BRAINTREE'S CARBON FOOTPRINT
The Energy Task Force is concerned first and foremost with how our community’s energy usage affects our environment. One of the most easily quantifiable of these effects is the amount of carbon dioxide (the most prevalent greenhouse gas) we emit, commonly referred to as a "carbon footprint".
One of the first tasks undertaken by our group in 2009 was to work with the Town and local utilities to collect data on the energy usage of the three sectors of our community: Municipal, Commercial and Residential. The 2009 data was compiled into a report entitled the Carbon Footprint for the Community of Braintree, MA. All of the efforts of the Energy Task Force relate in some way to reducing of the Town’s carbon footprint. Below is a summary of the full report (the full report is here).
Summary of the Carbon Footprint Report
Carbon dioxide is one of at least six pollutants implicated in global warming and climate change. We wanted to know how much carbon dioxide, generally referred to as carbon, was emitted from our electricity use, burning fuels for comfort heating, fuel burned in our vehicles, and waste disposal. For our community carbon footprint, we looked at 2009 energy usage because we were able to elicit the invaluable assistance from the Mayor’s Office, the School Department, the Tax Assessor, BELD, and National Grid. We also used energy conversion factors from the US Department of Energy, the USEPA, and Census Bureau.
Results
12,065 tons of carbon from the Municipal sector
403,720 tons of carbon from the Residential sector
777,016 tons of carbon from the Commercial & Industrial sector
1,192,800 total tons of CO2 for our Community = 2,385,600,000 lbs of CO2
Our community of 11,000 households, 35,500 registered vehicles, 1300 businesses and supporting Town Government emitted over two billion pounds of carbon in 2009. Imagine what the other 349 cities and towns in our state are also emitting. Now you can see how this easily escalates into a regional, even a global issue, needing individual and collective talent and imagination within all communities to create real solutions.
Other interesting facts
- The Commercial & Industrial sector is the largest carbon emitter in our community (66% of all emissions). Comfort heat from this sector alone represents 85% of this sector’s emissions.
- The Residential sector is the second largest emitter in our community (33% of total emissions). Residential driving (65%) represents the single dominating emission source followed by comfort heat (31%) and electric use (13%).
- The Municipal sector represents only 1% of the total carbon emissions in our community. It is analogous to being a large business. The main sources were electric usage (55%) followed by comfort heat (36%). The largest municipal emitter is the school department (64% of the total) simply because of the number and size of buildings it maintains.
As this is our first town-wide carbon footprint, it represents an effort to establish a baseline to compare our community’s future efforts toward sustainability. Working with Town Government, Sustainable Braintree will use this and future reports to gauge our community’s progress toward a more sustainable and quality lifestyle.
