Mayor de Blasio Expands NYC’s Carbon Challenge
On September 22, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded the NYC Carbon Challenge, a voluntary leadership initiative and a public-private partnership between the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability and various private, institutional and nonprofit sectors.
The expansion involves 13 partners taking the Carbon Neutral by 2030 pledge. Google, Barclays, and Credit Suisse are committing to achieve carbon neutrality for select buildings in the City by 2030. The pledge will have the effect of taking 78,000 cars off the road, saving approximately $175 million in energy costs, and creating an estimated 1,000 green jobs.
Entities taking part in the pledge will receive assistance from the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability and the NYC Accelerator program. This program provides free, personalized guidance to energy-saving upgrades. With the assistance and advice, the entities can develop and implement long-term deep energy retrofit plans. A deep energy retrofit is a renovation of an existing building to reduce energy use and cost significantly. The entities expect to engage in electrification and install new devices to receive incentive awards from local utilities and New York State.
The pledge also highlights what NYC Accelerator has to offer in 2021. NYC Accelerator has relaunched its program after having had to suspend at an earlier point due to COVID-19.
Over 100 participants have already taken the NYC Carbon Challenge pledge. The pledge involves committing to a reduction in carbon emissions of 50 percent or greater by 2025. As of 2021, participants have cut annual emissions by 580,000 metric tons of carbon and recognize almost $190 million per year in energy savings.
Rei Moya, chief operating officer at Beam Living, said its work as a real estate management company has included doubling solar capacity by installing solar panels on the roofs of all 110 of its buildings, replacing 13,000 common area lightbulbs with LEDs, and embedding advanced sensors throughout one of its complexes to help manage energy use.
“Achieving the NYC Carbon Challenge’s ambitious target requires ongoing, focused action. (This) is why we are continuing to investigate ways to bring even more cutting-edge efficient energy solutions to our community,” said Moya.
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