for partnering with other organizations and business in Teton County will emerge to improve energy efficiency throughout the community. The 10×10 Action Plan identifies programs and activities to bring the appropriate stakeholders together to be part of a collaborative effort to increase energy efficiency and reduce heat-trapping gasses produced in Jackson Hole.
Achieving 10 percent energy reductions by the year 2010 will offer the Town of Jackson and Teton County substantial economic and environmental benefits. Additional substantial energy efficiency gains can be realized by expanding the scope of the 10×10 initiative to include non-governmental organizations, businesses, and residents. Through the leadership demonstrated in the 10×10 initiative and the conduct of the EEAB and Action Teams, the Town and County will collaborate with the private sector to further pursue goals set forth in the U.S Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement and the County’s Climate Change Resolution.
The work of Town and County government includes: improving the public transportation infrastructure, permitting and inspecting new buildings, developing land use plans that protect environmental resources and allow reasonable growth, and solid waste management practices that minimize costs and risks associated with burying waste. Developing plans to improve energy efficiency throughout these areas of influence can expand energy efficiency far beyond government operations, bringing the benefits of reduced energy use and corresponding cost savings, and reduction of fossil fuel use and corresponding heat trapping gas emissions.
The GfK Roper Yale Survey on Environmental Issues states that 3 in 4 Americans want their own city or local government to do more to reduce heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The EEAB recognizes that global climate change presents one of the foremost economical, social and environmental threats to our community and the world. Increasing concentrations of heat trapping pollutants in the atmosphere are causing higher temperatures, resulting in more frequent intense storms and forest fires, rising sea levels, changes in precipitation, reduced snow pack and water availability, biodiversity loss, species extinction, changes in infectious disease incidence, increases in mortality due to heat stress, and human displacement. The economy of Jackson Hole depends on sufficient and sustained snow pack and water supply, and healthy, diverse plant, fish, and wildlife populations.
Global warming is more than a quality of life issue. It is about our future ability to live in Jackson Hole and how that future rests on the choices we make in our daily lives. In order to address the threats presented by global climate change, governments, businesses and the individual citizen must commit to action now and into the future. The EEAB recognizes the need to address climate change head on with a consistent, community-wide program of energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
For more information on the Town of Jackson and Teton County’s 10×10 Initiative Action Plan visit the Town of Jackson’s Web site.
