City of Corvallis reports now available
Dybvad, Scott
Hello everyone,
I wanted to let you know that the City of Corvallis has released our annual Sustainability Report and the 2022 Organizational Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report.
The Sustainability Report covers a 12-month period from July 2022 - June 2023, describing progress on Strategic Operational Plan actions, Corvallis Climate Action Plan municipal operations projects, organizational goals and targets, and other sustainability efforts and measures.
A few highlights:
- Cost was not the sole measure for selecting an organization to provide and clean work uniforms for Public Works staff. The Request for Proposals included an invitation for proposers
to highlight their sustainability practices, which were included in the evaluation. The selected provider, Cintas, highlighted several practices that align with our sustainability goals, including uniforms made from recycled plastic bottles, recycling water,
treating wastewater before discharge, reclaiming waste heat from boilers, and recognition as a workplace leader for women and diversity, among others.
- As part of the Climate Friendly and Equitable Communities program, Corvallis adopted parking reforms that eliminated all off-street parking requirements for all uses. In addition,
all new parking areas larger than a half-acre must either provide one-half kilowatt generation for each new parking space or provide enough trees to cover at least 40% of the parking area.
These new parking reforms aim to reduce community transportation greenhouse gases, encourage community renewable energy production, and reduce heat island effects.
We also adopted Building Code amendments requiring new commercial buildings to be solar panel ready and parking structures for new buildings be able to support electric vehicle chargers.
- The Police Department continues to purchase hybrid patrol vehicles. Purchases allotted in FY 23 / 24 will push them to 80% hybrid with an aim for 100% in the near future.
The Organizational Greenhouse Gas Inventory is completed every-other year. The 2022 inventory showed that total greenhouse gas emissions from City of Corvallis operations were 17,004 MT CO2e, or the equivalent of about 2,140 homes’ energy use over a year. We were about 1% below our 2020 emissions, but 15% below 2018, the most recent non-pandemic inventory.
We are now 13% below our 1990 baseline year. With our current emissions, a 4.35% annual reduction rate is needed to reach the 2050 target. Our trend is in the right direction, but not at the pace we need.
Enjoy reading the rest and please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Scott
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Scott Dybvad (he/him)
Sustainability Coordinator
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