All right everybody welcome to the sustainability framework advisory
committee it is 102 we are in the City Council work session room we do have a
quorum barely so we will go ahead and begin with our first item well it's
Friday May 26 let me go ahead and add that we will go ahead and begin with our
item for individual consideration. Item A consider approval of the April 28 2023
minutes. Does anyone have a chance to look over those? Do you have any concerns? Questions? Comments? Motions? I move approval. Okay all right. All in favor? I. I. All right we will move on to
item B. Receive a report. Hold a discussion regarding an update on the
city's organizational performance management tools and resources. And we have Amy Kaslick our Chief Strategic Officer here today. And just a reminder we're using the mics from above. Okay. So that's for everyone.
So good afternoon I'm Amy Kaslick I am the city's Chief Strategy Officer and I'm
here today to provide you with an update on the overall city's organizational
strategy and share the work that's being done across the organization. So last
summer council revised and reaffirmed their key focus areas as you see here on
the screen. These focus areas really are the foundation for all that we do. You'll
also know that among these six key focus areas are promote sustainability and the
environment. So the position of Chief Strategy Officer was created last fall
to help ensure that the organization is focused on strategy. So I want to take a
few minutes to share with you the reasons why strategic planning is so
important for us. One it helps set the overall direction of the city. It creates
a focus ensures that we are focused on the right things. It aligns the
organization around a common set of goals and really in doing that it also
helps us break down silos across the organization as we work to achieve those
goals. It lets those goals take the lead in the decision-making process and in
general it makes us more aware of and responsive to the community and the
organizational needs because oftentimes when creating strategic plans you're
bringing in a lot of customer feedback into that process so you've got that
focus on those needs. Today we're going to be focused on those last two boxes
where strategic planning really is a management tool and it creates
accountability across the organization. So because that's so important to us as
an organization we have launched a strategic plan dashboard that really
helps us to bolster transparency throughout the community. So we have a
new strategic plan dashboard it launched actually in March. It highlights over
100 initiatives across the organization that are aligned with council's key
focus areas. I'm going to take a closer look hopefully this will work and open up
this dashboard to share that with you.
I was going to say I probably opened it three times. Okay so this is the city's new strategic
planning dashboard we're actually able to have this dashboard convert into or
translate into 22 different languages. It also optimizes based on whichever
device you're using whether that's a widescreen monitor if you're using an
iPad or even a cell phone it will optimize to each one of those devices. So
in this we provide an overview of the city of Denton of its strategic plan. We
also have a link to highlights from the last year prior to the strategic planning
dashboard being built. You'll see on here that we then have the city's six key
focus areas. The blue line you see here is a progress bar so it shows the
percent of completion for all of the initiatives that are aligned with this
particular key focus area. And then you'll see some different colors on the
bar. This is indicative of the statuses of initiatives that are aligned with each
of these key focus areas. So green is on track, yellow means that there are some
minor disruptions so there may be a delay in timely completion of the
initiative. Red means there have been some major disruptions that absolutely
will delay the timely completion of an initiative. Purple means we've got
initiatives that are out there in the future. Their start date just hasn't
come about yet. Everything in this plan has been updated otherwise we would see
a gray bar to say that you know there are things that haven't received an
update yet. Just in case that was a lot of information we follow that up with a
legend to tell you what each of those colors mean. So I'm going to take a
deeper dive into to promote sustainability and the environment. So
we're able to take a closer look at that. Once we open up this particular key
focus area we see a bit of data and this is data from our most recent community
survey. So it has data around the overall quality of the natural environment, water
resources, preservation of natural areas, cleanliness, and air quality. Again
repeating what we saw on the previous screen we see the percent completion for
all of those initiatives that are aligned with these this key focus area
and then the statuses of those initiatives. Next we'll see. Yes sir. Is
that alright if I interrupt? Go ahead. Yeah can you just scroll down back down a
little bit? Yeah yeah. Here? No a little further. You said there's something that
shows the status. Right so on the previous screen there is a legend to
just tell you what each of those colors mean. So but do they does this plan
specifically target and tell the people what isn't working or what's behind? Yes.
It does. Yes it does. Thank you. And you'll see that in just a moment. So then we have
two strategic objectives underneath this particular key focus area. So we'll take
a look at the first one which is preserve existing natural resources.
You'll see that the initiatives that are aligned with this particular objective
overall we have a 50% progress rate. We have 66% that are on track and then 33%
that are completed for this particular strategic objective. And so then we're
able to open that. And what we see next are all of the initiatives that are
aligned with this particular strategic objective. So if we take a closer look
then at let's choose create wildlife corridor map we're able to then drill
down another level in the plan. We can open this item and then we see the last
update that was provided for this particular initiative. Another neat thing
about this platform is we're able to upload documents and embed links. So if
you wanted to you would able you would be able to click here and read the
report that was provided to council.
Another thing in here is that you're able to search the plan. So let's say you
wanted to know about maybe about bike lanes. You would go to the search bar and
here we see we have two initiatives that mention bikes. One is expand the
Hartley Field mountain bike trail and the other is expand the bike and
pedestrian network. So we'll go ahead and open that one and again we see the
percent complete and then we see that last update that was provided by the
initiatives owner.
Any questions on this? Well I just have a general overall question because we are
the we have the simply sustainable plan and so these are key focus areas. How do
these go hand-in-hand? Because I'm about to get to that. Okay, all right thank you.
Yes, but if there are any questions on this particular dashboard. Okay I'm going
to go back to the presentation and so then to answer your question. So we are
using the same platform to bolster transparency and accountability across
the organization. So we have already built a plan, built and launched a plan
for the economic development strategic plan. Denton's public library. They are
required to prepare a strategic plan every five years. Theirs has now been
launched. Park's master plan is about to be launched and then we are in the
process of building out simply sustainable. So I'll give you a high
level overview of that but there there's still more building to be done with this
particular one. But knowing that implementation of this plan is a
priority for council that is why that one is one of the ones that has been
chosen to move forward sooner rather than later.
So here's a draft of the simply sustainable dashboard. So you'll see that
we have a brief overview of that particular plan. You can actually access
the full report for that plan directly from this dashboard and then we shared
some of the guiding principles behind behind the plan. And that plan has eight
and I'm going to lose the words for this goal focus areas. Okay different plans
have different names for the various levels. So in this one we have a focus
area so we've created a space for each of those. You don't see the progress and
the highlights here yet because again this one is under construction. This one
is not a live dashboard but you'll be able to take a deeper dive into each one
of these and then you'll see the overall goals that align with that key focus
area and then the strategies underneath that. Once this is fully built out you'll
then get to go further into each one of those strategies and read about the
initiatives and again see the progress and the status of each of those
initiatives. And that's that's where we're at with that particular plan and
again it is to make sure that we have that accountability and we have that
transparency around the work being done.
Any further questions? On the previous slide where or rather the the sub
sections in there underneath each of our focus areas some of our goals are goals
and a little amorphic and not necessarily a short-term step-by-step
approach like improving resiliency in our community or something it's not
something that has one set task and it has a progress bar attached to it. So I'm
just curious if some of our longer-term planning is there a way to compile
those actions taken as you have in the previous slides where it's like this is
the last update that happens in regards to this topic. Can it be sorted to where you
can see each of those steps that we've taken toward that goal even though it's
not necessarily there's not necessarily a finish line at the end? So in this in
this environment what we would do with that is as you go into this particular
item you would see there's a again very flexible but what I would envision in
that case is a space here that just gives those highlights of all the work
that that's being done that maybe isn't task oriented and you can really get
some highlights for each of these areas. Does that answer your question? Yes.
Anybody else? Two quick questions. Just so I know when you say the strategic plan is that the 20-40?
That's the comprehensive plan. That is also being built. These are different plans.
Okay. And the good thing is where there is crossover we're able to create one
initiative and link it to as many plans as we need to link to so that that
connectivity is there. Okay. The other one is this is really impressive. Do you do you
feel like you have the staff to update this because there's a lot to kind of
think of probably? It's just me. No really? No it's so so I get to do all the
build right so I do all the build but fortunately for all of those
initiatives that you see below each of these we actually have initiative owners
in the departments and so they're able to go in they have ownership of their
initiatives and they provide their their updates and then and then as I can train
more people in the organization to be able to take ownership to the extent
possible then I do that as well. All right. Very good. Thank you so much. This is great.
I can tell you that we're really excited. I don't know how many people may remember
DSMART which is what we use to track the sustainability plan starting in 2012. We
had that for five or six years. It was an application built for us to use for that
plan and then we lost access to it after five years I think and we're trying to
roll it into something else so having this come online it's been exciting.
Thank you. Nice to meet you as well. All right so we will move on to our next item.
Receiver report hold a discussion and give staff direction regarding climate
action and adaptation plan targets and actions prioritization.
Awesome. So yeah I'm Carol Fraser SSG sustainability solutions group coming to this
group again for the third time regarding the climate action and adaptation plans
so today I'm here to talk about the targets and actions that we're
recommending. So as a reminder last time I was here I was discussing our
projections of Denton's emissions over time between now and 2050. So that top line
that you're seeing is the business as planned scenario that we've modeled with
emissions projected to reach about 1700 megatons of CO2 by 2050 and we've put
that in juxtaposition to the goals that were adopted by City Council to
reduce emissions by 46% by 2030 and to net zero by 2050. So as you can see
there's quite a gap between businesses planned and those goals and these
actions are meant to address that gap and reduce emissions down to those levels. By
sector we have a picture here of those businesses planned emissions so in
nearly every sector except for buildings we're projecting that emissions would
rise over time and that transportation would continue to be the largest source
of emissions in the City of Denton increasing by nearly 40% by 2050. So we've put
together actions by sector starting with transportation. So here are some targets
for 2030 and 2050 regarding transportation in Denton. First of all by 2030 increasing
biking and walking to 12% of all trips. Currently right now there are about 5% of all trips so that's a little bit more than doubling over the next seven years and then by 2050 increasing that again to about 20% of all trips.
This doesn't include transit, just biking and walking. In terms of electric vehicles, zero emission vehicles, the goal would be by 2030 for 60% of new vehicles registered in Denton to be zero emissions and by 2050 that figure would be 100% in vehicles with zero emissions.
In terms of the actions that can be taken to meet these goals and targets so encouraging walking, biking, transit and alternative travel modes, encouraging the purchase and use of EVs and e-bikes, building out infrastructure for people to move and gather safely for example the bike trail network and the bike network in general as you see here and that's from the most recent mobility plan.
Other actions to meet those goals would be to take action and create policies that reduce travel distances and increase local access to resources so people's daily needs. Creating low emission zones that restrict or rather encourage traveling to those places by bike or by transit other than driving alone and that increase transit ridership.
Actions to reconsider parking so taking a look at parking minimums considering parking maximums and looking at ways that parking fees charges for parking can fund non-car based infrastructure improvements on that bike network, sidewalks, street trees, that kind of thing.
Another action would be to facilitate V-charging infrastructure, developing the EV charger network around the city that can promote EV use and alleviate that feeling of range anxiety, am I going to have enough charge or am I going to be able to charge once it gets to my destination.
And finally creating an EV strategy that identifies how various partners including DCTA, universities, etc. can build up that network and encourage EV adoption.
We have some city of Denton specific targets as well for the city's fleet so the first one being by 2030, 60% of new city fleet will be zero emissions vehicles.
And that by 2050 the fleet will be ride sized so considerations around using the most efficient vehicle for the usage purpose of the trip and that all of the city's vehicles will be under the science of emissions.
And in addition to that ride sizing it would be an action taken by the city to fully embrace the EV adopt options as they're available so that's across the different types of vehicles the city needs to do its business.
And to create solar charging for the EV fleet so on-site mechanisms for doing that charging.
We'll stop here for a second, does anyone have any questions on the one-week transportation?
I think so.
Alright we'll go Ed first.
I just wondered is the school district which is ever expanding, are they included in the EV?
In terms of the actions or the...
Actions and just the future projection but when you say city fleet does that include DISD school bus fleet?
The city fleet would only be the city, it wouldn't include DISD and then in terms of at least for the goals and targets listed here and then in terms of the emissions that you're seeing in the model those school buses, existing school buses are captured in there.
We don't draw them out specifically but the modeling that we base our modeling on does capture those trips but it's going to be only what's actually happening in Boundary of City of Denton so it's my understanding that as you were mentioning DISD is expanding their operations beyond the city boundary so that part of the trip is not captured but we do capture what's happened in years usually about half the trip.
Okay thank you.
Okay Brad?
First one up I guess a more higher level question since this is a plan and those are typically very applied as opposed to say our framework which is more the general goal and direction there's some language in here that makes it feel more like a framework than a plan when we're using words like encourage or facilitate or target I saw an embrace in there.
Versus more action oriented words like create or facilitate where there's a specific action that we are taking and given that this is a plan that is supposed to outline you know those specific steps that we are going to be taking to reach these goals that we've already outlined in the framework document I'm just curious on, I know this is just the presentation but is there more of a breakdown you could give us on some of those previous slides especially in the trip?
In terms of transportation sections since that is our biggest emission source so when we're talking about the mode shifting as an example when we're saying encourage, encourage, encourage versus build could you just kind of break down what those steps might look like within the baseline of this document?
Carol I think I want to jump in on this a little bit so we keep shifting over into the how whatever we're having these conversations and we need to back up and look at these are just the targets and the actions not the implementation yet so that's where we struggle with that too so I know exactly what you're talking about it's like okay but how so that's the next step we're trying to prioritize the targets and the actions today and then move into implementation.
Okay so this is you're communicating to us the results of the feedback in the workgroups and the survey results that you've received and this is reflecting of those agreed upon consensus results that you've got correct?
Some of these you know we were just reviewing the we just closed the survey so the survey results are not fully integrated here but exactly to Katherine's point there's kind of the framework of the targets and goals then the actions and then the implementation how is that is the next piece and that's kind of how it will nest in the final plan to your question.
It's a really great question and as Katherine said we went back and forth a lot about you know at what step are we kind of are we at right here with this presentation so yeah the goal today is really to to get feedback about are these the right goals and actions or they make sense presenting like at a high level hopefully it does start to spark that you know how would we go about things and how would we implement them but really we're just trying to make sure we're aligning getting right on top of this.
Thank you for that clarification it's really helpful for sure yeah um are we digging into these sections as we're moving through them I think we should do one section by section okay um I did have a question I think it's on the next slide yeah so um I understand that the general frame is is again that mode shifting or at least the vehicle miles travel reduction and so I the target at the top where it talks about reducing the travel distance is that sounds like a land use question.
I'm just curious if there's going to be ways that we can communicate that within the transportation section that really this is more of a planning policy and less of a how am I going to get from point A to point B because I can make that decision the day of right what tool I want to use to get from point A to point B but the ways that I have access to do that were decided for me 20 30 40 years ago with the way that my neighborhood or my community was built out so I just wonder on the applicability
if this is an appropriate section for that to be and I understand because it is the transportation factor but it's it's really a planning and policy question on how we curate our communities and how they're designed but then a little farther down it talks about the EV stations and promoting charging and I understand too that's part of this picture and maybe not an insignificant piece of it but it just seems that the facilitating personal vehicle travel at the same time as trying to reduce the usage.
of personal vehicles might be a little at odds with itself so I'm just wondering how how you would interpret those two goals and then the way that they would overlap yeah so they're you're bringing up some some great points definitely on that on that first point it is related to that land use policy and kind of okay how do we ensure that as we as we grow as I say the amenities and the services that people are trying to access are closer to where they want to be.
where they live or where they work and that they're able to yeah in the day to day make choices that result in shorter trips and by translation you know trips that they can go by transit or walking or biking and then in terms of the EV charging infrastructure you know promoting EVs you know there's a recognition as well that in that transitional period between some of those land use changes maybe coming to fruition there's a long time
scale as you mentioned there is a need to reduce emissions to meet the goals of getting around by car right now right that's how most people get around there aren't necessarily viable alternatives you know that's kind of what we've been hearing and even people who want to do something else it's just the practical reality so helping people make that switch sooner rather than later helping those emissions come down sooner rather than later is part of the strategy as well.
Just whenever we talk about these just remember how everything intertwines with everything else and we're building so transportation and land use build on each other so we can have increased reductions as we try to set two different focus areas so they go back to a sustainability framework.
I kind of saw it as well as since it is such a long range change on developing and land use like what you can do now is travel in a non-missions vehicle so it's kind of like well this might be something we need to do so that we can encourage less transportation like you know less vehicles but until that point this is the option that we have that's realistic is that what you're saying?
Yeah exactly right this is an element of what's the short-term kind of practical use that you need to take to get us to that first 2030 goal and to your point about you know where in the plan and land use versus transportation we don't typically have like a land use section of the plan because we do try to align the way we outline the plan with our modeling and the way the sectors are defined there it seems maybe transportation is the most related but buildings would probably be the most important.
I agree with the other one maybe so I noted what you said and we can pass this over.
Okay thank you I just have a final comment and I don't know if maybe you heard this in your focus group last night too but on the community-wide actions I feel like this is a priority at least again on that mode shifting and enabling people to make day-to-day decisions that reduce those vehicle miles traveled and I understand in the local context too for Denton we don't control our public transit system exclusively at least.
And so I just wonder getting that language in this plan that we were at least working toward that goal of increasing that accessibility with public transit might be another one of these enabling factors for that mode shifting in the transportation section at least putting it down in a policy document that we're communicating to council we're communicating to residents and then people who get on the DCTA board that this is the goal that our city is setting out to increase that accessibility for public transit locally.
That makes sense. Yeah we can certainly consider including that. Thank you. Adam do you have any questions on transportation? These were good ones I have one also kind of a higher level one this is it's a climate action and adaptation plan and we set it up with a chart about mitigation and then we break it down into sectors so it's all about emissions reduction and then so
what I'm wondering is where does that adaptation show up is it always framed as a kind of co-benefit of some sort of emissions reduction strategy? Is that the idea? Yeah exactly so in the plan and when I come to present to you again another time we'll have more about those co-benefits of taking some of these actions to mitigate and reduce emissions such as retrofitting buildings and reduce you know improving air quality through reductions in particulate waste.
In particulate matter that kind of thing that's going to have other other benefits for resilience around being held or surviving a power outage in your home that kind of thing so they are kind of coming later in that part of the framework but because of the goals of the city's pass around emission reduction that's kind of our overarching north star of this plan in terms of mitigation.
It's interesting if I can just comment because if that is the north star back to this conversation you all were just having you could think more than just in theory we'll swap out all of our vehicles for electric vehicles and keep the same infrastructure and we would hit that target right so it raises your question about what are the actual goals here because some of the stuff that is about land use and how we design a city is more about kind of what the
mobility and quality of life and what kind of city we want to be and that sort of escapes a capturing of a net zero sort of thing you know so it seems like it's even trickier than saying well that's the long term goal and the short term goal because we could do EVs and get ourselves down to net zero so then it would be that would be it right but there's I think there's a just a tension that some folks are like even if we did that we're still trapped in a car dependent
way of life and many people don't like that and that's they're sort of finding trying to find a way in this plan to talk about that as well you know can I disagree with you just a little bit so I guess in my mind there is a lot of embodied carbon in a city built for personal vehicle use that we don't necessarily capture in our emissions because they weren't locally generated though they're being locally used so the amount of energy and especially carbon and this is fun to look at if you look at the emissions
for say concrete plants when that gets shipped here and then laid down for a new street paving so resources to put the utilities under those streets they embody carbon in just producing you know like all the PMI on engine for these new vehicles I think these are all considerations that don't hit our emissions directly because we are not emitting them but they are being emitted somewhere and they're being locally consumed and so I think when we are you know in the process of discussing how do we become a resilient and adaptive city
for you know 20, 30, 50 years down the road we should look at those locally consumed embodied carbons as something that we do have responsibility to take care of both for you know who's living here now and who's going to be living here down the road and the type of environment that we're going to be giving them to inherit and I think that's something that while the doors open to have that discussion it should be part of it is that built into this embodied carbons are not part of our modeling for this project
I guess that's what I'm saying I agree I agree perfect yeah but this is a nice addition to it that we're not actually hitting net zero if we're not counting what is that called I mean I know embodied emissions but is that like there's another term third what is it scope three scope three is that what that would be?
this framework yeah exactly so this project is dealing with scope one and scope two but scope three is yeah you're bringing up some great points and stuff like that the next frontier that a lot of cities are looking at okay that gets us to one zero emissions goal but there's a bigger picture out there so it's something to consider for future
and just a note on what you're bringing up around these in net zero keeping in mind that about 10 percent of residences or buildings in Denton are not supplied with electricity from D&E they're supplied with electricity from two other utilities that don't have the same removal for folio so at present if that trend continues even if every vehicle in Denton is replaced with an EV you can still have some emissions
okay so next I'll turn to solid waste water and wastewater so some community-wide targets for 2030 decreasing waste generated per capita by 30 percent
and identifying and increasing waste diversion rate to 30 percent by 2030 for the water side things reducing leaks in potable water distribution the water network by 10 percent and reducing the gallons of water use per capita by 5 percent a lot of that coming from reducing residential irrigation by 50 percent so increasing the purple pipe program as well as native plant use as well
further out same sector so for 2040 and 2050 goal would be by 2050 to decrease waste generated per capita by 40 percent and increasing the waste diversion rate to 40 percent into 75 percent by 2075 further out by 2040 reducing potable water use by 15 percent overall and reducing gallons of water use per capita by 25 percent by 2030
some of the actions to support those targets could be to continue and expand education on waste diversion such as you see here provide resources to reduce waste and explore options to maximize the diversion of fat spoils and greases this can be used to create renewable natural gas which can be an energy source or can be used to produce electricity
renewable natural gas is still methane correct it is methane yes other community-wide actions to support these goals be encouraging use of more efficient water fixtures so exploring requirements or mandates for using those types of fixtures that's increasing native plant use as we see here
encouraging the reduction of water use indoors in water using appliances and outdoors for irrigation and expanding the reclaimed water to pay purple pipe network
for the city of Denton itself the goals would be to reduce waste generated by city activities by 40 percent by 2040 and to decrease the use of potable water by 40 percent by 2040
and the actions to support that would be to reduce irrigation watering to maximum twice weekly on the land that the city is watering and exploring other reduction options installing low-flow high-efficiency plumbing in all buildings and expediting the actions that were identified in the comprehensive solid waste management strategy which was recently passed
Would you like to pass it here? Yes. Go ahead. Any questions? Adam?
The emissions from the waste and waste water sector, can you explain those? What are they? What are they included? Is that moving water around and is that methane from the landfill?
Yeah, I can show maybe this graph again. So methane from the landfill that's not currently being captured, some of it is, but it is being captured. And then it also takes quite a bit of energy and electricity to clean water for potable use and then to process waste water and put it back out into the environment again.
So those are projected to rise quite a bit as you see the second column here over time, but we now know if you do the population growth, primary population driven economic growth of businesses. So that's why we've included these actions here.
Okay. There's also emissions associated with waste water processing. From electricity use? From the actual processing.
Okay. So some of those, but you did say the energy, I think electricity to pump and move water around. But then this gets to a sector issue because that's power, right? Which actually isn't listed.
But that's being factored into all of the emissions here. The energy. So not all of our plants are served by D&E, so that may be one reason why the sector is a little bit higher on the emissions side.
Ray Roberts is outside of the D&E service area right now. So that's one area where those emissions are higher. Plus they're just one of the largest, the largest energy users in the city.
That's very common in the cities, for the city itself. For the city, for the municipal utilities.
Are you good? I have a couple. So on the waste reduction, does that include our contracts, our outside contracts that we have? Are we working on reducing that? I mean, that's all included in those numbers and reductions?
It would just be what's related to per capita in terms of what's being produced in the boundary.
So we could still bring in like 2,000 tons from the outside into our landfill and it wouldn't be counted?
That's a really good question. Because we have several outside contracts that some bring in more than we actually make as a city. So how does that factor in on the emissions inventory?
So for our typical emissions inventory that we would conduct, when you look at the municipal section, so when you look at our typical emissions inventory that we would conduct every other year, the emissions from the landfill would be captured in total because we own and operate the landfill.
So that would be in the municipal section of the inventory and it would calculate that year's emissions. That is slightly different than what you're seeing here, which is the total waste generated within the community, which is captured in the community inventory piece.
Can I real quick answer? Yeah, go ahead. Because I don't see it coming later in the presentation, the fugitive emissions category. Is this not from the landfill? Is this from natural gas pipelines?
That's right, yeah. How does recycling program fit into all of this? And does recycling itself add to the carbon footprint?
That's on the diversion side, right? Yeah, so the recycling would be the kind of actions you're seeing here around expanding education on waste diversion. So for existing recycling programs encouraging us to recycle more.
So there would be a concerted effort to recycle more? Yes, exactly. To meet those targets. And sorry, the second part of your question was? Just the recycling process itself.
Oh, the actual processing of those emissions. Yeah, so if that's happening within city boundary, that's going to be captured in the buildings in the industrial sector. And then the transportation, part of the trucks driving around, that's captured in the transportation emissions.
So the waste emissions that we're seeing here is really related to the landfill situation. Thank you. So on the landfill capturing the methane for energy use, I know that there has been some talk about future projects doing that again because we stopped and we're flaring and the lot is escaping.
Is that future project or those future projects counted in those reductions for the future? Like that capturing and storing and use for electric fuel locally? Because that has not yet been implemented, they are not captured. So that is just a future gain.
Okay. Yeah, that's not included in the business plan. It's still a concept. It's not quite there. Yeah, it could maybe be an action that could support meeting these targets.
And last question about watering you had on there two times. So is that just kind of like what it will be even if there's a drought or subject to change depending on our water in the future?
I'll just add on that with what Stephen presented last month. We'll keep working with Stephen as he works on his plans and then coordinate the education piece on that. We'll start more education in the summer and start working towards that. We'll see more coming out of those plans to help build on this.
Okay. Yeah, our target here is like an average water use year moving towards a reduction based on that. I'm sure the folks who are actually working on water more specifically maybe will have a few more months targeted of what you're saying after a few years.
Okay. Do you have a question? Do you want to wait until next or do you want to ask? Go ahead. It's on this but I don't. If somebody says this is beyond what we're talking about now, that's fine. So it's just, and my apologies. I think I've asked this several times.
I feel like it will come up in the public. Okay. Why don't we talk about this plan? Whenever we talk about recycling, I feel like people are going to say, I've heard that a lot of recycling actually doesn't end up getting recycled, right?
In the context of this plan, what's the response to that? We want to encourage it so presumably that means it's not just getting landfill.
But what assurances or how do we show people this actually clear plastic in the blue bin, it doesn't just down the line get dumped in the garbage. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I'll dump them on that.
These are all things that we work on every day. So we get those calls every day.
We do have, you know, what our markets are with Pratt, where those recyclables go. We have been working to reduce that contamination number so that we know more recyclables are being recycled.
We have reduced contamination. So our growth tons have gone down, but our net tons have gone up at the same time. So we're recycling more.
The controls that we're using are working. So we know that we're recycling more through the Merck now and seeing a reduced contamination.
So it's happening. We can bring back a presentation to kind of talk about all of that. We're working on some ISRs for council right now.
So we can bring that. And you can go on a tour at the Merck anytime you'd like.
I have been. But it's been years.
Bring the kids.
It was fun.
I think we're ready for the next one.
So buildings and energy. So the goals, the targets here would be by 2050 to have 68 megawatts of generating capability to come from renewable sources with local control.
And by 2048 to have 149 megawatts of rooftop solar across the city, across all types of buildings, commercial, residential, etc.
And for reference right now, there's about nine megawatts of rooftop solar. So that would be 140.
Can you tell me what's meant by with local control? Does that mean it's like a community solar or that sort of thing?
That would be controlled by D&E.
OK. And all right, I'll just wait to let you finish. Thanks.
Some more targets for this sector. So in 2024, we're viewing the ability for new warehouses and data centers to be co-located with industrial buildings to harness waste heat.
So this is really about reducing the amount of energy that would be needed to serve these very energy intensive buildings by basically harnessing what's already out there.
Instead of it being wasted. So that would be kind of a land use policy thing.
Reducing the total energy used by industry by 30 percent between 2025 and 2035. So really the efficiency improvements in the industrial sector.
In 2025, facilitating energy efficiency retrofits for five percent of buildings per year, starting in 2025.
And these retrofits would reduce electricity use by 25 percent and energy loss by 60 percent.
It's really kind of a deep energy retrofit and help those residences switch to heat pumps, whether that's gas or electric heat pumps.
So that would be 25 percent of residences or buildings rather would be switched to heat pumps by 2030, 50 percent by 2035 and 75 percent by 2040.
In 2025, a goal to have five percent of new residences with electric heat pumps and by 2028 for all new construction to be net zero energy ready.
So that would be changes potentially to building buildings.
Some actions to support these. I've mentioned a few on the way.
So developing additional zero emissions electricity sources to supply any customers. That's key to keeping the emissions in the sector low, even as population and commercial growth happens.
Ensuring that zoning building codes support solar ready. I think they're pretty close. There's not too much more to do there.
Assisting the community with retrofitting buildings in a variety of ways.
Making adjustments to zoning codes to increase density and mixed use.
Similar to some actions in the transportation sector.
Continuing to support rooftop solar to help that build out, such as identifying resources, ensuring ease of permitting for doing that and adopting new building energy codes to maximize energy.
A few more actions here for that industry one. So partnering with industry identifying ways that they can save on their costs and reduce energy, obviously meeting its goals.
Adopt green development standards for new construction and for large reconstruction of existing development.
Also encouraging non-residential buildings to consider on-site renewable electricity generation. So commercial industrial buildings generating their own electricity, maybe in a way that you see here.
The city of Denton specific targets. So by 2030 to retrofit all city facilities with LED lighting, reduce electricity use for lighting. And by 2025 to exceed CECO electric use reduction by 5% against 2019 baseline year.
Some actions for that would be to update city building energy use policies. Review the city's building use and improve its resource demands. So reduce the amount of energy that city buildings have to use.
And continue to reach that 100% renewable energy supply for the new customers as per the plan. So that would include researching renewable options that can be directly controlled and operated by the community.
That is it for the whole presentation and for that section.
Question for that section.
Go ahead.
Could you go, gosh I'm sorry I don't remember how far back it goes, talking about harnessing waste heat in the industrial.
Yeah, so with that kind of target. For example, industrial buildings, sometimes through the processes that they're doing that generate a lot of waste heat, that can be captured and actually turned into electricity, potentially for neighboring buildings.
To create a network to use that underground between them. So there's an opportunity there for industrial buildings to work with their neighbors, sell some of that waste heat, generate some revenue from themselves and then potentially to be a way to reduce the amount of resources that DNE needs to figure out going forward.
It's like using energy that would otherwise be lost.
Is that, as far as infrastructure, does that need to be planned before build or can that be done after? It's a really good question. It's a lot easier to do before you build. Retrofitting existing ones would be more costly. So this is kind of more of a future looking action around, you know, there's a lot of growth, yeah exactly expected in this sector.
And a lot of those types of buildings tend to be near each other anyway. So it's an opportunity to take advantage of how that pattern is going to play out.
Yeah, it was just more of like a comment and a question because our industrial zoning does allow a lot of those co-locations already and especially on the west side of town we see quite a bit of those larger warehouses and industrial facilities right next to each other.
I think that's a really interesting action to take. I just question on the year specifically, like why that target here?
Yeah, that's the target for just the city to review its ability to even incur or require, you know, like look at what are the mechanisms the city could use to make that happen.
Essentially it seems possible. And then another kind of just like definition of terms, the net zero energy ready, that's not a term I'm familiar with, did you explain that one?
Yeah, that is both a specific term and a general term for ensuring that new construction doesn't use more energy than it potentially kind of produces. So that would include maybe solar on the buildings and then also reducing energies as much as possible.
That could be done through the way the building is designed, the way it's oriented to the sun or other buildings, including shade, that kind of thing. So you essentially are ready to reach net zero because you've reduced energies for that building so much that if you put solar panels on it, that would open up.
It doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't use any energy, but it could supply its own.
So we don't currently get that micro on like our residential zoning definitions. I'm just curious, have you seen this, what strategies have you seen other cities use to implement a tool like that that either incentivizes or requires or whatever their action word is to meet that type of goal?
Yeah, that would be through the development code or building energy code. So it kind of sets potentially targets for how much the energy use intensity of new buildings of certain types should be. That's one mechanism or maybe by building size.
Do you have a city in mind that you could let us tell us so that we could maybe go and investigate and look into what they've done?
I would say in Texas, certainly the city of Austin's green development standards. They're not quite at the net zero energy ready level, but they're going in that direction. And then other jurisdictions across the U.S. Washington state has some really kind of advanced legislation around these kind of targets for green construction.
One other on this slide, the really aggressive target numbers on the heat pumps. I guess I'm just curious, have you, we do have packages of rebates that are already out there for residents to take advantage of and they are rebates.
We're not necessarily like we're putting it down for you. I'm just curious. I know that's a major factor in our residential energy usage. How do you mean that aggressive of a target in 20 years?
Yeah, so part of this is also based on trends. Even in most recent years, heat pumps are starting to outstrip gas furnaces or electric resistance heating. It's not that much of that here, but and that's just becoming the kind of default option for more and more people, not for everyone.
They are still expensive, so some of those rebates that you're bringing up could help with meeting those targets as well. And then also the Biden administration has kind of an industrial policy push around encouraging, supporting, even incentivizing heat pump manufacturing in the U.S.
and kind of just having more supply in bringing some of those prices down. So we are basing this on what current trends are intended, what we've heard from the utility, as well as what the projections are on groups like International Energy Association.
And then looking at what's kind of coming down the line. I guess that one, at least within this category, that one I feel like is a really major section in this guy. But I also, if I'm remembering right, I think it was the 2018 Texas Ledge that stipulated cities couldn't require specific energy sources to be coordinated in their municipalities.
I'm just curious, because we don't have that tool in our toolbox to require new constructions to have these, beyond just incentivizations, do we have anything else that we can grab in this bag?
Yeah, I think education, the educational campaigns can be a big part of that. The beauty of heat pumps, kind of electric or gas, and you're bringing up a point to point, the city cannot specify what type. But they are much more efficient than other types of heating and cooling systems, and that's going to just reduce the energy that's needed, reduce your energy costs, there's an energy cost savings over time.
So that may be appealing to folks. And you also get the bonus if you get two units in one, you get heating and air conditioning. That may also be appealing. So maybe figuring out ways that the city can intervene at that point of failure, right?
Like someone, you know, their heater failed or their air conditioner failed, they need one ASAP, working with contractors, working with suppliers, really kind of steering people into that direction, so that choice is easier.
On the last slide, I think it was, the one that talks about the city LED plan, maybe this is to Catherine, is that already in progress to retrofit the city facilities with LED lighting, or is this a proposal?
We have already done retrofits on some facilities, so there are others yet to come, and then we'll be working towards that.
And is that just discretionary, or did we have a plan that was pushed in that direction?
We have the ECBG money coming that can be used for lighting retrofits, and we have a list of facilities that need the retrofit.
There's other things going on at the same time, so we're trying to use the dollars.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
What is the acronym, SECO, stand for?
You know, I'm forgetting that myself.
State Energy Conservation Office.
This one?
It's the State of Texas Energy Conservation Office.
Ah, thanks.
So again, I have a sector question, because this on the first or third slide was listed as buildings, but now it's buildings and energy, and I'm also just thinking about how we communicate with the public.
Energy becomes a word that has some slippage in it, and I might recommend that we're just real careful to talk about electricity, you know?
Like when we're talking about electricity, talk about electricity, and maybe segregate that out and say, "These are electrons. This is DMV."
That's that sector, because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, what we're worried about in the building sector is fossil-based sources of energy, usually heat, right, that aren't coming, they're not electrons coming from DMV.
And I just feel like sometimes in this conversation that gets kind of muddied for a foot, so I'm afraid they're going to lose, or at least I kind of lose, like what's the punchline here?
So I don't know how to solve that, but I did want to flag that if we want to rethink our sectors or something.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah, to pull out power. Because when I talk about this in my class, I said there's really two main buckets for our city to work on in terms of emissions, and that's transportation and buildings.
Buildings being residential, commercial, and industrial. And they kept getting energy and electricity, and it's all kind of messed, so I guess it's just a comment.
You can do that.
Brian, are you there?
I think we're good.
Okay, thank you so much.
Thank you so much, appreciate it.
See you again soon.
Did you get enough feedback for prioritization, or do we need to talk through that a little bit more?
Yeah, we did have on our agenda to give direction.
So do you have any changes? Did you get enough comments? Do you think you're good on that? What do you need from us now?
Yeah, I think any thoughts on among those actions, which you see as being most important, and in that sense, what the city should address first, where it's going to put its energy and resources first, that's helpful to us going forward.
We may be able to speak more about that again later, but if you have thoughts now.
Yeah, I thought it was really helpful, maybe I'm imagining this, but I think in earlier presentations, and even in the presentation in the box, there was this way of talking about the most bang for the buck in terms of what we can do.
And that is partly where are the most emissions, but also to your earlier point about what the state wants us to do, where can we actually have leverage?
So that's, I guess, where I'd like to see us moving forward is to focus our attention on those things where we think we have the capability to make changes, and those changes would be significant.
That's always what I'm kind of thinking.
We dialogued quite a bit during that presentation. I guess we're putting a weight down on it, where some of these are easier to attain than others.
So I wonder, we did just see a presentation about the city's strategic plan, and that I think is really powerful because it delineates out the progress that we're reaching on these different items.
But some of these are much lower hanging fruit than others, that I wonder if there's a way, as it gets outlined over the next 30 years as our 2015 deadline hits, kind of a step-by-step progress that helps both within the city departments that these apply to, or maybe where city departments interact with residents and the behavioral shifts that we're looking to incentivize or help facilitate an adaptation to if there's
a way to partition it out to where there's stuff we can do right now that we have full operational control over. It's maybe an ordinance change or a proposition that goes out that this is an easier goal versus the longer-term plannings that don't necessarily have those hard and fast stops to them, like the mode shifting, but it's more of a behavioral change.
I don't know, obviously we're probably already thinking of that, but I guess just having those weighted goals of what's really going to be impactful, what's within our control, that would be really helpful just to make this plan more digestible, that we can envision it actually getting implemented instead of this far-off, very long-term planning, you know, that as we cycle through councils, as we recycle in and out of this room, it allows that continuation, and then people can meet those smaller steps along the way.
But I imagine a lot of that conversation is already happening.
Sure, yeah, and I kind of think that's the implementation piece of, you know, more of the step-by-step, especially a nearer-term horizon. That's not only here for you as well, but part of the plan will have that in a little more detail, and we can lay out short-term, medium-term, long-term actions.
Yeah, I think there's definitely progress, and that's very reassuring. I think the more that can be done to make the public realize the importance and urgency of something like this is very important, because the more public support we have, the more political will there will be to enact the ordinances which will turn this plan into a reality.
Can I make one comment here?
Yeah, go ahead.
I've kind of come to an understanding that there's been some struggles in the communication around this plan, and I understand, too, we haven't quite progressed to even the survey target that we had set out initially.
And I remember a presentation earlier where we talked about, you know, sometimes we get up to 1,000 respondents on surveys like this, and we were struggling in this particular feedback to get that participation to its point.
And then I even understand some of the focus groups had attendance issues. I'm just curious if there's other strategies that we can use to get this messaging out just because of its scope and because of its importance.
I don't know how to hit the gas, the figurative gas pedal on this, to communicate out both what we're doing, you know, in this room and the conversations that you guys have between staff and the consulting group that enables people to pitch into this and participate a little more deeply, especially, too, because some of these are behavioral shifts we're looking to incentivize.
I don't know, I guess I'm just putting, like, an explanation part on it that it seems like we're kind of hitting that hurdle, and I don't know what support there might be needed to help overcome it.
Yeah, I know that Kathy and her staff have been really trying a lot of different things, you know, everything from Facebook ads to in-person kind of interception, getting people to fill out surveys, but I think, yeah, it's a tricky thing.
Part of it is just there's a lot of noise, there's a lot of things going on for folks. I would say, you know, developing the plan is one thing. Our engagement plan is very careful in kind of scope to, you know, speak to specific groups of people, get specific kind of insights.
It's less of an outreach plan and messaging and more about getting input from those who are going to have, you know, kind of specific recommendations.
So that's to say, you know, once the plan is passed or towards that time and then afterwards, like implementing the plan, that's maybe where there's a lot for the city to do around messaging about what the goals are, how the community can be involved in making this happen, that kind of thing.
This is just the beginning, right?
I have a question about what you need from us. So it does say direction regarding targets and actions, prioritization.
Do you mean like prior to, I'm having a hard time saying this, prioritization, like in the larger aspects, say like transportation over building, over, you know, et cetera, or are you talking about those actions within each?
I mean, are you talking about like all of it together or overall? So say like transportation is our biggest contributor.
So is this group in agreement that that should be the first thing we work on? Is that what you're asking, Kermis, today?
It is a mix, I would say. You know, as you just said, some sectors are more of an issue than others. It's good to know if you all kind of agree with the prioritization according to that criteria, just one of the overall missions.
And then, as you said, within each sector, which goals and targets and actions are a higher priority for you all? And you don't have to necessarily come to consensus within taking your input and put it in a general sense.
What I think I heard was that within each one of the smaller actions, whatever we can do quickest, that would be the first ones. Is that what you all are saying?
And I agree with the bigger picture of where is the most attention.
All right. Is that helpful?
I think so, yeah. Does that align with the prioritization? I know you had worked something up.
It does. It does.
Okay. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
All right.
We will move on to our next item, D, staff reports. There was the DME memo. Did everyone have a chance to read that? And see if there were any changes currently like you made.
And then we have the matrix. Is there anything you'd like to add to the matrix or take off?
Can we ask any questions about the DME memo?
If it's in our back-up, I don't know, Moir?
There's a staff memo, isn't there?
Yeah.
It's in our back-up, the staff memo. Are we allowed to ask questions and address that?
Yeah.
Okay. Go ahead, Ed.
I was just curious as to whether it says staff anticipates conducting additional research into the impacts of this program and may bring back this discussion to SFAC later next.
I was just curious as to if there's any information of what this additional research could be, if it were a value of solar analysis or anything like that.
Okay. Bill Sheppard from DME.
Oh, okay. Great. Thanks.
Hi.
Good afternoon again. Bill Sheppard, DME. So the research that we're going to be looking at doing is doing a value of solar.
We're going to get a third party to come in and actually evaluate the solar programs we have now and also that energy coming back to us and try to peg a real value on it.
Any ideas? Well, you haven't engaged a consultant yet.
We have a consultant that's already doing some work from us from a cost of service standpoint, and it is a consultant that is familiar with that type of study and research.
They've actually done the same work for Austin Energy, so we're in discussions with them now.
Great. Thanks.
Anybody else on that? Thank you so much.
Of course.
All right. Matrix. Anybody want to add to the matrix or take off from the matrix?
I have a request maybe we could add. I don't know if this body would be interested or not, but I would like to maybe have an offsite meeting like around and have a recycling tour or tour the waste area and water and stuff as a group so that we can see what's going on.
See what's going on and kind of like an offsite meeting at some point.
I think it might be fun for us to do that together.
Okay.
And then, is that off from the matrix, Adam? Just this kind of matrix because it's like we were told today to hold off implementation questions about the climate action plan, but that will come, is this going to come back to us at that?
Yes.
All right.
So we will now move on to concluding items.
Catherine mentioned earlier that it is tax-free weekend for Energy Star appliances, and I just want to get that out there for anyone who needs a new appliance. And also, I don't know if this is the right place to do it, but we are a very small member committee at the moment.
Maybe get a message to council or see when that's going to come up nominations for our group so that we're not all.
We're missing one.
Two.
We are short two members of our committee.
I know that they're working through the council appointment process right now.
Okay, just kind of put that out there in the air. We'd love to have some.
Okay. All right. And I think that is it. We will complete at 2.18. Thank you, everyone.
Have a good weekend.
Good to have you back.