Berkeley's Climate Scorecard: "Berkeley See-It." Interview with Timothy Burroughs, Climate Action Coordinator, Office of Energy & Sustainable Development - City of Berkeley, CA by Willi Paul

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Berkeley's Climate Scorecard: "Berkeley See-It." Interview with Timothy Burroughs, Climate Action Coordinator, Office of Energy & Sustainable Development - City of Berkeley, CA by Willi Paul

The City of Berkeley launched an interactive web-based tool this week that presents scorecards on local sustainability trends such as annual energy use, waste disposal, and tree planting in our community. The website enables residents to, with a few clicks of a mouse, access relevant, up-to-date information about Berkeley's progress toward its climate action goals. In addition, the site provides a forum for questions and feedback regarding implementation of the City's Climate Action Plan.

The website is called the "Berkeley See-It." See-It is a performance management and communications software developed by Visible Strategies with support from the San Francisco Foundation and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Click on a theme to see its associated goals and indictors of progress. Clicking on a progress indicator will open a scorecard with background information, performance data, links, and a place to provide feedback to the City.
The Berkeley see-it is a work in progress and we will add more indicators and performance data as they are developed. We hope you find this tool both interesting and useful. Feedback is encouraged and appreciated!
To view the Berkeley See-It website, please visit the City of Berkeley site:"Berkeley See-It.

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What are the City's top three climate action goals? What is your track record since 2009?

The City's climate action goals include maximizing reuse and recycling throughout the community; increasing energy efficiency and renewable energy use through increased services and incentives; reducing vehicle miles traveled by making cycling, walking, public transit and other modes more safe, reliable, and accessible; and increasing access to local, healthy, and affordable food.

These goals are geared not only toward reducing global warming emissions, but also toward creating jobs and keeping dollars in the local community, improving public health, and helping people save money on energy bills.

We know that to effectively achieve these goals, we have to measure our progress along the way. We launched the Berkeley See-It so residents would have a snapshot of how we're doing.

Overall, there are many positive trends, including a 25% reduction in waste disposal between 2000 and 2008 and a 15% decrease in natural gas consumption in Berkeley homes in that same time period. But a lot of work remains to be done in order to achieve our targets. And more work needs to be done to identify what's driving these trends. The website helps to communicate the scale of effort that's required moving forward.

Approx. how much funding is the City dedicating to climate-related programs?

The City's Climate Action Plan serves as the umbrella, or guide, for much of the City's work related to building energy use, waste diversion, and transportation and land use. So I hesitate to put a figure on how much funding the City is dedicating to this work, because it's an element of almost everything that we do. It's not a single line item; it's integrated into efforts to stimulate the local economy, protect public health and improve local quality of life.

All that said, Berkeley is relatively unique in that we do have a staff person (me) who is dedicated full-time to climate action. My role is to coordinate implementation of our Climate Action Plan, including fundraising, tracking and reporting our greenhouse gas emissions, and management of various specific projects.

Who else is involved besides Office of Energy and Sustainable Development, the San Francisco Foundation and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District?

Funding from the San Francisco Foundation and the Air District helped the City to develop its Climate Action Plan, launch the See-It site and dedicate staff time to community engagement and outreach, among other work.

The Berkeley See-It site content itself was developed with input from City staff working on transportation and land use policy, waste diversion, local food issues, building energy use services and incentives, outreach to businesses, urban forestry, and others. Community partners contributed as well. The Berkeley Ecology Center, for example, contributed data and information related to some of their community outreach programs. More and more community partners will be contributing to the site in the near future.

Because climate change is an issue that touches so many other issues, addressing it requires collaboration between a multitude of sectors and types of expertise. This is part of what makes working on this issue so challenging and engaging at the same time. So many people have to be involved if we're to be successful.

Is this tool kid friendly? For what ages?

The tool is very interactive and the content is quite diverse. So I think the audience will be diverse as well. My hunch is that the main audience will likely be high-schoolers and older, but I could see the tool also being relevant for some younger students, especially if guided by adults.

Is this Visible Strategies product open-source?

The Visible Strategies product is not open-source. To learn more about them check out their website. I'm sure they'd be happy to discuss their tool with you.

How will the forum work? Will there be live moderation and online events?

One of the main values of the site is that it communicates important information in a very visually engaging way. It serves as an up-to-date information source for anyone interested to learn more about local climate protection efforts and key trends related to those efforts. This is information we want people to have access to, but it's a constant challenge to find effective ways of getting the word out. This site helps us do that.

Our staff is in front of community groups often, and we plan on using the site to communicate key information about our local climate protection efforts. You could call that live, in-person site moderation.

The site is also a forum for residents to ask questions and provide feedback to the City. It makes it easy to contact us for climate action-related information.

Finally, the site will be used to help track our community's progress toward our goals. The trends reported on the site help us to prioritize resources and to better manage our climate action efforts.

What indicators are missing and likely to come next?

Among other things, we are working on several indicators that will help us track progress toward the goal of increasing access to more active mobility options such as public transit, cycling and walking. For example, we are currently reviewing Berkeley-specific transit ridership data to try to get an updated sense of Berkeley residents' commute
modes.

We will also soon be reporting data on local community-based programs such as Smart Lights and California Youth Energy Services.

The vision is for the site to continue to evolve so it can serve as a comprehensive source of information related to climate action progress and services.

Connections -

Timothy Burroughs, Climate Action Coordinator
Office of Energy & Sustainable Development
Berkeley Climate Action community forum
City of Berkeley, CA
tburroughs at cityofberkeley dot info
510.981.7437