ADEME/ Energie-Cités Energy and Regions October A city scheme to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases.

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1 Energy and regions Chalon-sur-Saône (FR) A city scheme to cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases. General aspects Chalon-sur-Saône owes its very long history and its role as a crossroad and marketplace to its privileged situation on the banks of the Saône River. Today, the city has some 52,000 inhabitants. This city of art and history reflects the quintessence of the Bourgogne region, known for its way of life and secular traditions. The city is also the second-largest economic centre in the region, with expertise in plastics, mechanical engineering, and metallurgy. Today, the city is involved in an ambitious cultural, economic, and academic project in the audio and video industries. It should be noted that Chalon-sur- Saône is the birthplace of Nicéphore Niepce, the inventor of photography. CONTEXT No campaign in the battle against greenhouse gases can be successful unless local communities are strongly involved. Elected officials are gradually realizing what's at stake when it comes to climate change, particularly because they know they will be the main ones to have to deal with the consequences. Facing this challenge not only means anticipating possible crises, but also reducing emissions of greenhouse gases today. Politicians are called on to develop bold policies for development, mobility, energy consumption in public works, waste management, etc. The French government's Climate Scheme of June 2004 fosters local campaigns and encourages local communities to implement local climate schemes. The City of Chalon-sur-Saône took part in the preparation committee for the Climate Scheme (a group of local communities) as well as in a group that investigated measuring local greenhouse gas emissions, which was organized by MIES (the interministerial mission on the greenhouse effect) and Energie-Cité. The City was thus a pioneer in this field. Indeed, for more than 10 years it has been conducting energy efficiency campaigns in its buildings. It was also chosen to be a pilot city in a program financed by the European commission to find out how to face the challenge of "lowering emissions of greenhouse gases sustainably and quickly". This challenge is all the greater because Chalon-sur-Saône has already done a lot to reduce its energy consumption.

2 EXPERIENCE For more than 10 years, Chalon-sur-Saône has been committed to environmental issues, especially the management of energy consumption and the reduction of greenhouse gases. The list below gives an overview of its activities: A history of the City's commitment 1991 Creation of the Energy Centre within the municipal Architectural Service (maintenance and renovation work), founded by task forces to participate in all units of all works that deal with saving energy, Creation of the Environmental Centre, with an advisory and leadership function for businesses, communities, public schools, and the public at large, 1993 The City passes its Environmental Plan, The creation of a cycling policy, 1994 Ratification of the Environmental Charter, Creation of a network to monitor air quality, The City joins the Club of Cycling Towns, 1997 The first LNG vehicles are purchased, 1999 Experiment with an environmental management approach involving three of the City's municipal technical services (expanded to 6 services in 2004), 2000 Installation of a cogeneration gas turbine to feed heat to the district heating system, 2002 Involvement in the European program Privileges, 2003 Membership in Energie-Cités, A municipal scheme to reduce the greenhouse effect is drawn up. The Privileges program a challenge for the future Since November of 2002, the greater metropolitan area of Chalon-sur-Saône has been taking part in the Privileges program, a project to encourage cities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This program is one of the LIFE Environment demonstration projects supported by the European Commission to address climate change. Organized by WWF France in the partnership with the City of Chalon-sur-Saône, the Environmental Centre, and the regional delegation of ADEME, this program aims to mobilize all of the local actors (municipality, administrative services, public organizations, businesses, households, etc.) around one ambitious goal: to show that it is possible to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in an area more quickly and vigorously than France's and Europe's Kyoto Protocol targets require. In other words, the greater metropolitan area of Chalon-sur-Saône aims to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent in three years instead of in 10 years. The challenge is the speed. To succeed, the program focuses on the following three groups: 1. Local businesses: energy audits are conducted and balance sheets drawn up in industrial zones; an environmental management guide is published for administration; meetings on related issues are held, etc. 2. Local communities: a local platform is created where people can meet; a web site is put on the Internet for innovative campaigns by local communities to fight climate change; on November 13, 2003, a Congress is held in Chalon-sur-Saône under the title "My city faces climate change", which 130 local communities and associations attended, etc. 3. Citizens: a web site is put on the Internet ( an educational kit called "One more degree" is given to schools in the area; events open to the public are held on topics such as renewable energy and climate change, etc. It was thus natural for Chalon-sur-Saône to face the challenge of coming up with a city scheme to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in its own buildings - and what it came up with was a truly versatile tool.

3 A municipal scheme to reduce the greenhouse effect This scheme specifies the City's past and future actions towards improving energy efficiency and quantifies the resulting effects in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases. Seven municipal services are involved: Environmental Protection, the Energy Centre in the Architectural Service, the local electricity provider, the urbanism department, municipal garages, city workshops, and waste collection. In 2002, the reference year, 54,200 tons of CO2 was emitted by city property (buildings, public lighting, vehicles, and city heating). The scheme covers the four functions of energy in the city: Households: high environmental quality (HQE) districts, a local urbanization plan, etc. Production and distribution: cogeneration with natural gas, wood energy, etc. Consumption: city buildings, streetlights, traffic lights, city vehicles, etc. Changing behaviour: events to promote more environmentally friendly modes of mobility, financial support for solar thermal systems, raising awareness about how to save energy, etc. The City has set up a commission, which receives 80% of its funding from ADEME, to come up with a greenhouse gas dashboard. Several meetings between the municipal services involved and this dashboard committee took place in the presence of Gilles Manière, the environmental officer in charge of this dashboard, with the aim of focusing the methods applied and responding to the pragmatic needs in the City's list of requirements. This dashboard was set up based on the data collected on the five main energy consumers in each of the services: public lighting, community buildings, city vehicles, the district heating system and piped water system (delegated public services). The committee was asked to come up with a software tool that would be simultaneously easy to use (Excel tables), adapted to the data available from the services, easy to develop further, and able to serve as a communication tool, especially for elected officials. Hence, the dashboard is a tailor-made tool that can be used to monitor the actions taken (CO2 emissions by consumer, energy function, and year) as well as a simulation tool. An interdisciplinary organization Gilles Manière, who jointly directed the Privileges program and the city's scheme to lower emissions of greenhouse gases, has been deeply involved since this approach was launched. The municipal scheme, coordinated by the Environment Protection Service, is in charge of the following: motivating the City Commission, which has representatives from the seven services involved in this program, the steering of a quantification study on greenhouse gas emissions linked to the municipal scheme, the updating of the scheme and the dashboard in close cooperation with the other services. Within the City's administrative structure, all of the municipal services involved in this program are under the direction of the Technical Services. A Steering Committee for the Privileges program with representatives from all of the partners in the project was set up at the beginning of the program. It met once every three months at the beginning of the project, and later twice a year to respond efficiently to demands. Just before these meetings, the City Commission meets to validate the various stages of the municipal scheme to reduce the greenhouse effect.

4 Two concrete examples of actions taken The HQE area "Saint Jean des Jardins" Saint Jean des Jardins is a sustainable development project near the centre of town. Here, 180 apartments, a health centre, and family parks were developed in a 5-hectare area according to the specifications for high environmental quality. Energy management is one of the six issues taken into account in the specifications for this project. For example, this district will be connected to the piped-heat network, which is being extended with the installation of a wood-fired generator to replace the old one that burned oil and coal. This 4 MW wood-fired heating system will meet the needs of the equivalent of 1,000 apartments and allow for a 94 % reduction in greenhouse gases relative to the emissions of the reference heating system that would have used individual gas heaters throughout the district. Within the district heating system, this operation will reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the generation of heat by about 10%, which is a major milestone towards reaching the goal in the Privileges program. City subsidies for solar power Since February of 2004, when the Privileges program was completed, the city has been providing subsidies in the amount of 100 per square meter of solar collector for both individual and community solar thermal systems on homes in Chalon-sur-Saône (immersion heaters and systems that combine hot water and heating). These subsidies are available to individuals and managers of public, private, and semi-public projects. In order to promote solar thermal energy, the City is working with the technical support service of ADEME Bourgogne to organize an information meeting for local building and construction experts, mechanics and makers of solar equipment, and local communities within the metropolitan area. Communication measures Addressing city officials The Energy Centre within the Architectural Service uses different means of communication to spread practical information about energy efficiency within the services: - The internal journal, which is distributed to the 1,500 communal employees, - the community intranet, for instance to remind users to turn off their computers when they leave the office in the evening. In June of 2004, during the Sustainable Development Week, the Energy Centre conducted an experiment on electricity demand management in City Hall with the support of ADEME Bourgogne and EDF. The preceding week, the electricity consumption in the building for that week had been measured. During the Sustainable Development Week, an awareness raising campaign about saving electricity was conducted among 250 employees in City Hall by means of public notices passed around in the offices every morning. These notices reminded them to: put their computers and office equipment on standby during lunch breaks and meetings and turn them off completely before leaving in the evening; turn off coffee machines when they are not being used; and turn off lamps when natural light was sufficient, etc. The following week, electricity consumption was measured again. The initial analysis of the findings revealed a 7% decrease in electricity consumption. Ville de Chalon Sur Saône Addressing the public at large The citizens of Chalon-sur-Saône were made aware of environmentally friendly means of transportation at two events: the "Cycling Day" in June and "A Car-Free City" in September. A column in the monthly city journal, 29,000 of which are distributed among the citizenry, is dedicated to specific, easy ways of saving energy. This column is also posted on the City's web site, as is the City's scheme to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases - it can be downloaded under the menu item Environment/Privileges.

5 EVALUATION and PERSPECTIVES By participating in the Privileges program, the city services of Chalon-sur-Saône were able to show off the good work they did in several ways: among community employees, residents, and other French cities. The results are positive halfway through. In November of 2003, a year after the program started, Chalon-sur-Saône received the Territoria Prize in the category of the environment for having the most innovative campaigns. In 2004, the city's scheme to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases received the Rubans prize for sustainable development. And still, the City is looking for ways to improve its scheme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially along two indispensable, interwoven axes: on the one hand, the search for new technology that can be used by the City; on the other, raising awareness about how people (city officials and citizens) can change their behaviour to save energy. FOR MORE INFORMATION The City of Chalon Sur Saône Florence FLAMAND Service Environnement Propreté 18, rue Paul Sabatier Chalon-sur-Saône Tel: +33 (0) Fax : +33 (0) dficher@chalonsursaone.fr Web site: Energie-Cités produced this document with the financial support of France's Environmental and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) and the technical support of the City of Chalon-sur-Saône. Photo credits: The City of Chalon Sur Saône