Public Buildings Portfolio Management: Eugene, OR

The City of Eugene has a long-standing commitment to city-wide energy management and sustainability. In 1995 Eugene began tracking and evaluating their public building energy data. The city saw the value of energy management from both a financial and environmental perspective.

Eugene’s Sustainability Commission is a policy advisory body that played a key role in the development of the city’s climate action plan and carbon goals. In September 2010, Eugene City Council approved the City Manager’s recommendation to implement actions in support of the Community Climate and Energy Action Plan goals and objectives, including:

• Reduction of community-wide fossil fuel consumption 50 percent by 2030
• Reduction of community-wide greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020
•  Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions so that all city facilities are carbon neutral by 2020

The City of Eugene understands the importance of leadership-by-example in their community. The triple-bottom-line concept is a very important driver for the City of Eugene. Staff responsible for city energy management work closely with the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB, the local municipal utility) to make these processes as streamlined as possible. However, Eugene was in need of a deeper dive into their municipal benchmarking strategies. They wanted to know how to use this data to identify inefficient buildings, prioritize upgrades, update operational strategies, and guide policy. They also wanted to know how their approaches compared to other cities of the same size.