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Sunnyvale reports 24% cut in greenhouse gases from 1990 levels; transportation remains nearly half of emissions
Summary
City staff presented Sunnyvale's 2023 greenhouse-gas inventory: emissions are 24% below 1990 levels (a 2% increase from 2022), transportation accounts for roughly 50% of emissions, and the city remains short of its 2030 target (56% below 1990). CPUC privacy rules may limit future breakdowns of commercial vs. residential gas use.
Christina Raby, environmental engineering coordinator for Sunnyvale's Environmental Services Division, presented the city's 2023 greenhouse gas inventory at the Feb. 24 Sustainability Commission meeting.
Raby reported that Sunnyvale's 2023 emissions are about 24% below 1990 levels, a roughly 2% rise from 2022. "As of 2023, we have reduced emissions 24% below 1990 levels," she said. The city's Climate Action Playbook sets a more ambitious 2030 target than the state: Sunnyvale seeks a 56% reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. Raby said the city needs about a 32% additional reduction from current levels to meet that target.
The inventory shows transportation is the largest single contributor at nearly 50% of citywide emissions; residential and commercial natural gas together account for about 34%. Raby said transportation emissions rose about 7% in 2023 versus 2022 and that transportation accounted for about 87% of the net 2% emission increase year-over-year. She attributed the rise largely to post-pandemic increases in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) as people returned to workplaces and in-person activity.
Raby explained methodological details: the city uses a transportation-demand model to estimate VMT and has applied a Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) shelter-in-place adjustment for 2020—2023; she expects that adjustment will not be needed going forward. She also noted an important data-limitation: a CPUC "15-by-15" privacy rule restricts data disclosure when a single commercial customer accounts for 15% or more of a sector's load, and Raby said 2023 may be the last year the city can separate commercial and residential natural gas data unless conditions change.
On electricity, Raby said Sunnyvale received roughly 97% of its electricity from carbon-free sources in 2023 when combining PG&E and SVCE supply factors; she noted that electricity-sector emissions have fallen significantly since 2008. Raby also reported a local solar metric: Sunnyvale's rooftop and distributed generation supplied about 5.2% of potential local electricity use in 2023, meeting the city's 2045 local solar goal.
Raby described changes to off-road emissions calculations: the city switched to the MFAC Off-Road 2021 dataset, which captures a wider set of vehicle categories more relevant to Sunnyvale; under the revised method, off-road emissions fell about 2% from 2022 to 2023. Solid-waste emissions at the Sunnyvale Materials and Recovery Transfer Station fell about 8% after equipment upgrades increased diversion of organics. Water-sector emissions decreased substantially in 2023 due to a change in PG&E's grid emissions factor.
Commissioners asked follow-up questions about delivery vehicles, the composition of VMT, contractor and workforce training partnerships, and how commercial building growth is reflected in natural-gas trends. City staff and SVCE representatives explained data sources (CARB, MTC, DMV registration data, CalRecycle) and described ongoing work to improve local VMT and energy-use metrics.
Ending: Raby said the city will produce a 2024 inventory later in 2025 (targeting fall) and is using the Climate Action Playbook to align city policy moves (building electrification ordinances, energy-benchmarking and water conservation efforts) with the emissions reductions needed to reach 2030 and 2045 goals.
