Urban EcoMap Offers Smarter Climate Change Info

Cisco (News - Alert) and the City and County of San Francisco, have collaborated to start a pilot project called Urban EcoMap, that will educate people about climate change and to spur a shift to climate-friendly social behavior in cities.

 

Estimates have stated that cities are responsible for 80 percent of total global carbon emissions. To establish change and diminish climate impacts, it is important for city administrations to innovate its citizens with offering like Urban EcoMap.

 

The Urban EcoMap pilot was launched on Earth Day in San Francisco by the City’s Mayor Gavin Newsom. According to officials the Web-based tool will be made available to the general public of the City and County of San Francisco on May 21, 2009.

 

Urban EcoMap is an innovation and a key element of the Connected Urban Development framework for Connected and Sustainable Cities. Begun in the fall of 2008, the pilot project is a collaborative effort involving Cisco IBSG—the global strategic consulting arm of Cisco—and San Francisco’s Department of the Environment (SF Environment).

 

Urban EcoMap aims to apply Information and Communications technology (ICT) to promote innovative practices for reducing carbon emissions, while also fostering economic growth and improving the quality of life for people in urban areas.

 

Urban EcoMap enables urban citizens to see the collective results of their individual climate change actions and also its impacts. It also helps to motivate people to act on climate change and create competition among neighborhoods to bring down their carbon footprint.

 

Using the EcoMap, residents in a particular locality can use their zip codes to check their contribution of greenhouse gases through transportation, energy, and waste. Residents can use this info to formulate action plans to get their contributions reduced by switching over to methods like alternative-fuel vehicle ownership, recycling, and reducing household energy use.

 

Citizens can also see the requirements and efforts needed to decrease their city’s or locality’s carbon footprint from the EcoMap tool. They can make these choices by gaining visibility into several key factors, including the effort required to make the change, the associated cost or financial benefit, and the environmental impact of the action. Citizens can then share their climate actions with others via social networking.