A carbon-neutral city by 2030:

that’s the goal of Ithaca, New York’s Green New Deal, adopted in June 2019.

We’re not just talking about municipal operations or new building construction, though these are part of the resolution.

No, this is about city-wide carbon neutrality, including the electrical grid and privately owned transportation and existing buildings.

Implementation of the resolution, must correct historic economic and racial inequities.

“They gave me the resolution and were like, ‘Good luck! Go at it!’” jokes Luis Aguirre-Torres, who came on as Ithaca’s sustainability director in April 2021.

At the time, the city hadn’t yet conducted a greenhouse gas inventory to find out where its emissions were coming from, so that’s one of the first things he set out to do.

Based on a study commissioned by the City, 57% of emissions are coming from buildings, he said, making them the single highest priority for action.

Although the Green New Deal called for creation of a green building policy for existing structures by 2021, that hasn’t happened yet, so Aguirre-Torres just has incentives to work with for now.

“We’re at the very beginning of this crazy adventure,” he told BuildingGreen.