At the request of the Village of Skokie, IL, Delta Institute conducted a baseline greenhouse gas inventory for the Village in Fall 2021. An updated report was produced in the summer of 2022, integrating a different methodology for transportation emissions. This inventory includes emissions that are directly related to community actions and provides a starting point to develop initiatives that will reduce or eliminate emissions in the near, mid, and long term for the Village, its businesses, and residents.
Why our Work is Needed
Reducing Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions is critical to avoid the worst effects of climate change and keep global temperature increases below 1.5° C; GHG emissions has become a standard component of climate action and/or carbon neutral planning. To support this goal, Delta has identified areas for improvement and strategies the Village may consider, in partnership with its residents and businesses. This scope is in line with other municipal collaboration that Delta has successfully completed.
Brief Overview of What We’re Doing
The Village of Skokie is a municipality within the Chicago-Naperville, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) bordering the north side of Chicago in Illinois. Skokie has 17,865 owner-occupied households and 7,296 renter-occupied households. Approximately 67 percent of households are families. The Village has more than 250 large institutions and industrial businesses including retail, educational, healthcare and manufacturing. With this context in mind, our report provided a starting point for developing aggressive greenhouse gas reduction targets and plans for achieving them and identifies emissions within the Village boundary, describes emissions not included in the inventory but are nevertheless important to address, and recommends several strategies offering the greatest potential widespread benefits.
A GHG emissions inventory involves setting boundaries based on factors within the control of a user or source and determining how best to allocate emissions to each source. Some sources are easier to calculate than others because source emissions are known and can be modeled (either as fuel purchases or metered consumption). Other emissions are harder to calculate and more complicated to model. Throughout this document, emissions are calculated and the fidelity of the data to estimate emissions for the Village is reported. Our reporting follows the Global Protocol for Community Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories and includes required emissions sources. Where possible, emissions from other sources are estimated.
Partners
Delta is grateful to the Village of Skokie and the many municipal departments who generously provided us with their feedback as we assessed GHG emissions.