ERG’s work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Combined Heat and Power (CHP) Partnership has helped reduce more than 12 million metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions in the United States—comparable to removing nearly 2 million cars from the road annually. The partnership works closely with energy users, industry, state and local governments, and others to develop new CHP projects and promote their environmental and economic benefits. Since its inception in 2001, ERG has provided a full range of technical, administrative, policy analysis, and communications and outreach assistance to the partnership. This work has included developing partner reporting tools; supporting meetings and forums; and creating outreach and marketing tools ranging from the CHP Web Site to newsletters, fact sheets, reports, and resource guides.

With assistance from ERG, communities across the nation are reducing their carbon footprint through the purchase of green power—electricity produced from certain renewable resources such as solar, wind, and geothermal. ERG helped the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Green Power Partnership design and launch the Green Power Communities program, which motivates government, businesses, and citizens within a community to purchase green power. ERG helped design the program’s parameters, create program branding and recognition materials, recruit communities into the program, and assist communities in developing a strategy to implement the program locally. Communities that have joined the program have already made green power purchases totaling hundreds of millions of kilowatt-hours annually.

As climate change and energy independence have become increasingly important domestic concerns, federal facilities are being asked to lead the charge in energy conservation. For more than 10 years, ERG has supported EPA in its efforts to meet and exceed federal energy reduction requirements. ERG has provided extensive energy data collection, analysis, and reporting services, helping EPA track the energy performance of its real estate portfolio, prioritize its investments in energy efficiency, and meet its numerous reporting requirements. ERG also helped conceptualize and implement a new strategic energy management framework for EPA that centers on increased accountability and evaluation of individual facility energy performance. To further help EPA enhance its energy management, ERG is supporting development and implementation of the agency’s advanced utility metering strategy, which will enable EPA to identify important energy consumption trends at the touch of a button.

ERG developed a handbook to assist developing countries in confronting the rapid expansion of urbanization and industrialization in their metropolitan areas. The Integrated Environmental Strategies Handbook, developed for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), describes how cities in Asia and Latin America are using integrated strategies to reduce emissions and greenhouse gases, while deriving co-benefits in such areas as energy, public health, and air quality. The handbook provides a systematic framework for developing energy/emissions baselines and scenarios and determining the air quality, health, and economic benefits that could be derived from implementing each scenario. The handbook also presents case studies and lessons learned from eight countries.