Under the county’s Fresh AIRE program – Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions – Arlington County made a commitment to reduce emissions from its own operations by 10% by 2012.  As a county government, our emissions come from the energy used in our buildings, vehicle fleet, water/sewer operations, and streetlights.  This includes the direct use of fossil fuels, such as natural gas in buildings, and gasoline and diesel used in vehicles, as well as the fossil fuels used to generate electricity at power plants.  Emissions by function and emissions by source are diagramed in pie charts below.

Thanks to technological improvements over the past 20 years, buildings offer substantial opportunities to reduce energy consumption, and therefore emissions, without compromising essential services.    

Overall, comparing the buildings we had in 2007 to those same buildings in 2009, our efficiency efforts saved nearly 3,000,000 kWh of electricity and over 20,000 therms of natural gas - even though the winter months were colder in 2009 than in 2007.  These reductions saved the county nearly $300,000 in avoided energy costs over the past two years.  Altogether, the energy intensity of these buildings decreased by nearly 7% between 2007 and 2009.  Total energy use across all of our buildings fell 4% between 2007 and 2009 because we added several new buildings to the inventory, including the new Fire Station 5, the renovated Fairlington Community Center, the Shirlington Library / Signature Theater, and the new Shirlington Bus Station.

The greatest return on investment and energy efficiency will come from improvements we continue to make in our buildings through retrofits, energy performance upgrades and improved operations and maintenance practices.  Arlington’s Building Energy Report Cards web pages provide details on our progress in this area. 

The Arlington County building portfolio includes 68 buildings, most of them owned and operated by the County, but several are leased.  Our inventory totals just over 2 million square feet of floor area.  These buildings have a variety of uses and fall into the following primary space types:

• Community Centers
• Healthcare Facilities
• Libraries
• Offices
• Public Safety Buildings, including the Courts/Police Building, Detention Facility, and our Fire Stations
• Residential Programs & Clinics
• Warehouses & Storage
• Other Specialty Facilities, including Agricultural, Childcare, Education, Entertainment, Mixed Use, and Vehicle Maintenance and Parking Structures.

For each space type group, a bar graph shows the site energy intensity for each building, enabling a comparison of buildings among that type.  In addition to the bar graphs, Energy Snapshots are provided for additional detail on a building by building basis.  These snapshots include:

• Building Address, Use, Current Size, and Year Built/Major Renovation
• Annual Electric and Gas Usage
• Site and Source Energy Intensity
• Carbon Footprint:  Environmental impact of the building’s energy usage, in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent. 
• EPA ENERGY STAR Rating and EPA National Average Comparison:  Benchmarks of energy performance.  Arlington County is an EPA ENERGY STAR partner and we use a program tool called Portfolio Manager to rate the energy performance of our buildings relative to similar buildings nationwide.  For some buildings, the tool can provide us with a 1-100 rating, for others, a simpler national average comparison is provided.          
• Building Energy Notes:  Description of the building’s energy use over time and plans for changes or improvements. 

These building energy report cards offer a snapshot of energy use and associated emissions from County operations.  In the months ahead, we will be adding new data and analyses documenting our progress in reducing energy use across our building stock, as well as challenges we face in this effort.