Park City, Utah has emerged as a leader in climate protection efforts due to its reliance on snow for its ski industry. The city conducted a greenhouse gas inventory that found transportation, especially air travel, was responsible for most emissions. It then developed a vision and guiding principles to create a "roadmap" to reduce emissions 15% by 2020. This included strategies around leadership, transportation, energy use, waste reduction and carbon offsets. The city created a "Save Our Snow" action plan to implement the roadmap and a website for residents to track emissions reductions. Park City is now working to implement the action plan and share its successes with other communities.

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The Journal for planning in the West since 1979The Journal for planning in the West since 1979
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December 2011
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2. As more local governments around the country confront
climate change and develop climate action plans, it’s often
the largest of them that grab the headlines—think about the
City of Chicago’s or leading edge Portland, Oregon’s, climate
action plans. However, underlying these high-profile initia-
tives, many other communities are stepping up their efforts to
inventory greenhouse gases (GHGs) and develop strategies
to reduce emissions. In particular, in the Intermountain West,
where the economic vitality of many resort communities
depends on a reliable snowpack, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
One such community meeting climate change head on
is Park City, Utah. Located in the Wasatch Range east of
Salt Lake City, this community of 7,500—better known for
hosting the annual Sundance Film Festival and the U.S. Ski
Team—has emerged as a state and national leader for its
climate protection efforts.
Park City’s efforts have their roots in a strong community
ethic of environmental stewardship. Several community-
based, non-profit organizations are active in Park City. The
city itself has been working for several years to promote pub-
lic transit, walking and cycling, school programs, and renew-
able energy. Park City developed a carbon footprint analysis
and action plan for its own operations as a way to lead by
example. The city also committed to the U.S. Conference of
Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, a commitment to
meet the former Kyoto Protocol GHG reduction targets and
to urge Congress and other governments to take action.
To better understand what climate change may mean
for Park City and Utah, in 2006 Park City Mountain Resort
commissioned the first comprehensive scientific study of
global warming’s effect on the resort and the Utah snow
sports industry. The study, completed by Stratus Consulting
and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the
University of Colorado-Boulder, forecast local warming
of 5.9 to over 150
F by 2100 in Utah, a delay in snowpack
buildup of at least four weeks, and a decrease in mid-season
snow depths of 15 to 65 percent by 2075. These predictions,
if played out, will have significant repercussions for Park
City’s resorts; some may not see any snow at all during some
seasons, and by 2050, economic losses in the region may top
$390 million.
Spurred on by these findings, Park City embarked on
conducting a GHG inventory for the community and
developing a “roadmap” for reducing emissions. City
staff retained Colorado-based Brendle Group to develop
the inventory and roadmap and convened a broad-based
Community Carbon Advisory Board to support the effort.
2 The Western Planner • December 2011
by Dave Wortman, Fort Collins, Colorado
Continued to page 3...............
Table One: Park City’s Greenhouse Gas
Emissions by Sector
Category Emissions %
Airline Transportation 39.6%
On-Road Vehicles 16.3%
Electricity in Commercial and Industrial
Buildings
15.9%
Electricity in Residences 12.1%
Residential Natural Gas 8.5%
Commercial and Industrial Natural Gas 4.5%
Non-road Vehicles and Equipment 1.6%
Solid Waste 1.1%
Other (e.g., Propane, Refrigerants) 0.3%
Park City residents share their ideas for reducing local carbon emissions. Photo by Judy Dorsey.
Park City tackles
climate change
For a Western mountain resort
town, it’s all about saving snow

3. www.westernplanner.org 3
Park City’s 2007 community GHG inventory reflects
challenges shared by virtually all communities—how to
reduce GHG emissions associated with transportation,
electricity, and natural gas to light and condition buildings—
as well as the unique challenges of resort communities.
Park City, realizing the role tourism plays in its economy,
unconventionally elected to include airline travel for guests
and residents in its inventory to have a more accurate picture
of its associated emissions. Results showed that nearly 40
percent of the community’s emissions were attributed to air
travel, followed by on-road traffic and building electricity
consumption. City staff and the advisory board also learned
that Park City’s emissions per full-time resident were higher
than the national average due not only to the contributions
of tourism-related air travel, but also to the high mountain
climate with large heating demands and the impact of a
tourism infrastructure for up to 30,000 guests.
One of the Community Carbon Advisory Board’s first
steps was to develop a community vision for reducing GHG
emissions that reflected Park City’s priorities and values:
“The Park City community is committed to applying significant
effort to combat the causes of climate change and to reduce
its greenhouse gas emissions. Reducing our carbon footprint
is our responsibility as citizens of the nation and the world.
Working together, using our community spirit, innovation, and
environmental passion, we will ensure for future generations the
environmental protection, economic prosperity, and quality of life
that makes Park City unique.”
To support this vision, advisory board members offered
input to develop guiding principles for the roadmap:
• The municipality will be a strong partner in efforts to reduce
community GHG emissions, leading by example and provid-
ing policy guidance while promoting personal accountability and
community responsibility.
• Park City should explore a range of regulations and incentives
to reduce GHG emissions.
• Transparency and technical credibility should be maintained
throughout the process.
• Park City should be a leader to help other ski communities ad-
dress climate change.
• Education is key in determining what level of commitment
Park City makes to reducing its impacts on climate change.
Backed by the vision and guiding principles, the advisory
board set out to develop a GHG reduction goal for Park
City. After lively discussion, a majority of the board members
supported a goal of 15 percent reduction below 2005
emissions by 2020. This target was aligned with the goals
established by the Western Climate Initiative, a collaboration
of U.S. states and Canadian provinces working together to
identify, evaluate, and implement policies to tackle climate
change at a regional level. The board developed 21 high-level
strategies for community leadership, transportation and land
use, energy use, energy supply, waste reduction and diversion,
and carbon offsets to help Park City achieve this goal.
In 2009, Park City created two new climate initiatives:
the “Save Our Snow” Action Plan to provide more specific
implementation guidance for the completed roadmap; and
<www.parkcitygreen.org>, an innovative website that allows
residents and businesses to calculate their GHG footprint,
compare it to others, network on topics related to climate and
sustainability, and target actions to reduce emissions.
In April 2010, with the help of the Save Our Snow Task
Force and 90 community members who participated in a
brainstorming session, Park City completed a draft action
plan. The plan refines strategies identified in the roadmap,
further considers their implications, and recommends imple-
mentation steps. It addresses energy use in existing buildings,
improved building standards, local and utility scale renewable
energy development, visitor transportation, and solid waste
and recycling. Finally, the plan quantifies implementation
costs, net annual cost savings, cost per ton of CO2 reduced
over a project’s life, reduction in business-as-usual emissions,
and absolute reduction of CO2 emissions by the 2020 goal
year to help the community understand the real costs and
benefits from specific climate action measures.
After completing the Save Our Snow Action Plan, city
staff is looking forward to the next steps. The city has
received interest from other communities across the nation
looking to replicate its success. According to Tyler Pulson,
Park City’s Environmental Sustainability Coordinator, imple-
mentation of the plan’s strategies is well underway, with plans
to roll out a “low carbon diet” community challenge, as well
as a green business program. In December 2010, Park City
became the first Utah community to adopt an anti-idling
ordinance; and the Utah Transit Authority and local transit
representatives started running a bus route between Park City
and Salt Lake City to address visitor transportation impacts.
Park City’s efforts not only help to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions that are affecting a climate on which the town’s
livelihood depends, they offer many co-benefits to the com-
munity, from reducing energy bills to providing more trans-
portation options. It’s a lesson learned well worth passing on
to other communities across the West. For more information,
visit <www.parkcitygreen.org>.
David Wortman is the Program Manager for Colorado-based
Brendle Group, an engineering consulting firm focused on sustainability
<www.brendlegroup.com>.