We’re Number Six! Chicago Makes Strides on ACEEE’s City Energy Efficiency Scorecard

Our Chicago Blackhawks are heading to the Stanley Cup Finals, but that’s not the only accomplishment our city has to celebrate. The American Center for an Energy-Efficient Economy just released a 2015 City Energy Efficiency Scorecard that ranks 51 large U.S. cities in five key areas of energy efficiency, and Chicago ranks number six. Chicago is also one of the cities that showed the greatest improvement, moving up from a rank of nine in 2013.

Chicago’s biggest gain is in the buildings policy category (from 12 points in 2013 to 22.5 points in 2015, out of a possible score of 29 points). In large part, this is because Chicago’s utility efficiency programs are well-funded and customers have good access to energy data. Widespread participation in Chicago’s Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance helped ratchet up Chicago’s buildings score.

Also worth mentioning: Divvy! The expansion of the city’s bike sharing system helped Chicago earn points in the transportation policy category. Check out the full scorecard here: http://aceee.org/sites/default/files/pdf/score-sheet/chicago.pdf

Other top cities include Boston, New York City, Washington, San Francisco, and Seattle. See how your city stacks up: http://aceee.org/local-policy/city-scorecard

Image of the number “6” used under Creative Commons license from Flickr user Steve Snodgrass.