The City of Bellevue Washington and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability developed a toolkit to give cities more detail on what is driving changes in local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from year to year. Supported by a financial assistance award from the Department of Energy Cities Leading through Energy Analysis and Planning project, the toolkit allows cities to attribute changes between two inventories to the impacts of policies and programs along with external drivers, such as growth or decline in the level of economic activity and changes to weather. This analysis will support policy-makers to better communicate about their progress and refine their policy approaches.
Learn more about the Drivers of Change Analysis.
Download the Toolkit
Read the Final Report
Example Contribution Analyses
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“Good GHG data is foundational to our climate action planning work and realizing progress towards Aspen's community-wide goals. The ‘decomposition analysis’ provides our community with both granular and actionable insights that our previous GHG analyses had not revealed. Moving forward, Aspen will use these additional insights to inform climate action that is more targeted and more effective. This is a natural and needed evolution in the practice."
-Aspen, CO
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"The Contribution Analysis Toolkit has helped us gain a more clear understanding of what is influencing changes in our emissions inventory to help us effectively communicate to residents and elected officials the trends in our emissions."
-Bellevue, WA
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“The contribution analysis toolkit allows for quick and easy analysis of the multiple factors driving changes to greenhouse gas emissions from one period to another. Furthermore, the toolkit boils down the varying impacts of all these factors into one easy-to-understand graphic.”
-Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
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"In the last decade, the population in King County has grown by more than 10%, but emissions have remained flat. While we’ve seen an important decoupling of emissions and population growth, the analysis shows that we need to do much more to phase in renewable energy sources, develop clean transportation options, and make our homes and buildings more efficient."
-King County, WA
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"The contribution analysis shows the importance of switching to cleaner fuel sources and reducing VMT per person in overall emissions reductions. Energy, land-use, and transportation planning are key focus areas of the Council of Governments’ overall work."
-Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
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“Seeing what factors impact your emissions is powerful. This project opens up the ‘black box’ of GHG inventories. It helps agencies to focus on the areas they can affect the most.”
- City of Santa Monica, CA
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Project Steering Committee Members
- Bellevue, WA
- ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
- Aspen, CO
- Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
- King County, WA
- Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments
- Santa Monica, CA
