Located in Southern California, Los Angeles is often equated with air pollution, traffic congestion, urban-sprawl and coal power. Yet, since his election in 2005, mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has launched a very ambitious environmental program to turn Los Angeles into one of the greenest cities in United States. With a very strong green agenda, here is how L.A. may soon become the cleanest and greenest large city in North America.
According to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, Honolulu and the Los Angeles metropolitan area have the smallest carbon footprint among American cities. L.A. is ranked 2nd, in front of Portland and San Francisco, two areas considered among the greenest cities in the U.S. Since 2005, Los Angeles has been taking steps to shrink its carbon footprint to become a model of sustainability.
In 2005, the majority of power Los Angeles used came from coal plants and only 3% came from renewable sources of electricity. The mayor’s office set a goal for the city to hit 20 percent “green” energy by 2010. On January 13, 2011, Mayor Villaraigosa proclaimed at a City Hall press conference that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), the city-owned water and electric power utility, had generated 20% of the electricity it sold to its customers in 2010 from renewable energy sources. Thanks to a new strong renewable energy policy, in less than 10 years, the DWP was able to dramatically increase its use of renewable sources from 3% to 20% and successfully achieved its goal.
Green regulations have also been a key to decrease Los Angeles’ energy demand by encouraging green initiatives such as solar panel roof installations and embracing green building practices. Los Angeles now requires all new public buildings to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards provided by the US Green Building Council. The city of Los Angeles can now boast seven LEED certified-buildings, among them the Los Angeles Getty Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center, that reached LEED-EB Gold level status for the 4.1 million square feet built on a 54-acre property and became the largest convention center in the nation to achieve this milestone.
Being among the most arid regions of California encouraged the city of Los Angeles to lay out a long-term plan to conserve water. The LA Department of Water is the largest consumer of electricity in the state, yet, since 1980, Los Angeles’ water consumption has remained steady despite an increase of more than 1 million people. The LADWP is aiming for “20 by 2020″: reducing residential water usage by 20 percent by 2020. This impressive record has been possible thanks to an aggressive conservation and water recycling program. By 2030, the population of Los Angeles is expected to increase by 500,000 people, pushing up water demand in the City by 15 percent. To meet the growing demand, the Mayor’s water plan – “Securing LA’s Water Supply” – calls for meeting half of the new water demand by 2030 through conservation and the other 50 percent by water recycling.
Transportation and Air quality
Since January 2011, you will not find a diesel bus in the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) fleet. Today, Metro boasts a fleet of 2,221 Compressed Natural Gas buses, plus six gasoline-electric hybrid buses and one electric bus. Compared with diesel buses, Metro’s new CNG fleet reduces cancer-causing particulate matter by more than 80 percent. Thanks to the switch from diesel to CNG, Metro avoids emitting nearly 300,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per day. The green bus fleet is just one aspect of the clean air action plan.
According to Nancy Helen Sutley, former deputy mayor for Energy and Environment in Los Angeles: “LA hasn’t spent a dime in 15 years on expanding freeway capacity.” Instead, the city has focused on building carpool lanes, making the city more bike-friendly and expanding public transport.
Developing a better public transportation system also helps improve air quality. Under Mayor Villaraigosa, Los Angeles has made considerable improvements in air quality. “With the Clean Air Action Plan, Los Angeles is leading the fight to clean air by reducing dirty emissions from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which account for 20 percent of the toxic air emissions in the South Coast Air Basin.” (The Mayor’s First Term air plan.)
Los Angeles produces 8,000 tons of garbage every day. With limited landfill space, LA needs to recycle and compost green waste. Currently, 71 percent of Los Angeles’ trash is recycled, well above the 33 percent U.S. average, making Los Angeles a leader among major cities with its recycling program.
After the implementation and expansion of the multifamily recycling program and the restaurant food waste program, recycling has increased by 60,000 tons per year since 2005, providing recycling services to more than 380,000 additional multifamily residences with blue bin recycling and 730 restaurants with food waste composting. In addition, collection and recycling of yard trimmings has increased by almost 95,000 tons in the last four years.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa created a number of other green initiatives to make Los Angeles a cleaner, greener and more environmentally friendly city:
- The Mayor’s office has launched the community effort Million Trees LA, which is fully focused on planting a million tree throughout the Los Angeles Metropolitan area.
- In 2005 after his election, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa challenged the City to open thirty-five park sites. In 2012 the goal was achieved and exceeded: 51 parks have been created around the City!
- Los Angeles is also among the 1000 American cities that agreed to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 2009 and the city met the Kyoto targets for reducing greenhouse gases four years ahead of schedule!
Thanks to strict green regulations and an ongoing commitment, the Los Angeles landscape is quickly changing to become one of the greenest big cities in the world. There is still a long way to become a international model of urban sustainability, yet, the City has taken the right green path for a cleaner future.