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Overview

What is Project 2°?

Project Overview

Project 2° is a set of practical tools and services to enable cities around the world to measure, compare and reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The project’s Web-based Emissions Tracker software enables cities to calculate the carbon footprint of both municipal operations and the communities they serve in a uniform way. Additionally, the tool enables cities to plan meaningful actions that save energy and money, and that makes a profound impact in the fight against climate change.

Project Goals and Objectives

The project is a key component of the Clinton Climate Initiative’s (CCI) diverse efforts to ensure that cities around the world have the products, services and tools they need to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Project 2° is a collaboration between CCI, Microsoft Corporation, and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. Additional expertise was provided by Ascentium Corporation and the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT). Project 2° software is being developed iteratively to meet the fast pace and evolving nature of the climate change field.

Long-term Vision

In addition to hosting Emissions Tracker and facilitating its use around the world, the long-term vision for the Project 2° Website is to provide a vehicle for participating cities to create networks, exchange information about best practices, and learn from each other’s problems and solutions. The Project 2° partnership believes that by working together, the world’s cities can find the ways and means to reverse the global trend of rising greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions Tracker Overview

What is Emissions Tracker?

Emissions Tracker is the first international, multilingual web-based software tool that enables cities to calculate the carbon footprint of both municipal operations and the communities they serve in a uniform way; project future emissions; and plan meaningful actions that save energy and money and that make a profound impact in the fight against climate change.

How Emissions Tracker Works

Emissions Tracker is a Web-based emissions measurement tool available online 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Using the software, designated representatives of participating cities can upload data about emissions-producing activities, including fuel and electricity consumption, overland vehicle traffic, air and sea vessel fuel use, waste production, industrial processes, and more. Emissions Tracker calculates the emissions from those activities and tracks them via a “CO2 equivalent” (CO2e) measurement.

Once emissions data is entered into Emissions Tracker, users can customize data and coefficients to ensure that emissions data is accurate at the local level and maps to the latest and best science available.

Once an inventory has been created, users can project future emissions and then plan specific reduction measures to meet any reduction goals their city may have. The Project 2° web site also features a ‘Resources’ section that provides access to expert advice and detailed information about best practices for reducing GHG emissions.

Emissions Tracker is compatible with internationally accepted protocols, including IPCC, WRI, and ICLEI. The tool allows member cities to produce standardized reports showing graphs, charts, and comments, and to slice data by sector and jurisdiction. Because Emissions Tracker uses a common measurement system, it will ultimately enable cities around the world to compare and share best practices for emissions reductions, energy savings, cost savings, and other benefits of Project 2° participation, should they choose to do so.

Who Can Use Emissions Tracker?

Emissions Tracker is available for use by invited cities around the world. Participation in the tool is by invitation to ensure that those using the tool are legitimate representatives of their government.

Is Emissions Data Kept Private?

While some participants may wish to make information available to the public or to other participants, Emissions Tracker is designed to promote user control of data. By default, no local government data is shared, and cities can specify what data, if any, shall be published to the public web site or to organizations affiliated with the city. The decision to make any data available always rests with the city.

What are the Benefits of Using Emissions Tracker?

The following is a quick overview of the benefits offered to participating cities:

· Create and manage greenhouse gas emissions inventories

o Separate government and community emissions inventories

o Calculate greenhouse gas emissions from common information, such as utility bills

o Modify coefficients with locally appropriate data

o Allows third-party verification

· Create an Action Plan to set reduction goals and track progress towards achieving those goals

· Access the resources necessary to combat greenhouse gas emissions

o Learn more about emissions reduction measures that have worked well in other cities

o Access lists of experts in the field of greenhouse gas emissions

· By default, all city emissions data is private

o City administrators control user access to all emissions data

o Opt-in data reporting model; no data is published or shared until a city administrator decides to do so

How can my local government get an account, or cancel an account?

The Project 2° team is currently designing a system to facilitate access to local government around the world. Initially while the system is being developed it will be available on a trial basis to invited users of the C40 and ICLEI networks. Contact admin@project2degrees.org to express your interest.

Emissions Tracker is Free for Participating Cities

Access to the software is free to invited cities. Emissions Tracker includes an online help system, FAQs, and others services to users.

Where does my data reside and who will have access to it?

All data input into the Project 2° Emissions Tracker software resides on the Project 2° servers. This data is secure and will not be used by anyone, anywhere, anytime without the permission of the city. See the Privacy Statement for more information.

How are Emissions Computed?

Emissions Tracker is designed to measure as many emissions producing activities as possible. Users enter data on activities such as fuel and electricity consumption, vehicle traffic, waste production, industrial processes and air and sea vessel fuel use. The software then converts the data into greenhouse gases, including tons of CO2e, taking into consideration the source and type of energy and fuel used. Once data has been entered, users can customize it as well as the coefficients for the calculations. Data is managed in a private and secure environment that allows administrators to choose what data to publish and share with other users.

Does Emissions Tracker adhere to accepted GHG accounting protocol?

Emissions Tracker is designed to be protocol and regime neutral. Algorithms in the calculators are consistent with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.” Users can modify and use the data for multiple purposes, such as participation in voluntary or regulatory emission reduction programs. Users can also structure their data in order to follow any accounting protocol, such as ICLEI’s International Local Government GHG Emissions Analysis Protocol, the World Resources Institute GHG Protocol Standard, or ISO 14064.

System Requirements

Emissions Tracker is a fully Internet-based application. There is nothing to download [what about the import function?]. The application runs in all common Web browsers including Microsoft™ Internet Explorer®, Mozilla® Firefox® and Apple® Safari®. Government employees using Emissions Tracker should use the most updated version of these browsers. The Adobe Flash player is also recommended for some site features. It can be downloaded here.

Supported Languages

The initial Emissions Tracker launch will be in English, with other language releases following based on demand. Eventually, these languages will include French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese.

GHG Accounting Basics

Basic Theory

GHG accounting for cities comprises two parts - the operations of the city government itself, and activities of the community it serves. Cities using Project 2° typically follow a GHG Protocol for accounting, such as the ICLEI Local Government Protocol, or the WRI GHG Protocol.

These protocols describe general principles for GHG accounting for cities. They are:

Relevance: The GHG inventory shall appropriately reflect the GHG emissions of the city government and the community it serves. It shall reflect the areas over which city governments exert control and hold responsibility, and serve the decision-making needs of users.

Completeness: All GHG emission sources and activities within the chosen inventory boundary shall be accounted for. Any specific exclusion should be disclosed.

Consistency: Consistent methodologies to allow for meaningful comparisons of emissions or reductions over time shall be used. Any changes to the data, inventory boundary, methods, or any relevant factors in the time series, shall be disclosed.

Transparency: All relevant issues shall be addressed in a factual and coherent manner to provide a clear audit trail, should auditing be required. Any relevant assumptions shall be disclosed and include appropriate references to the accounting calculation methodologies and data sources used.

Accuracy: The quantification of GHG emissions or reductions should not be systematically over or under the actual emissions or reductions. Accuracy should be sufficient to enable users to make decisions with reasonable assurance as to the integrity of the reported information.

NOTE: This information is used for audit purposes, no warranties are expressed or implied.

Conservativeness: Any assumptions, values and procedures required to calculate either GHG emissions or reductions should be conservative, such that the level of emissions is not underestimated, nor the benefit of emission reduction measures overestimated.

Project 2° is designed to allow cities to account for emissions that adhere to these principles and, by following the principles, allow them to prepare their data for optional verification.

GHG Accounting by Scope

GHG Protocol indicates that there are three “scopes” of GHG emissions. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions coming from activities by or in the city. Scope 2 and 3 emissions are “indirect” emissions, created elsewhere as a result of activities by or in the city. Scope 2 is a special case and refers specifically to emissions created at power plants because of electricity consumed in or by the city. Scope 3 emissions are all other kinds of indirect emissions. An example of a Scope 3 emissions source would be the upstream emissions related to producing biofuels. Reporting Scope 3 emissions is optional in some protocols.

Community and Government Emissions Accounting

Cities track two streams of data in GHG accounting:

City government operations emissions – Emissions from city government operations are tracked the way business emissions are tracked, looking at the vehicle fleet, buildings, etc. Scope 1 emissions are those created by operations directly, where as Scope 2 (electricity consumption) and Scope 3 (other indirect) emissions are created elsewhere as a result of the city government operations.

Community emissions – These are emissions that fall within the geographic boundary of a city. Scope 1 emissions are created directly inside the geographic boundary, whereas Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions are create outside of the boundary, but are caused by activities inside the geographic boundary.

Inventory Frequency and Base Year

A city’s emissions inventory should comprise all GHG emissions occurring during a selected calendar year. Reporting GHG inventories on a calendar year basis is considered standard internationally; UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, EU ETS, and other organizations all require GHG inventories to be tracked and reported on a calendar year basis. In cases where city records are available only on a fiscal year basis, efforts should be made to reorganize these records and report according to the calendar year. If fiscal year data is used in Emissions Tracker users should clearly document it in the notes sections of the records, as the inventories are organized and labeled by year and calendar year is the assumed value.

A meaningful and consistent comparison of emissions over time requires that cities set a performance point against which to compare current emissions. This performance point is referred to as a base year. Prior to beginning data collection, cities should examine the range of data sources available and select a year for which accurate records of all key emission sources exist in sufficient detail to conduct an accurate inventory. It is often preferable to establish a base year several years in the past so as to be able to account for the emissions benefits of recent actions.

Suggested Steps Before Using Emissions Tracker

Checklist to Complete Before Using Emissions Tracker

Emissions Tracker is a comprehensive GHG accounting and management system designed to support a city’s commitment to track and reduce GHGs. Reducing GHG emissions is as much a political process as it is a technical process. Therefore, while Emissions Tracker, is designed to provide all the technical services needed to produce a local climate action plan, cities should also view it as a support tool for political action.

Emissions Tracker can support cities at all stages of GHG management, and is accessible to users at all levels of proficiency with GHG accounting. . Still, the Project 2° team recommends that all users review the following information prior to using the software:

ÿ Download and review the Administrators & Users Guidance Manual

ÿ Learn about GHG Protocol by reviewing the WRI GHG Protocol and the ICLEI Local Government Protocol

ÿ Read and learn “Key Project 2^o Emissions Tracker Concepts” in this Help file

ÿ Read “Designing Your Inventory” in this Help file, and decide how to structure Emissions Tracker for your needs

Site Resources

The Site Resources section helps cities with GHG accounting, action planning, and researching measures for reducing GHG emissions.

Protocols

Emissions Tracker is consistent with the general principals and philosophy of the ICLEI International Local Government GHG Emissions Protocol for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions inventories.

Best Practices

Participating cities can benefit from the experiences of other cities as they plan measures to reduce GHG emissions. The Best Practices section highlights emissions reduction programs that have been proven to work well in several cities throughout the world.

Experts

Refer to this section of the site for a list of experts in the field of GHG accounting and emissions reductions.

Getting an Account

The Project 2° team is currently designing a system to facilitate access to cities around the world. Initially while the system is being developed it will be available on a trial basis to invited users of the C40 and affiliates network. Cities that have not yet been invited, should contact admin@project2degrees.org to express their interest.

Managing the City’s Account

Initial Account Administrators

After a city has been invited to participate, two initial account administrators will be specified. These account administrators are responsible for inviting other users to the tool for their city and providing them with appropriate permissions to use the application. The creation of two account administrators is intended to protect cities in cases where one administrator may no longer be available to perform key site tasks.

In addition to managing users, account administrators are responsible for several other key tasks on the site: managing coefficient and GWP data used in calculations, determining what emissions data to publish and where that data should be published, and configuration of public profile settings for the city.

Inviting New Users

Once the city administrators have been identified, they may log in to the site and begin to invite other users. To ensure that access to information can be properly controlled by each city, administrators may assign roles to each user, and roles with modification permissions may be restricted to specific areas of the site.

IMPORTANT: Once a user is invited, the selected user name cannot be modified at a later date.

After inviting a user, Emissions Tracker will send email to the invited user with registration instructions and will also assign a temporary password to the newly created user. This temporary password is only active for three days. Account administrators need to contact the invited user and provide them with this password.

IMPORTANT: For extra security, contact the user by phone. Do not email this password.

Invited users are required to register on the site before they can access the city emissions accounting site. During the registration process, users may review and modify their personal information and will be asked to pick a new password for the site. Once the process is complete, the user is granted the access rights specified by the account administrator.

IMPORTANT: Information provided during registration is used solely to run the Project 2° Web site. It will not be used for marketing purposes, nor will it be associated with other information users may have previously shared with any site contributors or partners, including Microsoft.

Forgotten or Expired Invitation Passwords

Users who forget their passwords or fail to change their passwords within three days of being invited must return to the Manage Users page, select their user name, and click Resend Email. Emissions Tracker will send the user a new temporary password.

User Roles and Sector-based Permissions

The following roles may be assigned to Emissions Tracker users:

Role	Description
Reader	Readers can view emissions records and reports and export data, but cannot add or modify information.
Contributor	Contributors can add, modify and delete data in their assigned inventory sectors.
Verifier	Verifiers can view emissions records and reports, and can perform audits.
Administrator	Administrators have full access to all city inventory data and administrative settings. They also manage user access to the city site.

To provide a further level of access control, the Contributor role may be restricted both by the type of inventory (the Community or Government inventory) and/or by individual sectors within each inventory.

The following are a few examples of how these permission restrictions may be leveraged:

1. Grant a user full access to both inventories; or

2. Grant a user full access to the Government inventory, but restricted access to three or four sectors within the Community inventory.

3. Grant a user restricted access to three or four sectors within the Community inventory, but grant no access to the Government inventory.

The Reader Role

Site readers are allowed to view any data found on a city’s Emissions Tracker site, including data within the Administration section, but they may not modify any of that data. The reader role is ideal for city management, consultants, researchers, or others who may need to see emissions information but who should not be modifying that data.

The Contributor Role

Contributors are responsible for adding, editing, or deleting inventory and measure data, and they may adjust the entity’s Action Plan parameters. These users also have read-only access to site Administration functionality.

The Verifier Role

Cities may want to contract a third party to verify the accuracy of GHG inventories. The initial release of the Emissions Tracker tool provides a special site role, the site verifier, which allows a third-party to access the city’s GHG accounting information for the verification process.

Verifiers do not have read-write access to a city’s GHG accounting data, nor may they change any administrative settings for the city or invite other users to the site. These users are permitted to read relevant GHG accounting data and see what coefficients are being used in calculations, but they may not change this information.

During the verification process, the verifier may take notes pertinent to the verification process. Verifiers are also the only users that may set the “Verified” flag on a city’s GHG accounting data. Should that data be modified in the future, the “Verified” flag will be removed from that inventory year, and the verification process will need to be restarted.

The Administrator Role

When first opening an Emissions Tracker account, cities must appoint an administrator. By default, the software allows cities to register up to two administrators, but there is no restriction on the number.

Account administrators are responsible for many important tasks on the site, so they should be chosen with great care. Specifically, account administrators are responsible for:

· Managing users of the site

· Managing the coefficient data used in calculations

· Managing the global warming potential data used in calculations

· Managing the categories and subcategories that may be applied to inventory or measure records

· Determining what data, if any, is published to the Participants page of the public Project 2° Web site

Data Security

Emissions Tracker is designed to protect a cities’ GHG accounting data, while at the same time giving them full control and access to that data. For additional information, consult the Privacy Policy or Terms of Use [provide link].

Participation by Invitation Only

To ensure that cities are represented on the site by valid representatives, Project 2° has adopted an invitation-only model. This allows Project 2° to contact each participating city directly and ensure that an appropriate account administrator has been appointed.

Controlled Access to Participant Site

Participating cities fully control the list of users who have access to their Emissions Tracker account. Project 2° personnel do not have access to this information, and they cannot access this data unless given the express permission of the participating city.

Data is Private by Default

By default, no participant data is published or shared. This ensures that participant data is kept private until the participant is ready to share the data. For additional information, consult the Privacy Policy or Terms of Use. The Terms of Use can be reviewed at any time by clicking the Manage My Profile link in the header of the Emissions Tracker site and selecting the Password Reset tab.

Key Emissions Tracker Concepts

The following concepts are used through the Emissions Tracker application.

Entity

An entity is a city government using Emissions Tracker to manage GHG emissions. There can be only one entity registered with Emissions Tracker for each city that has accepted an invitation to participate.

User

A user is a person that has access to use Emissions Tracker on behalf of an entity. There can be many users within an entity, each assigned a role that gives them a special purpose. Users may be city staff, consultants, verifiers, etc; they may have various roles like entering data or managing public information, etc. The top-level user in each city is the administrator. Only administrators can invite new users and assign them roles. See Roles for more information [insert link].

Inventory Types: Community and Government

A city manages GHG emissions from both its own operations, called government accounting, and from the wider community as a whole, called community accounting. Government emissions are a subset of community emissions—they are included in the community inventory. The two inventory types should not be added together. Government operations are no different than any other business that is present in the community. The diagram below shows the relationship between community and government emissions.

Emissions Tracker is designed for parallel accounting of both inventory types. This enables full climate action planning, such as target setting and measures tracking for each data stream.

GHG inventory: Sector – Record – GHG sources

A GHG Inventory of either inventory type is a complete accounting of GHG emissions for a particular year. In the Emissions Tracker framework, the GHG Inventory is divided into Sectors that are unique to the Community and Government inventory types. The sectors are:

Community Accounting Sectors

· Energy Use

· Power Generation

· Transportation

· Waste

· Process Emissions

· Agriculture, Forestry, and other Land Use

· Other

Government Accounting Sectors

· Buildings and Facilities

· Street Lighting and Traffic Signals

· Power Generation

· Vehicle fleet

· Wastewater

· Solid Waste

· Other

Under each sector, cities create unique Records that contain one or many GHG Sources. In practical terms a Record is a logical association of GHG sources that makes sense to the user. For example in a government inventory, “City Hall” might be a record in the Buildings and Facilities sector that contains GHG sources from electricity use, diesel use, and refrigerant leakage linked to the building. Cities can create as many records as needed to create a full GHG Inventory. See designing your inventory for more information [insert link].

GHG Sources

A GHG source is an activity that causes GHG emissions. Users select an appropriate set of sources to add to each record in an emissions inventory. GHG sources are classified based on the typology set forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with a few additions to accommodate for indirect GHG sources specified in the Local Government Protocols:

+ Stationary Fuel Combustion: Emissions from combustion of fuels

+ Electricity, Steam, and District Energy Consumption: indirect emissions from the use of grid based electricity and steam energy.

+ Mobile Fuel Combustion: Emissions from burning of transport fuels in various transport modes like on-road and off-road, rail, marine, and air.

+ Waste: Emissions from disposing or treating solid waste and treating liquid (sewage) waste.

+ Fugitive Emissions from Fuels: Fugitive emissions specific to the energy industry. (Such as from natural gas pipelines).

+ Process Emissions: Emissions of GHGs created directly during and industrial process unrelated to fuel combustion.

+ Use of Greenhouse Gases in Products: Leakage of GHGs used in products, such as leakage of refrigerants from products and vehicles.

+ Agriculture, forestry, and Other Land Use: Emissions created from agricultural processes, like the use of fertilizers, or from land use changes (like deforestation) that create a net emissions within the inventory year.

Users add GHG sources to records in an emission inventory using a set of Emission Calculators or through Direct Entry.

Emission Calculators

Emission calculators compute GHG emissions based on inputs supplied by the users. There can be more than one calculator per source because there can be more than one method available to model GHG sources. Calculators will be added as new methods become widely accepted and available.

The following list shows the emissions calculators found in Emissions Tracker:

· Stationary Energy Combustion

· Electricity Consumption

· Fleet Average Emissions

· Mobile Combustion

· Non-Road Emissions

· Solid Waste

· Incineration and Open Burning of Municipal Solid Waste

· Incineration and Open Burning of Other Waste Types

· Biological Treatment of Waste

· Wastewater

Read the Help file section called “Emission Calculators” for a complete description.

Each calculator requires user-supplied Activity Data to compute emissions. For example, in the “Mobile Combustion Calculator” activity data could be distance traveled by vehicles. For the “Solid Waste: landfills and dumps calculator” activity data would be amount of solid waste sent to landfills. Coefficients associated with each calculator can be edited by the city’s Emissions Tracker administrator.

Direct Entry Forms

For GHG sources that have been pre-computed outside of the Emissions Tracker, the software allows users to choose a Direct Entry form that accepts GHG emissions data directly. The form will then convert this data into an appropriate CO2e value. These forms help cities quickly bring into the system existing GHG data, perhaps from an earlier inventory, or computed with a calculator not available in Emissions Tracker.

Coefficients

The software calculators are pre-loaded with emission factors and coefficients that determine the amount of a GHG emitted for a given quantity of activity entered in the calculators. These values have been collected from IPCC guidelines, UNFCC national reporting documents, and national environmental and energy agencies. Coefficients and their references can be viewed in the Administration section of Emissions Tracker.

City administrators may override coefficient values in the Administration section of the site. Administrators should review these values and make any updates necessary. For example, if a local study has been done that shows that vehicles in the community are quite new, and CH4 and N2O values are lower than the default averages in the software, those emission factors should be changed. Note that the software saves coefficient changes and applies them to all relevant calculations in the given inventory year.

Coefficients are provided on a time series basis, so they can change over time, for example if electricity generation in the region begins to come from more renewable sources, different years would have different electricity emissions factors. If a coefficient is not available for a given year the software looks for the most recent year when calculating emissions. For more information about each coefficient and its use see the calculator sections of the software Help files.

NOTE: Modifying the coefficients for an entity affects only that entity.

Fuel List

Emissions Tracker calculators support virtually all common fuels available and consumed in local governments. See Appendix A for a complete list of fuels included in the application.

Climate Action Plan

A climate action plan is the typical outcome of a planning process followed by a city trying to manage and reduce GHG emissions. GHG action planning is based on reducing emissions below a measured baseline. Emissions Tracker is designed to develop and track progress of a climate action plan. A climate action plan includes:

Baseline emission inventory and Business As Usual (BAU) forecast: This is a measured GHG emission inventory for chosen base year, and a forecast of those emissions out to some future year by which time you intend to meet an emission reduction target. The BAU forecast should extend emissions from the base year forward presuming that no actions are to be taken in the future to change emissions, so that they will grow naturally according to expected increases in energy demand.

Reduction Target: This is a percentage below the baseline emission rate that your city is intending to achieve by the target year (year to which you complete for your BAU forecast)

Target rate: This is the emissions rate cities intend to achieve. It reflects the emissions reductions cities need to achieve each year in order to meet their reduction target.

Interim Year Inventories: These are the years between the baseline year and the target year for which cities complete an emission inventory. It is best practice to complete interim emission inventories.

Emissions Tracker is designed to support visual Climate Action Planning. See the Help topic “Creating a Climate Action Plan” for more information. See the Help Topic “GHG Accounting Basics” for more information about developing your baseline emission inventory.

GHG Reduction Measures

A GHG Reduction Measure is an action or policy that reduces GHG emissions. Measures to reduce GHG emissions are tracked in the Management and Planning – Plan Reduction Measures section of the site, and their impact on the Action Plan can be seen in the Action Plan graph as presented in the previous section.

Measures are input into Emissions Tracker much like a record in the emissions inventory. The goal is to use Emissions Tracker to input all your actions, proposed and implemented, and to determine the GHG reduction benefits of the measure. Over the years you can add more actions as they become planned and implemented. Emissions Tracker enables you to use the same calculators designed to create emission inventory records to compute emissions savings for each measure based on expected or observed changes in activity level.

Measures are categorized using the same list of sectors used for GHG inventories, and within each sector they are further classified by Measure Type. The default view is the View Measures by Sector view. In this view, clicking on a sector will show all of the measures within that sector. By clicking the View Measures by Measure Type link, users can switch to a view that shows the measure types within a category. Clicking on a Measure Type will show all of the measures of that type.

Measures may be mapped directly to inventory records, but they do not have to be. Emissions Tracker allows cities to create several measures which affect a single item in the inventory, and it also allows for the creation of a single measure that may impact several items in the inventory, such as a citywide building retrofit program. Flexibility of measure management is built in.

Measures Linked to Inventory Records

When you create a measure you may link it directly to a record in your emissions inventory, or you may create a measure separately. For example, if you are retrofitting a city building you can link the measure to the emissions from that building so that the measure can be tracked against that building in the inventory. Alternatively, you can create a measure that is not linked to a specific inventory record.

Country Pack

The Country Pack is the complete set of default coefficients and other data for a country. All city users within a specific country are provided default coefficients from the country pack. Once again, cities are encouraged to review the country pack data and modify it as needed for local conditions, or as per the needs of the protocols being followed, prior to starting accounting with the Emissions Tracker. Project 2^o Administrators will occasionally update the country packs as new data becomes available in each country. Changes will not happen automatically. Users will have the option of updating their coefficients to the new set, or continuing to use the existing set.

Designing Your Inventory

Emissions Tracker’s flexible framework allows unlimited ways to design an inventory because each city is unique. There is no one way that is correct. For example, in the Buildings and Facilities Sector cities might employ highly granular accounting by creating records for all buildings. In this case their inventory might be hundreds of records across all sectors that comprise city operations: waste water treatment plants, landfills, hospitals, police vehicle fleets, etc.

The government inventory might look like this in Emissions Tracker:

+ Government Inventory

+ Sector: Buildings and Facilities

+ Record 1: City Hall

- Source 1: Electricity Consumption

- Source 2: Diesel Use

- Source 3: Refrigerant Leakage

- Source N: and so on…

+ Record 2: Public Hospital

+ Record 3: Water Treatment Plant

+ Record n: and so on….

+ Sector: Vehicle Fleet

+ Record 1: Police vehicles

+ And so on…

+ And so on….

Or cities may use a top-down approach by using a single record called “all buildings” that contains aggregated emission data for all buildings together, such as:

+ Government Inventory

+ Sector: Buildings and Facilities

+ Record 1: All Buildings and Facilities

- Source 1: Electricity Consumption

- Source 2: Diesel Use

- Source 3: Refrigerant Leakage

- Source N: and so on…

+ Sector: Vehicle Fleet

+ Record 1: All Fleet Vehicles

+ And so on…

+ And so on….

Or cities may use something in the middle, like creating a Record for a specific group of buildings (e.g., Police Stations) for which they manage energy data collectively.

In deciding how to design their inventory, cities must consider many factors, such as what their goals are for their inventory, how much data they have, what level of effort they are willing to invest, and what kinds of actions they are considering to reduce emissions. Cities should always plan out their inventory strategy prior to starting GHG accounting with Emissions Tracker. Carefully planning out the inventory structure will allow cities to consistently manage their data over time. Cities should strive to keep the same structure year after year, only updating it for changes as needed.

For climate action planning, the baseline inventory is not the end, but a means to the end.

If cities plan to track the impact of lots of actions and policies, they should try to map out the GHG inventory in a way that will allow them to isolate the GHG data they are trying to impact. For example, if cities are tracking building retrofits as part of the Clinton Climate Initiative, they should consider tracking the buildings being retrofitted as separate records in the inventory.

On the other hand if cities are tracking broad based policy initiatives they might be able to get away with tracking aggregated data. For example, if they are tracking a set of residential energy programs, they should, at a minimum, break down residential energy use as a separate record in the community inventory under the Energy Use sector. Cities must also keep in mind that future releases of Emissions Tracker will enable more tools to analyze data, so granular data will become more useful for reporting, mapping, and visualization.

Registration and Login

Registering on the Emissions Tracker Site

All users invited to participate in a city account on the Emissions Tracker web site will be asked to register on the site before they may contribute to that account. Registration ensures that permissions are assigned to an invited user and that an email account is associated with the user account to assist users who forget their user name or password.

PRIVACY NOTICE: The information provided during registration is used solely to run this site. It will not be used for marketing purposes, nor will it be shared with third parties.

Logging in to the Emissions Tracker Site

To log on to the Emissions Tracker Web site, users simply click the Sign in to Emissions Tracker button at the top of the Project 2° homepage. Users must provide a valid user name and password to log in, and their rights on a city site are restricted to those granted by that city’s account administrators.

Forgotten Password

Site users sometimes forget the password associated with their user account. Like many other Web sites, Emissions Tracker provides a mechanism for users to reset their password in the event that they no longer remember it.

To reset the password associated with a user account, click the Forgot Password link on the Project 2° home page. The user must then provide their user name and then click the Submit button.

An email will then be sent to the address associated with the account. This email contains a link to a page on the Emissions Tracker Web site that will allow the user to reset their password.

NOTE: The user’s password will not be reset until the user visits the password reset page on the Emissions Tracker Web site.

Forgotten User Name

Site users who forget their Emissions Tracker user name may have their user name re-sent to the email account they used to register on the site. To do this, users should click the Forgot Username link on the Project 2° home page.

The Forgot Username page will require the user to provide the email address associated with their account. After providing this and clicking the Submit button, the Emissions Tracker site will determine if there is a site account associated with that email account. If an active account is associated with the email address provided by the user, an email will be sent to that user containing the forgotten user name.

Government and Community Inventories

Cities generally create two separate emissions inventories – one for local government operations and one for all emissions within the community, determined by the physical boundaries of the jurisdiction. Most emissions from local government operations are a subset of the community emissions (limited exceptions occur where local government operations take place outside of the community's geopolitical boundary).

Emissions Tracker provides what are essentially two entirely different sites for managing these two inventories. The Government inventory has its own inventory, action plan, and measures, as does the Community inventory.

Users can switch between the Community and Government inventories by changing the dropdown in the page header.

The page header will always inform users of the inventory they are working in, and the color scheme of the site will also change to make identification of the inventory easier. The community inventory color theme is light blue, while the government inventory theme is purple. A third theme color is used to show the user when they are in the Administration section, which contains city-level settings that apply to both the Community and the Government inventory.

Emissions Management and Planning

After signing into Emissions Tracker, the user arrives at that Emissions Management and Planning functional area. There are three other functional areas (reporting, administration, and resources) described in other chapters.

Within the Emissions Management and Planning functional area there are four sub-tabs. These subsections contain all functions needed to manage GHGs emissions:

· Account Summary Tab: an overview of GHG emissions, reduction measures, and progress towards objectives

· Manage Emissions Tab: this is where you manage your emissions inventory

· Create a Climate Action Plan Tab

· Plan Reduction Measures Tab: this is where reduction measures are managed

The site header also contains several controls which impact the display of the entire page – users can switch between the Government and Community inventories, or change the display of data on the page (type of gas displayed, mass of the gas, or the scopes of the emissions being displayed).

Page Level Controls

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Switching between the Community and Government Inventories

The inventory type – Community or Government – is displayed prominently in the page header. Users can switch from one inventory type to the other by using the dropdown in the header.

NOTE: Users visiting the Administration section of the site will not see the inventory types displayed in the header, nor will they be able to switch between them. This is because all administrative settings apply to both the Community and the Government inventories.

Filtering by Gas

Modifying the gas dropdown will display information for the selected gas. The default value for this dropdown is to display all gas values in the system as CO2 equivalent (CO2e).

Filtering by Scope

Modifying the Scope dropdown will filter displayed emissions by Scope. By default, all Scopes are shown.

Changing Displayed Units

Modify this dropdown to change the units displayed on the page. By default, all values are displayed in metric units.

IMPORTANT: Select smaller units if higher precision is required!

The Summary Page

The Summary Page is a dashboard for the Emissions Tracker application. It offers a high-level view of all inventory and measure data entered into the application, as well as progress towards objectives spelled out in the Climate Action Plan.

IMPORTANT: All data seen on this screen will depend on the selected inventory. If the user is in the Government inventory, they will only see data from the Government inventory on this screen. If the user is in the Community inventory, they will only see data from that inventory.

The Getting Started Guide

Users who are new to the Emissions Tracker tool may want some assistance getting started. The Getting Started Guide helps these users with important site tasks such as creating a baseline inventory, a Climate Action Plan, or planning measures.

To open the Getting Started Guide, click the Getting Started link at the top of the page. To close the Guide, click the “Close Guide” link within the Guide.

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Emissions Status and Trend

The Emissions Status and Trend table provides a window into the overall status of inventories and measures for a city.

The table is broken into two parts, each colored differently to designate the important qualitative difference between the numbers contained on each side. The left side of the table shows actual Emissions Inventories that have been created by the city. The right side of the table shows Projected Emissions. These are calculated after a Baseline Inventory Year and a Climate Action Plan have been created.

Emissions Inventories

For each inventory year that has been created on the site, users can see the year, the completion status of the sectors for that year, the verification status of the inventory, the total CO2e emissions entered for that year, and the CO2e trend. The CO2e trend measures the absolute increase in the invento