Housely
The environment has become more and more important in the public consciousness, with the result that cities have been pouring more and more resources into green initiatives. After all, green initiatives are beneficial for not just the health and happiness of their residents but also the general well-being of humans as a species because of the specter of climate change.
Under these circumstances, it is no wonder that more and more consumers are becoming more and more interested in learning about the performance of U.S. cities in this regard, which is why WalletHub has come up with a list of U.S. cities from the greenest to the least green. (1) Most of the cities on the list are familiar names, with examples ranging from the surprising such as New York City and Washington, D.C. to the not so surprising such as Seattle and San Francisco. However, there are some surprising cities on the list as well, with Fremont being one of the best examples at #10.
How Is Fremont One of the Greenest Cities in the United States?
In brief, the city of Fremont is one of the numerous cities that can be found in the state of California. (2) To be exact, it is one of the cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, meaning that it is associated with the city of San Francisco. However, it is also the closest of the San Francisco Bay Area cities to the Silicon Valley, meaning that it is associated with the Silicon Valley as well. As a result, the city of Fremont has a fair amount of appeal for its residents as well as the residents of the surrounding area.
WalletHub used a total of 13 metrics to gauge the cities under consideration according to four separate dimensions. For example, metrics such as the air quality and the greenhouse gas emissions per capita are used to gauge a city’s environmental quality, while metrics such as the excess fuel consumed on an annual basis and the percentage of people who commute by driving are used to gauge the greenness of a city’s transportation. This leaves two other dimensions, which are the greenness of energy sources as well as the greenness of lifestyle and local policies.
The city of Fremont performed well on some dimensions but less well on other dimensions, which is why it placed 10th out of 100 cities rather than someplace higher. For example, it came 2nd on environmental quality and 10th on the greenness of energy sources, but no higher than 59th on the greenness of transportation. Environmental quality is unsurprising because Fremont has a population that can be measured in the low hundreds of thousands, which provides it with a significant advantage compared to most of the other cities on the list. However, that same factor counted against it when it came to the greenness of transportation, seeing as how its public transportation is not as developed as the systems that can be found in some of the bigger cities in the United States.
Regardless, it is important to note that while the size of Fremont had a role in determining its rank on the list, most of its success can be attributed to its efforts to make itself as sustainable as possible. (3) In short, the city adopted what it calls its Climate Action Plan in 2012, which is a road map of the steps that it will use to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent as measured using a 2005 baseline by 2020. Given the ambitiousness of the accomplishment, it should come as no surprise to learn that said steps encompass a wide range of activities.
For example, Fremont runs the Fremont Green Challenge, which is an online resource that provides Fremont residents with the latest information about ways that they can use to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from their daily lives. However, what is interesting is that the Fremont Green Challenges recasts these suggestions as a series of challenges, which can be completed for the sake of earning points that can be compared with the points totals of other users in order to create a sense of friendly competition. Finally, it should be noted that the online resource is connected to other resources that can be used to contribute towards the city’s green initiatives, thus making it a hub of sorts for the separate components of the Climate Action Plan.
Another example of Fremont’s green initiatives is the effort to reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions from its transportation, which is important because such emissions make up a significant part of the city’s total emissions. Some of the methods are city-wide, as shown by land use policies as well as the development of new transit infrastructure. In contrast, other methods focus more on Fremont residents, whether by encouraging them to buy low-emissions vehicles or by encouraging them to seek ways of transportation other than driving their own vehicles.
Other examples of Fremont’s green initiatives are just as diverse in nature. For example, there is an effort to promote the use of renewable energies by the city as well as its residents. Similarly, there is an effort to reduce the amount of water that the city is using up on a regular basis, which is particularly important because of the drought in the state of California. Given the sheer range of these green initiatives, it is no wonder that Fremont has already managed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent since it implemented its Climate Action Plan.
Further Considerations
There is nothing particularly unusual about what the city of Fremont is doing. After all, there are similar cities with similar programs that can be found throughout the United States. However, what is interesting is that Fremont has proven U.S. cities to be capable of achieving excellent results when it comes to environmentalism by engaging its residents as well as launching a wide range of green initiatives to target a wide range of problematic areas. Something that should serve as reassurance to U.S. cities interested in lowering their greenhouse gas emissions but hesitant to do because they are not sure that they can succeed.
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