Carbon Free Boston: Waste Technical Report

Part of a series of reports that includes: Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report; Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report; Carbon Free Boston: Technical Summary; Carbon Free Boston: Buildings Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Transportation Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Energy Technical Report; Carbon Free Boston: Offsets Technical Report; Available at http://sites.bu.edu/cfb/OVERVIEW: For many people, their most perceptible interaction with their environmental footprint is through the waste that they generate. On a daily basis people have numerous opportunities to decide whether to recycle, compost or throwaway. In many cases, such options may not be present or apparent. Even when such options are available, many lack the knowledge of how to correctly dispose of their waste, leading to contamination of valuable recycling or compost streams. Once collected, people give little thought to how their waste is treated. For Boston’s waste, plastic in the disposal stream acts becomes a fossil fuel used to generate electricity. Organics in the waste stream have the potential to be used to generate valuable renewable energy, while metals and electronics can be recycled to offset virgin materials. However, challenges in global recycling markets are burdening municipalities, which are experiencing higher costs to maintain their recycling. The disposal of solid waste and wastewater both account for a large and visible anthropogenic impact on human health and the environment. In terms of climate change, landfilling of solid waste and wastewater treatment generated emissions of 131.5 Mt CO2e in 2016 or about two percent of total United States GHG emissions that year. The combustion of solid waste contributed an additional 11.0 Mt CO2e, over half of which (5.9 Mt CO2e) is attributable to the combustion of plastic [1]. In Massachusetts, the GHG emissions from landfills (0.4 Mt CO2e), waste combustion (1.2 Mt CO2e), and wastewater (0.5 Mt CO2e) accounted for about 2.7 percent of the state’s gross GHG emissions in 2014 [2]. The City of Boston has begun exploring pathways to Zero Waste, a goal that seeks to systematically redesign our waste management system that can simultaneously lead to a drastic reduction in emissions from waste. The easiest way to achieve zero waste is to not generate it in the first place. This can start at the source with the decision whether or not to consume a product. This is the intent behind banning disposable items such as plastic bags that have more sustainable substitutes. When consumption occurs, products must be designed in such a way that their lifecycle impacts and waste footprint are considered. This includes making durable products, limiting the use of packaging or using organic packaging materials, taking back goods at the end of their life, and designing products to ensure compatibility with recycling systems. When reducing waste is unavoidable, efforts to increase recycling and organics diversion becomes essential for achieving zero waste. [TRUNCATED]Published versio

Carbon Free Boston: Social equity report 2019

OVERVIEW: In January 2019, the Boston Green Ribbon Commission released its Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report, identifying potential options for the City of Boston to meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. The report found that reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 requires three mutually-reinforcing strategies in key sectors: 1) deepen energy efficiency while reducing energy demand, 2) electrify activity to the fullest practical extent, and 3) use fuels and electricity that are 100 percent free of greenhouse gases (GHGs). The Summary Report detailed the ways in which these technical strategies will transform Boston’s physical infrastructure, including its buildings, energy supply, transportation, and waste management systems. The Summary Report also highlighted that it is how these strategies are designed and implemented that matter most in ensuring an effective and equitable transition to carbon neutrality. Equity concerns exist for every option the City has to reduce GHG emissions. The services provided by each sector are not experienced equally across Boston’s communities. Low-income families and families of color are more likely to live in residences that are in poor physical condition, leading to high utility bills, unsafe and unhealthy indoor environments, and high GHG emissions.1 Those same families face greater exposure to harmful outdoor air pollution compared to others. The access and reliability of public transportation is disproportionately worse in neighborhoods with large populations of people of color, and large swaths of vulnerable neighborhoods, from East Boston to Mattapan, do not have ready access to the city’s bike network. Income inequality is a growing national issue and is particularly acute in Boston, which consistently ranks among the highest US cities in regards to income disparities. With the release of Imagine Boston 2030, Mayor Walsh committed to make Boston more equitable, affordable, connected, and resilient. The Summary Report outlined the broad strokes of how action to reach carbon neutrality intersects with equity. A just transition to carbon neutrality improves environmental quality for all Bostonians, prioritizes socially vulnerable populations, seeks to redress current and past injustice, and creates economic and social opportunities for all. This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon neutrality, framed around three guiding principles: 1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences, 2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens, and 3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Carbon Free Boston: Summary report 2019

PROJECT OVERVIEW: In 2016, Mayor Martin J. Walsh signed the Metro Mayors Climate Mitigation Commitment, pledging to make Boston carbon neutral by 2050, and asked the Boston Green Ribbon Commission (GRC) to establish a Working Group to support the City in the development of strategies to achieve carbon neutrality. In response to the Mayor’s request, the Green Ribbon Commission collaborated with the Institute for Sustainable Energy at Boston University to develop Carbon Free Boston, a long-term framework for a carbon-neutral Boston that also supports short- and medium-term action.2 Carbon Free Boston was developed through comprehensive engagement with City staff, utilities, neighboring municipalities, regional authorities, state agencies, industry experts, and community representatives, among others, and was supported by comprehensive analysis using models that project feasible pathways to carbon neutrality by 2050. To ensure meaningful and actionable outcomes, we looked across scales and considered opportunities and challenges associated with specific actions at the city, state, and regional levels. We also addressed disparities in communities’ capacity both to mitigate climate damages and to benefit from the transition to a carbon-neutral city. The Fourth National Climate Assessment by the U.S. Global Change Research Program reports that the northeast will be especially hard-hit by climate change. By mid-century, there will be 20 to 30 more days per year with a maximum temperature of more than 90°F (32°C), and the amount of precipitation in extreme events will increase by as much as 20 percent. The projected increases in extreme heat, intensive storms, and flooding will impact people’s health, property, and livelihoods, especially in socially vulnerable communities. To avoid the worst of these impacts, climate scientists call for a reduction in the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that drive climate change to a pace that keeps global temperature increases below 1.5°C, the highest increase that the Earth’s natural systems can tolerate before severe and irreversible changes occur. Meeting this commitment will require cities, including Boston, to achieve carbon neutrality, which means a 100 percent reduction in net GHG emissions by 2050

Carbon Free Boston: Summary Report 2019

Carbon Free Boston was developed through comprehensive engagement with City staff, utilities, neighboring municipalities, regional authorities, state agencies, industry experts, and community representatives, among others, and was supported by comprehensive analysis using models that project feasible pathways to carbon neutrality by 2050. To ensure meaningful and actionable outcomes, we looked across scales and considered opportunities and challenges associated with specific actions at the city, state, and regional levels. We also addressed disparities in communities' capacity both to mitigate climate damages and to benefit from the transition to a carbon-neutral city.Supporting technical reports and other resources are also available on the project web site: http://sites.bu.edu/cfb

Inform: Engaging Climate Action Through Didactic Architecture

Our climate is changing, and so must architecture. Climate change is a fundamental design problem of our time, and it requires us to critically examine and deviate from some of our established practices with regard to the building typologies, materials, systems and design approaches that we propagate. This thesis explores an alternative model for the way we build our future cities - one that is rooted in climate action. It examines the design characteristics of a high-rise timber tower in a dense urban setting, where it effectively acts as a Carbon Sink. It addresses a number of sustainable design practices within a mixed-use program that speaks to a varied audience. And in doing so, it employs didactic architecture - or architecture as a teaching tool - to educate its users about their consumption footprint and inspire them to participate in climate action on a scale that promises systemic change

Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report 2019

This Carbon Free Boston: Social Equity Report provides a deeper equity context for Carbon Free Boston as a whole, and for each strategy area, by demonstrating how inequitable and unjust the playing field is for socially vulnerable Bostonians and why equity must be integrated into policy design and implementation. This report summarizes the current landscape of climate action work for each strategy area and evaluates how it currently impacts inequity. Finally, this report provides guidance to the City and partners on how to do better; it lays out the attributes of an equitable approach to carbon-neutrality, framed around three guiding principles:1) plan carefully to avoid unintended consequences2) be intentional in design through a clear equity lens3) practice inclusivity from start to finish

Boston Climate Progress Report 2022

This report, to be updated every two years, examines Boston's progress toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, our resilience to future climate disruptions, and the equity of our climate response. It also highlights a dozen key outcomes that must be achieved by programs, projects, and initiatives whose success is imperative to reaching the overarching goals, and lays out four "big lifts," system-transforming actions which Boston—along with the broader region and state—needs to accelerate to sharply reduce net emissions

Downscaling of the emissions related to energy usage in buildings: High spatial resolution to evaluate future decarbonization policies in the city of Boston

Large cities are responsible for considerable quantities of greenhouse gases and air pollutants released in the atmosphere. In particular, the City of Boston attributes 71% of the total community-wide greenhouse gases emissions to buildings energy activity. Thus, urban buildings greenhouse gases and air pollutants emissions modeling is essential for such large cities, and it is usually performed in literature via bottom-up approaches. However, these methods involve the gathering of significant amount of data, which is often limited by the availability of detailed information. This paper proposes an innovative downscaling methodology to estimate the city’s buildings-specific energy consumption and related emissions at high spatial resolution; these estimates originate from national surveys and local data, and narrow down to the building level. The results are also forecasted in future scenarios of space heating electrification in buildings, covering the next 30 years, and visualized in 100 m x 100 m spatial cells grids to evaluate their efficacy on the city. The presented electrification measures allow significant emissions reductions and would considerably improve the city’s air quality. Nevertheless, the carbon neutrality goal by 2050 might need additional policy implementation to be achieved, such as the electrification of water heating systems. The results are scrutinized and possible solutions that would lead to decarbonization are discussed. In addition, the methodology presented in this study can be applied to other cities, as it is only limited by the level of accuracy of the available data

Urban Resilience: From Global Vision to Local Practice - Final Outcome Evaluation of the 100 Resilient Cities Program

Summer hailstorms in Mexico City, weeks-long heat waves in India, hurricane-force winds off the Great Lakes—extreme weather events are becoming commonplace, testing the resilience of local and regional governments across the world. But urban resilience extends beyond weathering climate shocks. It also entails maintaining and improving infrastructure, ecology, economy, and community at the city level.For six years, from 2013 to 2019, the 100 Resilient Cities program sought to boost the capacity of local governments across all facets of urban resilience. Although the program ended earlier than anticipated, its unprecedented breadth of participating cities and scope of intervention provided potential lessons for cities across the world as they prepare for and face an increasingly uncertain future.KEY TAKEAWAYSThe 100 Resilient Cities program included three cohorts of cities from across the globe, each of which experienced three interventions to improve city governance operational and planning capacity for resilience: the creation and selection of a Chief Resilience Officer, the development and publication of a resilience strategy, and the implementation of that strategy, with technical support provided by the program. The Urban Institute monitored and evaluated the core features of the 100 Resilient Cities program for almost seven years, with this final report focusing on the outcomes for city planning and operations attributable to interventions across a 21-city sample. From this program, we believe the following lessons learned can help cities improve their resilience moving forward.Cities must focus on chronic social vulnerability in addition to unexpected shocks. Although cities must be prepared for extreme weather events and civil unrest, both of which can cause extreme devastation, they must also address ongoing issues, such as failing infrastructure and health care accessibility.Chief Resilience Officers and robust networks can facilitate city-to-city learning. As with any program, collaboration and sharing of knowledge can benefit all parties involved. The network of Chief Resilience Officers could advocate for successful resilience strategies from other cities, which could lead to more collaboration in local governments and across regions.Resilient governance requires more voices to be involved in planning and development. Foregrounding inclusion and equity is crucial for building resilience, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to many underlying systemic inequities in countries across the world.Resilience building takes a long time. Despite the necessary urgency of building resilience, solutions take a long time to implement and need consistent funding and support to fulfill their potential. When the 100 Resilient Cities program ended early, many cities had developed plans and strategies but lost the support that would have helped them enact those solutions. Ongoing political and funder support is critical for long-term resilience

The blue city: Urban metabolism and the energy-water nexus

Urban environments sit at an intersection of technology, resource consumption, population, culture, and economics. With an increasingly urbanized population across the globe comes an increased demand for resources including water, food, and energy. The study of resource consumption in cities and urban environments, therefore, offers potential for conservation and efficiency increases. Water resources are integral to the necessary functioning of the city and its future sustainability. Not only are water resources directly procured and utilized within the city, water is also consumed in the production of other resources, including food and energy. However, these direct and indirect water resources of cities are understudied, with data that are scattered and inaccessible, if they exist at all. This dissertation utilized the principles of the food-energy-water nexus, urban water, material flow analysis/urban metabolism, and urban water governance to discuss the magnitude and importance of water resources in the urban environment. Open data and data availability played an integral role throughout the analysis. First, the availability of direct water volume (drinking water and wastewater) and its embedded energy data were discussed. The lack of existing data prompted the use of open records requests to build a database of urban water and energy data for cities across the United States. The collected data were then evaluated to quantify the state of the urban energy-water nexus. Additionally, the information from this database was compared to other material flows and their water footprints to characterize the extent of direct and indirect water resources in cities. Following the quantification of water resources and their impact in cities from a civil engineering framework, statistical modeling was completed to identify indicators of urban water use considering socioeconomic and environmental factors. Finally, through these studies, the underlying theme of open data in water resources was discussed in its relationship to governance regimes. The role of open data in sustainable urban water governance revealed a path forward for policy and future data publication to promote sustainable water systems and the concept of the blue city. In summary, this dissertation both quantifies the magnitude of water resources in cities throughout the United States and promotes the need for further open data. The resultant databases of water and wastewater utilities represents a service population of over 80 million people. The annual embedded energy within national water and wastewater resources was estimated to be 1% of total electricity produced in the United States. Additionally, non-revenue water, estimated at 16% of total treated drinking water, contributed to a significant amount of both water and energy loss. Data for indirect water resources were even more scarce and require a shift in urban water governance to create opportunities for greater data collection and synthesis. The overall results promote greater understanding of the urban water cycle through data collection of direct and indirect water resources, inclusion of embedded energy at the urban scale, and the need for a social sciences perspective when studying the drivers and governance structures of urban water resources