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Urbana Mayor Prussing wins Climate Leadership Award

Congrats to Mayor Prussing and the City of Urbana as they were given an honorable mention in the United States Conference of Mayors ENERGY STAR Challenge. Mayor Prussing helped push local buildings and businesses to reduce energy consumption and to go a bit more “green.”

From the Release:

The United States Conference of Mayors has presented Mayor Prussing and the City of Urbana an Honorable Mention award in the Small City category for the accomplishments of the Urbana-Champaign ENERGY STAR Challenge.  The United States Conference of Mayors is an organization of 1,407 cities which supports mayors in developing tools, policies, and relationships to meet urban needs.  The award was presented at the organization’s annual meeting in San Francisco, CA on June 19, 2015.

The Urbana-Champaign ENERGY STAR Challenge engaged building owners and managers to benchmark, track, and improve their building energy performance in 2014, as compared to a 2013 benchmark with the U.S.EPA’s free ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. High performing buildings were recognized with awards in March 2015 in the categories of Best ENERGY STAR Score, Best Energy Use Intensity, Best ENERGY STAR Score Improvement, and Best Energy Use Intensity Improvement.

The goals were to successfully engage 50 buildings to register for the Challenge, 25 buildings to submit an energy benchmark, 10 buildings to reduce energy consumption, and 5 new buildings to achieve ENERGY STAR Certification. The Urbana-Champaign ENERGY STAR Challenge has achieved 68 Participants and 43 Building Benchmarks, with 15 buildings reducing energy consumption and four qualified for ENERGY STAR Certification. (Similar programs in cities with larger populations and many
more commercial buildings have produced comparable results).

Based on participants’ ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager accounts, 15 buildings improved energy performance reducing greenhouse emissions by 2,801 metric tons CO2 equivalent.  This equals the carbon sequestered by 71,744 tree seedlings grown for 10 years, or the annual greenhouse gas emissions from 593 passenger cars.

For more information, visit http://ucenergychallenge.com or contact Scott Tess at 217-384-2381 or [email protected].

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