Justin Gish is Kalamazoo’s sustainability planner. He gathered data from Google, Consumers Energy and other sources to calculate emissions from city operations.
Gish found that water and waste water treatment take the most energy and therefore release the most greenhouse gases. He suggested the city look into grants for solar-powered infrastructure.
“What we’re looking at for the city is trying to figure out the permitting process and what that looks like for folks, and if there’s any hiccups there,” he said.
Mary Ann Renz is a member of the Kalamazoo chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby. She said she was surprised by the finding, and she hopes Consumers Energy will switch to renewables.
“If they were to transfer the greater portion of their energy supply to renewable energy, then that would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from the city from their waste water processing,” said Renz.
The city will release data on community-wide greenhouse gas emissions in March.
Gish said that beyond city operations, “[We] just need to be mindful of the energy we use and figure out ways to decrease that. It could be efficiency programs or some type of renewable energy system on the house or your business.”