What you need to know about Ann Arbor’s A2Zero plan: Carbon Neutrality by 2030

Ann Arbor’s A2Zero Plan, which aims to achieve citywide carbon neutrality by 2030, is composed of six core strategies all targeting different areas of climate policy including increasing renewable energy uptake, upgrading and modifying infrastructure and encouraging sustainable food practices.

Missy Stults, manager of the Office of Sustainability and Innovations, said the city is currently waiting on the 2022 metrics to further assess the plan’s progress.

“We’re waiting on some data for the 2022 inventory, but we do an annual greenhouse gas inventory,” Stults said. “Every year we calculate emissions to see what the impact we’ve had. You can actually dive into that and you can see it by sector. You know what’s residential versus institutional. You can see by fuel type, what percentage is transit from gasoline, or uncertain gasoline emissions versus natural gas versus electric emissions.”

Strategy 1: Power the city’s electrical grid with entirely renewable energy

According to the A2Zero Climate Action Plan, powering the city’s electrical grid using only renewable energy will reduce carbon emissions by 41% when combined with the University of Michigan’s commitment in their carbon neutrality plan to “secure all purchased electricity from renewable sources.” Overall, this strategy’s components will cost over $4 million. 

The city hopes to fund this switch using community choice aggregation, a program that would allow Ann Arbor to choose an alternative renewable energy provider instead of DTE. In order to implement CCA, the state legislature would have to pass a law enabling the process, which the city hopes will happen by 2027. If enacted, it is estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 700,000 metric tons. 

Stults said the city is continuing to work on draft legislation of CCA in hopes that the new Democratic-controlled state legislature will pass it, but is also seeking out alternatives in the meantime. .

“Largely we haven’t had supportive legislature to these ideas,” Stults said. “(I’m) excited to work on this version and see if our Democratic legislature can move anything forward here … CCA is a big piece, but we are also working on option B, C, D and E in case CCA doesn’t work.”

The rest of the grid’s energy would be accounted for by bulk buying onsite renewable energy batteries and storage, developing community solar projects and launching a solar landfill. In the last two years, the city installed three megawatts of rooftop solar panels, serving more than 430 households, and launched the Solarize program which aims to make solar power cheaper for consumers by encouraging group buys.

According to Stults, the city also finalized plans for the Wheeler Center Solar Farm in Pittsfield, but have been unable to move forward due to a pending investigation by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“It was almost ready to be done a year early,” Stults said. “We had it fully designed, we had the approvals for it a year ago today. Then the federal Department of Commerce opened an investigation into solar panels and basically put all solar installations on ice. And then inflation … and supply chain issues bumped up the price of (solar panels) in a way that was not desirable.”

Strategy 2: Switch all vehicles and appliances in the city from fossil fuels to electric

The city hopes to power this switch to electric energy with their planned 100% renewable energy grid. They anticipate this change would reduce carbon emissions by 23% and cost $143 million.

This strategy’s first action item is to promote home and business electrification with the goal of electrifying 100% of city buildings, 30% of owner-occupied buildings and 25% of rental properties. Other action items include the electrification of city and University of Michigan buses and private and city-owned vehicles, as well as community electric vehicle and solar power group buys. 

Over the past two years, the city has transitioned 20% of its vehicles to electric vehicles, and installed 40 dual port chargers in downtown garages and four Direct Current Fast EV chargers at City Hall. 

Strategy 3: Improve the city’s energy efficiency

This strategy focuses on improving private and city heating and cooling systems, reducing city electricity usage and strengthening building and window insulation. The plans laid out in this strategy are estimated to cost more than $14 million altogether and reduce emissions by 13.4%. 

Over the past two years, OCI has audited 10 city facilities for energy efficiency, established the Aging in Place Efficiently program – which aims to help older adults continue to live in their homes through sustainable home improvements – and begun the Bryant neighborhood decarbonization – a project that uses home improvements to achieve carbon neutrality in the Bryant neighborhood within the next five years.

Strategy 4: Reduce miles traveled by vehicle in Ann Arbor by 50% 

The city estimates that this reduction would decrease community carbon emissions by 8%. This piece of the plan is expected to cost about $901 million, with most of those funds going toward infrastructure upgrades like sidewalk improvements and adding bike lanes and public transit stops. 

In July 2020, the city launched its  electric bike discount program as part of this pillar of the plan, and has also donated bikes to Common Cycle and began developing the Moving Together Towards Vision Zero plan, which includes strategies for operating and upgrading the transportation system. 

Strategy 5: Change the way the city uses, reuses, and disposes of its materials

This piece of the plan is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 0.3% and will cost about $45 million. In pursuit of this, the city hopes to implement year-round accessible composting,  increase commercial recycling and promote plant-rich diets.

OCI also began a reusable food container pilot program in 2015 with four local restaurants,  launched year-round residential composting and expanded commercial downtown city recycling to Saturday service as well. 

Rackham student Lunia Oriol, youth member of the Environmental Commission, wrote in an email to The Michigan Daily that as a student engaged in food systems research, she is interested in the progress on this strategy. 

“Instead of remaining dependent on an industrial agricultural system that favors corporations rather than people, this A2Zero strategy could encourage more local food production,” Oriol said. “If done correctly, reclaiming control of our food system at the local/regional level could lead to a reduction in emitted GHGs, a reduction in our usage of natural resources, and increased access to good food, among other benefits.”

Strategy 6: Enhance the city’s resilience to climate change

This strategy would eliminate 0.1% of greenhouse gas emissions and is estimated to cost about $7.5 million. One key element of the strategy is the construction of community resilience hubs to distribute supplies before and after natural disasters and similar environmental hazards. In 2020, the city created a resilience hub at the Northside Community Center with solar powered battery storage that can provide up to three days of emergency power. OSI has designed two more resilience hubs to be placed at the Bryant Community Center and Ann Arbor Senior Center. 

This strategy also encompasses the 10,000 Trees Initiative, which has planted 3,500 trees so far, and the creation of sensors for heat, air quality, flooding and waterways, among other environmental risks. The city also created the Sustaining Ann Arbor Together Program, which provides grants of $10,000 or less to residents, schools, nonprofits and businesses for sustainability projects like a solar power curriculum and installation for K-8 students at the Northside STEAM Ann Arbor public school and the creation of pollinator habitats at multiple affordable housing sites run by Avalon Housing, a community-based housing non-profit.

The Michigan Daily spoke with members of the Ann Arbor Environmental Commission about their thoughts on the A2Zero plan. Created by the City Council in 2001, the commission is composed of 15 volunteers that advise the council on issues related to environmental policy. In the past, the commission has commented on issues such as water quality, maintenance of natural features, a viable solid waste program and non-motorized transportation. 

Steve Brown, chair of the Environmental Commission, said the commission helps connect the Ann Arbor community to local government. He also emphasized the importance of residents’ cooperation to achieve sustainability goals.

“Overall, the (purpose of the) commission is to bring in the broader community, the council and administration, and help maintain the communications among those three legs of our community,” Brown said. “We’re in a democratic society here, so the city cannot control all residents. It’s up to all of us to figure out how to make our own households and our own businesses carbon neutral.”

In an interview with The Daily, Missy Stults, OCI Director and self-described A2Zero caretaker, discussed the ways that A2Zero conducts public outreach about their progress, including community events and their website and newsletters. Stults said OCI tries to provide a wide range of initiatives and engagement activities going on in the city in the monthly newsletters.

“It’s a multi-pronged approach,” Stults said. “One (approach is) going into the community. Yesterday I was at Glacier Hills (Senior Living) Community and I was talking to residents about A2Zero and that was just a very personal dialogue where we could focus on their issues … The other (approach) is through things like the newsletter, where we’re trying to get information out to the public because we have a wider net.”

Stults noted, however, that they have faced challenges in the outreach process  due to the scale of A2Zero and its many moving parts. 

“We’re working on over 38 initiatives in our office,” Stults said. “How do you track that? … I think it is a problem, and maybe it’s okay that it’s a problem … because the moment that we’re in necessitates action on all these scales.”

Rita Mitchell, vice chair of the Environmental Commission, told The Daily she is  concerned about the upcoming 2030 deadline and believes the city may need to reassess or adjust some of their goals.

“We’re seven years away (from 2030), which really doesn’t feel that long to me,” Mitchell said. “I would like to feel confident that we’re doing the right thing.If we feel like there needs to be some adjustments, then I’d like to see that happen.”

In an interview with The Daily, Councilmember Jen Eyer, D-Ward 4 emphasized that the A2Zero plan is a living document, meaning it is constantly being revised. The document is currently on its fourth version.

“Since (the plan) was passed in 2020, it’s already been revised a number of times,” Eyer said. “The science is quickly changing, the technology and equipment that we’re looking at implementing is quickly changing. We’re getting new advice from our attorneys about different paths we can take.” 

Stults echoed these claims, saying the plan is dynamic and requires both flexibility and understanding. Stults also said she recognizes the metrics that they can’t easily measure with a plan like A2Zero.

“The way that we get (to be carbon-neutral) has to be flexible,” Stults said. “We hold our goal as the North Star, and the values of how we get there – equity, sustainability and transformation – can’t waver, but the actions, we have to be flexible towards.”

Brown said he expects many pieces of the A2Zero plan to require cooperation from the state legislature.

“Most of what city staff needs to do to accomplish their goals is not under their control,” Brown said. “I think the focus of the commissions right now is to try to get the state legislature to pass legislation they need to enable the A2Zero program to succeed.”

Eyer said changes in the Michigan state legislature after the 2022 midterm election, which resulted in Democratic control of the state House, Senate and governorship, will make it easier for Ann Arbor to meet their goals. 

“The landscape in the state legislature, of course, is now much more friendly to our initiatives,” Eyer said. “Now that we have a Democratic-controlled legislature, we have an Ann Arbor City Council policy (agenda) committee… that comes up with our wish list for our state legislators and for state officials in terms of things that need to change so that we can meet our goals and objectives.”

Stults said while changes to state and federal legislature have not altered the plan, they have opened up opportunities for certain actions and changed the pace of progress. 

“Right now, there’s a lot of money (available) for energy, and so we’re pursuing a lot of energy initiatives because we can get federal dollars,” Stults said. “(Our A2Zero plan has) to be ‘living’ to be able to respond to the opportunities and the challenges that we’re being faced (with). I think that’s the most real way that the state and federal policies impacted us, is just by making us stay on our toes and pivot where we need to.”

U-M alum Brad van Guilder, a former organizer with the Ecology Center and the Sierra Club, said the virtual power purchase agreements that some of the A2Zero plan depends on would likely not be invested in-state.

“In a virtual power purchase agreement, you’re not actually purchasing power for the city of Ann Arbor,” van Guilder said. “Essentially what you end up doing is investing in some renewable energy facility that someone else builds. But because of the regulated market in Michigan, it’s highly unlikely that that facility would be built in the state of Michigan. It would be built somewhere else, and that means the benefits are going someplace else.”

City Councilmember Ayesha Ghazi Edwin, D-Ward 3, told The Daily she believes the city’s progress toward carbon neutrality has been positive. 

“(The plan is) ambitious, and we’ve achieved a lot, and there’s a lot more that we need to achieve,” Ghazi Edwin said. “But I think that we are setting a precedent nationally of what it looks like to be a progressive city, on the forefront and on the cutting edge of climate change.”

Ghazi Edwin said she believes the city’s ambitious goals of carbon neutrality can be achieved through activism and voter turnout from Ann Arbor residents.

“I do 100% believe that by 2030, we can achieve carbon neutrality and I believe that because this isn’t something that is just an ambitious goal,” Ghazi Edwin said. “This was a mandate by our residents, by our voters. From the climate millage last year to the A2Zero plan itself, the community is demanding that we become more environmentally friendly, because it’s going to help us be more affordable.”

Ghazi Edwin highlighted the way in which climate change disproportionately impacts marginalized and vulnerable communities, citing it as a significant reason behind the city’s prioritization of carbon neutrality.

“That means people of Color, that means people who are low-income (and) that means people with disabilities,” Ghazi Edwin said. “And as our state becomes a home for climate refugees… those are people that are going to get displaced the fastest. That has an economic impact and a social impact for our entire community.”

One action being taken as part of A2Zero is mapping neighborhoods’ needs and assets in order to ensure the resilience of communities to climate change. Stults said she believes it is important that Ann Arbor starts building out its climate policy and infrastructure as soon as possible. 

“The reality of climate change is already here,” Stults said. “One of the things we know for a resilient people and resilient place is that you (need to) invest in your relationships, and so asset mapping helps you really understand all the wonderful things that you already have in your community.”

Brown said reaching these carbon neutrality goals will require a broader cultural shift.

“Every little bit helps,” Brown said. “Something like this doesn’t happen unless there’s broad spread public support, cultural support, because you’re really changing culture. You’re changing how people do their daily lives. Some of it (is) very hard (and) generally takes generations. We’ve got 10 years.”

Rackham student Lunia Oriol, a youth member of the Environmental Commission, said in an email to The Daily that she believes the University has an important role to play in helping the city reach its climate goals.

“The University has a responsibility to move forward on its carbon neutrality and sustainability goals across all three campuses (in a way) that is just and equitable, and students must continue to hold this institution accountable to progress,” Oriol said. “Furthermore, the University must work with the city on common climate goals, as both of these endeavors will impact the entire Ann Arbor community.” 

Stults said she is working with the University on solar projects and was excited by the relationship between Ann Arbor and the University. 

“We’ve started to identify collaboration opportunities,” Stults said. “We’re both working on installing more solar on our various properties. I think it’s an emerging relationship, and it’s really exciting.”