43 Consumption is nearly 50% of our GHG emissions. This is huge but will take time to educate the public and to get manufacturers to change their ways. We should buy GHG offsets through “fees” and apply the money to local renewable energy production and water use savings incentives (e.g. EPC’s – see below). Transportation accounts for 23% of Ashlanders GHG emissions, and is also somewhat gnarly to address. It can, however, be addressed in the long run with integrated transportation and land use policies, as more and more vehicles become electric, if we can educate people to drive less and bike/walk more, provide suitable, frequent mass transportation, and encourage grocery stores to have delivery services thereby reducing traffic flow to the grocery stores. Buildings account for 27% of all of Ashland's GHG emissions and presents the lowest hanging fruit for making meaningful changes. • We need to make even more incentives available to people in order for them to retrofit their buildings to being more energy efficient, and to educate them on how to turn thermostats appropriately to conserve energy. • We need to get solar pv on every building that has the appropriate exposure. We could create neighborhood level “solar pv” cooperatives where several homes/businesses/apartments etc could develop a cooperative where those that have proper solar exposure would have panels paid for by the cooperative, and all would share in the fruits of reduced energy costs across the cooperative. • We need to drastically reduce or remove natural gas as a heating and cooking option and go to all electricity. • Our housing stock in Ashland is 50% rentals. Most landlords are not interested in insulating, replacing windows, etc. if it is not going to make them more money on their rentals. Likewise, some owner occupied residences are not retrofitting because the incentives are not worth it to them (yet). Therefore, we need incentives for them to do so. o "energy savings performance contracts" like what the federal government is doing with its buildings where bonded contractors come in and perform retrofits and the owners pay nothing up front. If the energy savings over a horizon of time (say 10-20 years) is demonstrated, then owners never have to pay a cent. If they don’t demonstrate enough energy savings over that period of time, then they are obligated to pay for the cost of the services plus interest.... read more here https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2013/09/05/expect-deep-retrofits-federal-buildings- heres-why. o Take the city of Boulder CO city facilities energy performance contract. They have chosen …”It is important that the city leads by example and does its part to reduce the community'senergy consumption and GHG emissions”. In June 2009, the City of Boulder partnered with the Colorado Energy Office on an Energy Performance Contract (EPC),which has enabled the city to make significant energy efficiency upgrades to 66 city facilities. The EPC allowed the City of Boulder to enter into a 2009 lease purchase agreement with McKinstry to implement efficiency upgrades that will be paid off over time using the guaranteed savings from reduced energy and water bills. The upgrades do not cost Boulder taxpayers any additional money and the community will benefit from reduced operations and maintenance costs.  The city's strategic investments in energy efficiency, renewable technologies and water- saving devices will be offset by decreased utility bills and maintenance costs.  The EPC project is a prime example of city programs that are both environmentally and fiscally responsible.  Employee Awareness and Engagement - powerED Program. The powerED program is part of the Energy Performance Contract and is an employee behavior change campaign intended to reduce energy consumption in city facilities. The program began in 2014, and focuses on three areas: People: engage occupants and increase awareness; Process: engage operators and optimize systems; and Performance: energy savings progress tracking and reporting (using a dashboard).  More info https://bouldercolorado.gov/public-works/energy-efficiency-upgrades-at-city-facilities-energy-performance-contract o Portland also has an ordinance. See 5.34.880 Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPC) for Portland: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/citycode/article/553736 . o Here is an example of Energy Performance Contracts for Local Governments for New York State – industry standards and best practices guide – 2013: An EPC uses those energy savings to finance the cost of new equipment and other capital improvements over several years. In addition, by bundling multiple small up-front improvements, an EPC allows local governments to leverage money from quick paybacks on those improvements to finance the larger scale investments. In a typical EPC process, the local government hires a private energy services company (ESCO) to conduct an investment-grade energy audit1 of its assets and identify cost-saving energy improvements. If the local government and ESCO agree to pursue the contract, the ESCO guarantees a level of cost savings to result from implementation of the energy improvements. An EPC can vary in scope. Some contracts are for just one building or a sample of buildings, while others are for managing an entire portfolio of buildings. http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/epcguide.pdf Natural systems: • If we planted trees around all of the houses to reduce the amount of energy that must be consumed to air condition a home, we need to be smart about it in order to also optimize the availability of rooftops to put solar pv onto. • It might be worthwhile to check with the Forest Service to see if they would be interested in partnering with the City of Ashland by allowing the Ashland Watershed carbon sequestration GHG gas mitigation to be claimed by the City. 6/1/2016 10:53 AM 12 / 26 Ashland Climate and Energy Action Plan: Public Input Survey

Climate and Energy Action Plan (CEAP)