Cheers went up from the well-scrubbed, eco-conscious crowd when it was announced that the commuters to Downtown and Oakland who are most loyal to one form of transportation are those who ride the bus.
Not long after that, most of those cheering got in their cars and drove away.
You might say I’m a hopeful cynic, approaching all news of lessening Pittsburgh’s carbon footprint with cautious pessimism. I see the stats showing progress — more people riding bikes and working from home, skyscrapers using far less energy — but can’t help but notice rush-hour traffic still moving at a crawl.
The Green Building Alliance is doing remarkable work, punching well above its weight in reducing energy by showing property owners how that saves money. The stat-heavy Thursday event in the Strip District proclaimed that 540 buildings have saved $135 million and avoided over 1.2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to date.
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald told the crowd at the outset it would hear a lot of numbers, but the one he liked best was “1” — Pittsburgh has the largest district of this kind in the world, with more than 75% of the square footage from the lower North Side through Downtown to Oakland committed to this green alliance.
In something called the 2030 Districts Network, with cities in the U.S. and Canada, Pittsburgh evidently leads all with 18% of the total committed square feet. But that would seem both good news and bad; if our little city is responsible for almost a fifth of the progress, that would hardly make a dent in any global decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
Of course, it could be we’re just more adept at tallying it up this particular way.
Before the event, I got staff members from the Green Building Alliance on the phone to talk about the progress report but also to ask, in the end, what’s the use? Is it even conceivable that such efforts can, in effect, turn the world around?
Natalie Stewart, the communications director, said she thought locally, not globally.
“In every single part of your day, or your family’s day, you should have access to a healthy space,” she said. “We can talk data and talk analytics, but at its foundation it’s all about people’s health.”
Take walk-off mats at the entrances to office buildings. The alliance found they should be 8 to 10 feet long and cleaned regularly to take the dust and dirt off people’s shoes. Why? Because in a city where the air is generally pretty bad, particulates also spike indoors each morning and after lunch. After the installation of mats and some other low-cost measures, air monitors show that’s much less of a problem. Talk about welcome mats.
“My Jewish grandmother is very impressed with our work,” Ms. Stewart said.
Angelica Ciranni, Pittsburgh 2030 District Senior Director, said they’re trying to inspire people to be change agents, implementing international goals here but making changes with immediate impact. Saving water is a big deal with the rates soaring.
Isaac Smith, the alliance’s data and performance director, is a numbers guy. Measuring the collective impact of local moves excites him. When I mentioned I often pick up plastic bottles on my walk to work, not so much to change the world as to keep at least that bottle out of the Ohio River, he said he’d love to find a way to “show every other person that’s picking up a bottle. We want to be able to tell the story of what they’re doing.”
I often wonder how any of these efforts will look 10 and 20 years on. Too little too late? Downright irrelevant? I got an email last week from a guy who finds the very idea of “fighting” climate change absurd. Certainly, like the air around here, it can be a pretty hazy target. So the alliance’s approach — making and showing real impact on a company’s bottom line — is among the easier sells.
There was some irony, though, that this event came during rush hour, with an afternoon Pirates game ending on top of it. Knowing the speechifying would kick off at 5 p.m., I left the North Shore office around 4:15, looked around and decided it would be faster to walk the 2½ miles to the corner of 25th and Railroad Street.
I made it just in time, wishing all the while the T went more places.
Brian O’Neill: boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947 or Twitter @brotheroneill
First Published: May 26, 2019, 9:00 a.m.
