Vauban is an exemplary sustainable town and a shining example of the success of renewable energy in a community. Vauban is a zero-emission district in Freiburg, Germany, known for plus-energy buildings. A plus-energy building is an energy efficient building that produces more energy, from renewable energy sources, than it consumes. Most electricity for buildings in Vauban is derived from rooftop solar. Residences in the Sun Ship are all plus-energy buildings with rooftop solar panels. In addition, district heating for Vauban is supplied by a local biomass-fed cogeneration plant...
Oslo: Net Zero Future | Oslo has fleets of electric mass public transit throughout the city - electric trams, buses, and ferries - that are powered by electricity from a municipal grid fed almost entirely by renewable energy (RE). Oslo not only sources electricity for public mass transit from RE, but also uses RE sources to provide electricity for every other sector of the city’s economy as well. Norway leads the world in electric vehicle (EV) sales, and the majority of new cars sold are EVs...
Sustainable Cities
Climate Action
GCT Featured Articles
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12+ Ways You Can Help The Environment
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Lower your carbon footprint, save energy, and help the environment. Here are over 12 actions for sustainable individuals: use Energy Star appliances...
10 Ways to Reduce Food Waste
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Significant amounts of food waste originates from cities. Urbanites can use food waste reduction methods and technologies to maximize food supply, and reduce ecological degradation stemming from waste. City dwellers actually have abundant resources and solutions available to them to save food for future household consumption, gather food for charity, and compost food scraps...
Regenerative Agriculture and Plant-Rich Diets
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Regenerative agriculture creates carbon sinks; turning farms into healthy ecosystems that sequester carbon with plentiful plant life, while also producing crops for food. Land use practices that favor organic plant growth in addition to food crops, polyculture, healthy ecosystems, soil nutrition, cover crops, carbon farming, and low tillage...
Modern Sustainable Waste Management Technologies
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5 Ways for Smart Cities to Implement Sustainable Waste Management | Article by Jane Marsh | Cities worldwide are implementing zero-waste strategies. Countless places worldwide are using advances in technology to help keep their cities clean. As cities test new waste management ideas, they learn what does and does not work...
5 Categories of Change in Climate
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Climate change is adversely affecting all parts of the earth. There have been dramatic increases in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) globally since the industrial revolution of the 19th century. The planet warms faster as more GHGs are added to the earth's atmosphere. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, expressing the global scientific consensus, warns that global net human-caused emissions of CO2 need to fall by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching 'net zero' around 2050...
Profiles in Sustainable Cities – San Diego, California
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Sustainable cities, like San Diego, have eco-city designs that prioritize the consideration of social, economic, and environmental impacts of climate mitigation policies and sustainability policies. Green cities also prioritize resilient, thriving urban habitats for existing residents. Among the top of any list of these clean, green eco-cities is San Diego, California...
Clean Energy Jobs are UP, and RE Cost is down
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The Shining Future of the Green Economy | Clean Energy JOBS | The future of employment in the energy sector is in energy efficiency, clean energy, and renewable energy. Employment in the clean energy sector features, first and foremost, jobs in energy efficiency...
Breakthroughs in Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy
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Onshore wind farms now provide the least expensive form of energy of ANY energy source, renewable or non-renewable. Breakthroughs in wind turbines continue to drive down the costs of building wind farms, and make wind turbines more efficient and larger for onshore and offshore wind farms (for example, the 12MW GE Haliade-X)...
Clean Hydrogen Power
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Hydrogen and the Clean Energy Transition | Hydrogen created with clean energy is one of the most promising emerging energy technological developments to fill the rising global demand for clean low carbon and emission-free energy sources...
10+ IoT and Sustainability Technologies for Smart Cities
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IoT Technologies Benefit Sustainable Cities | by Jane Marsh | As the conversation around greenhouse gas emissions and climate change intensifies, cities are implementing green initiatives to make life easier and healthier for the planet and people...
Microgrids Spread Across Africa
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Microgrids - Energy Solution Developing Microgrids | As African nations push for rural electrification, many look...
Recycling – How We Are Doing as a Global Community; Waste-to-Energy
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Effective waste management strategies for cities include citywide recycling programs, circular economy strategies, zero-waste strategies, as well as waste-to-energy programs. The global scientific community agrees that we must make an effort now on actionable climate priorities as simple as recycling, and also invest in waste-to-energy...
Shortfall in International GHG Reduction Pledges
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Shortfall in International NDCs | Are the World's Nations Going to Meet Their Climate...
Putting a Price on Carbon; Carbon Offsets
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Carbon Markets | The primary function of carbon pricing is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, mitigate climate change, and therefore benefit all of humanity...
Improving Energy Efficiency
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Energy Efficiency Foundations for Green Building: Energy Star, LED and CFL Lights, LEED technologies, Demand Response, Smart Meters, and Home Energy Management...
Smart City Energy Infrastructure
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Clean energy transition - Updating Infrastructure for Developing Renewable Energy in Cities - People-centered smart cities are cropping up worldwide...
Desalination: Global Clean Water Solution
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Desalination potentially represents a significant solution to supplying the world with clean water; depending on how widespread the technology can become in the future.
Plan for the Expansion of Smart Meter Infrastructure
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Many buildings in America today still rely on inefficient energy infrastructure; such as older models of energy meters, instead of modern, cost-effective, energy-efficient technology such as smart meters...
Economy vs. the Environment
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Economic growth does not have to come at the expense of the environment. Sustainable technologies (such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable mass transit, and electric vehicles) are also extremely beneficial to the economy...
Carbon Tax – An Essential Levy on Pollution
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Defining effective carbon taxes | A carbon tax is a levy in countries and regions...
Decoupling and Divestment to Reach Sustainability; ESG
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Economic Growth Without Environmental Impact | Decoupling, in eco-environmental terms, can be defined as economic growth without creating corresponding environmental impacts. With the global divestment movement towards sustainability and away from fossil fuels - industries and corporations are able to develop economically, while still reducing their carbon footprint...
Car-sharing and Ride-hailing
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Sustainable Commuting | Many ride-sharing fleets are converting to electric cars. Car-sharing (a.k.a. ride-sharing) services...
EVs and the Future of Urban Transit
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Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure | What will be done to develop electric vehicle infrastructure? EV charging stations must be developed to be abundant in some cities, and ubiquitous in most vehicle-heavy cities worldwide. With internal combustion engine (ICE) phase-outs beginning to be implemented in world cities, there is a much greater need to have gas stations updated and/ or replaced...
Reforestation
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Deforestation and solutions; including reforestation | Deforestation of our planet, for centuries, has led to...
Clean Energy
Net Zero
Improving Energy Efficiency
Energy Efficiency Foundations for Green Building: Energy Star, LED and CFL Lights, LEED technologies, Demand Response, Smart Meters, and Home Energy Management...
E-mobility Trends are Decarbonizing Transit
Decarbonizing the Transportation Sector with E-mobility | It's no secret that transportation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). In fact, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, transportation accounts for 29% of US GHGs, the most from any sector. The good news is that there are a number of trends that are helping to decarbonize the transportation sector. One of the most promising of these trends is the rise of electric vehicles (EVs) and other e-mobility options, like electric 2 and 3-wheelers. The rapid increase of EVs, electric bikes, and other e-mobility transit options are important trends for cities in order to decarbonize transportation and reach net zero goals...
Decoupling and Divestment to Reach Sustainability; ESG
Economic Growth Without Environmental Impact | Decoupling, in eco-environmental terms, can be defined as economic growth without creating corresponding environmental impacts. With the global divestment movement towards sustainability and away from fossil fuels - industries and corporations are able to develop economically, while still reducing their carbon footprint...