Clayton Releases Carbon Inventory

January 25, 2011

The City of Clayton announced the release of its  Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory – a report detailing the sources and amounts of global warming pollution for which the Clayton community and government is responsible. The City generated the report, in part, through membership in ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability.  

The comprehensive inventory of greenhouse gas emissions reveals that the community emitted 472,466 tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent in the baseline year of 2006 - 68% of emissions came from the commercial sector, 19% from the residential sector, 12% from transportation within the City and 1% from waste sent to a landfill. A high percentage of total emissions (76%) came from electricity usage throughout the City.

“The City of Clayton is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to protect the community from the potentially devastating impacts of global warming,” said Mayor Linda Goldstein. “We want ideas and participation from City residents, business people and visitors as well as from experts and leaders in transportation, building efficiency and power generation.” 

”The City of Clayton is a vital part of the effort in Missouri to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said ICLEI Midwest Regional Office Director Michael Davidson. “ICLEI is proud to acknowledge achievement of the important Milestone One.” 

Existing local efforts have already reduced the City’s emissions significantly from what they would be otherwise. For example, since converting all signalized intersections from incandescent to LED signal head lighting in 2008 and replacing all incandescent pedestrian heads with LED lighting in 2009, investment in these efforts alone reduced emissions by over 500 tons.

Clayton plans to continue its effort to aggressively reduce global warming pollution from City-owned buildings and fleets, as well as to assist the community at large in reducing its global warming pollution. The next step is for Clayton to establish an emissions reduction target and develop a list of actions that will help the community meet the goal once the steps are implemented.

The top source of global warming pollution was commercial electricity, followed by residential electricity, and then commercial natural gas and transportation gasoline.