The document analyzes Puget Sound Clean Air's Evergreen Fleets Initiative to modernize government vehicle fleets using green technologies. The author created best practices documents for the City of Issaquah and analyzed steps to update best practices and improve data collection for evaluating fleets. Recommendations include improved data management, communication between agencies, analyzing industry standards, and new technological partnerships like electric vehicles and bicycles to reduce emissions.
1. Green My Fleet: An Analysis of Puget Sound Clean Air’s Evergreen Fleets Initiative of Green Fleet Modernization David Perlmutter Community, Environment, and Planning (CEP) Department of Urban Design & Planning University of Washington May 6, 2010 http://greenmyfleet.blogspot.com/
Many municipalities and other agencies wish to reduce their fleet emissions due to rising fuel prices, global warming, and increased federal funding for alternative fuel vehicles and technology Evergreen Fleets is a certification program run by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency that awards certification to fleets demonstrating emissions reductions and investment in alternative fuel technologies
Lots of local participation (Starbucks, City of Seattle, UW, Port of Seattle, Boeing, King Co, cities around the region ARRA (stimulus funding) - $15 million to Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition alone Most research is very current, constantly changing information – chance to get in on this field while it’s still hot
My research question is: what is the best way for large public and private fleets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and achieve Green Fleets certification? More importantly, what changes are needed in similar certification programs to 1) improve their effectiveness in reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG); and 2) invest in alternative fuel technology to achieve this end?
Evergreen Fleets is a very small pilot project administered by two (2) staff persons at Puget Sound Clean Air. The amount of success they’ve had with this project already is staggering given their limited resources. Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition is a federal incentive program run by the US Dept. of Energy to encourage fleets across the country to reduce emissions, though these programs are voluntary incentives (through grants), broken up by metro areas RCO’s also called sustainability or environment offices in larger cities, sometimes done through public utility departments or engineering/public works in smaller cities. In some cases, just a city manager Fleets are people who actually make this happen, put policy into action. 10 years ago “sustainability” was very controversial application to fleets, now at least locally most fleet managers are on board because of greater federal incentives of funding, tech, environmental PR, cost savings Carbon exchange markets important because they provide stronger enforcement mechanism for reducing emissions, like Chicago Climate Exchange or carbon neutrality agreements in Madrid, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Sweden VCs are important because you must convince them a new technology is worthwhile before they will give you funding. Getting it actually off the ground is another story because often investors don’t come through, rich people change their minds
Green Fleets Plan is important because cities must set benchmarks for themselves if they’re going to be successful. Part of the reason Seattle has been so successful is that it’s been setting GF goals for itself since at least 1999, plan was officially released in 2003. First plan called for cutting the city’s emissions by 7% below 1990 levels by 2012, which it achieved ahead of schedule in 2007. They’re now trying to go “carbon neutral” by 2030, although there are many doubts over whether this is even possible Vehicle purchasing is very important because there must be a market for green fuels and green vehicles for these changes to be implemented. Part of the advantage in working with fleets is their very size changes the marketplace. If the City of Chicago or Seattle decides it wants a new vehicle, like the Nissan Leaf for instance, its demand will probably be in the hundreds of new vehicles, which helps to drive the price down and make it a more affordable model overall. “ Right size” requirement – are you using the correct sized vehicle for the job? Fuel consumption, vehicle use tracking – one of the major problems I ran into with the City of Issaquah, that they didn’t have information on VMT by drivers, often times fuel consumption info was incomplete or just inaccurate. Fuel-efficient driving – driver behavior (idling, frequent braking or acceleration) can impact fuel efficiency of any model up to 30% Preventive maintenance – look at fleets from a holistic perspective – not just vehicles but their maintenance – where do these products come from, what is their composition and environmental impacts, how are they purchased and disposed of? City of Seattle’s social equity element of this policy Diesel vehicle retrofits – most of City of Seattle’s cuts in emissions come from fully retrofitting about 500 diesel vehicles with retrofit technology – these technologies can cut emissions by 50-80% and even make diesel a cleaner burning fuel than petroleum gasoline. Green car-sharing can promote healthy, walkable urban design in addition to cutting VMT and emissions
Describe how biodiesel from corn or soy is out, waste vegetable oil biodiesel is in, just don’t tell Evergreen Fleets
Cut emissions through dense, walkable urban design Tesla roadster Carbon neutrality – is it the future?
See exercise 5, don’t wanna bore people to death Most cities don’t have BPs, give them a grace period to develop templates Organizational disconnect – EF is out of touch with many technological improvements. There is a danger that cities’ progress will supersede the EF standards and make the entire certification program look like a joke. Create a “facebook” or social network agent for fleet managers