Press Release

City of Aspen releases sustainability reports

Aspen, CO – The city of Aspen has released its 2023 Aspen community-wide Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions report, 2024 sustainability report, and 2025 Aspen Sustainability Action Plan (ASAP) to outline their programmatic achievements in sustainability goals and ongoing priorities. 

In January 2022, Aspen set science-based greenhouse gas reduction targets of 63.4% by 2030 and 100% by 2050, based on 2017 levels. These reports include key findings about emission trends and progress in the city’s climate action planning and commitment to meeting these environmental goals.

2024 Sustainability Report

In 2024, Aspen made significant strides toward its sustainability goals, led by initiatives across energy, buildings, waste, and transportation sectors. Key findings include:

• Energy: 
  1. Aspen utilities introduced a new rate structure for all-electric single-family homes to incentivize the transition to all-electric properties, and incentivized electrification by offering expedited permit review for all-electric projects.
• Buildings: 
  1.  Partnered with the Community Office for Resource Efficiency (CORE), which provided over $924,936 in grants and rebates for 110 energy and efficiency electrification projects, including 57 new heat pump installations.
  2. Benchmarked 36% of all the square footage of buildings in the city, including city-owned, commercial, and large multi-family buildings for the third year of our Building IQ program.
• Waste: 
  1. City Council passed a construction and demolition debris diversion ordinance to reduce major development landfill waste and methane generation by requiring specific building materials be repurposed.
  2. Increased the composting rate by 70% through the organic waste diversion ordinance. All establishments holding a Retail Food License now divert their food waste from the trash.
• Transportation: 
  1. Installed three new electric vehicle (EV) chargers, including two ADA accessible Level 2 chargers at Koch Park and one at the Yellow Brick building. 
  2. Added 5 new electrical vehicles to the city of Aspen vehicle fleet. 

To view the full 2024 Sustainability report, visit aspen.gov/sustainability-report.

2023 City of Aspen Community-wide GHG Emissions report: 

The city of Aspen partnered with Pitkin County, the town of Snowmass Village and the town of Basalt to produce this report. It compares 2023 emissions totals across the region to 2019 pre-pandemic levels. Key findings include: 

• Total emissions increase: Total city of Aspen emissions increased from the 2019 inventory which is in line with national/regional trends as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic where resort destinations have experienced increased economy and visitation leading to increased emissions.
• Cleaner electricity leads to a decrease in building sector emissions: The city of Aspen is served by two utility providers: Aspen Utilities and Holy Cross Energy. Aspen Utilities achieved 100% renewable energy status in 2015. The report outlines how Holy Cross Energy’s efforts to switch electricity generating sources to renewable energy has led to a 1% decrease in emissions from all buildings, despite increased energy consumption.
• Transportation sector emissions increase: The report leverages new data sources to better understand transportation activity from vehicles travelling into and around Aspen. As a result, vehicle emissions are shown to increase from 2019. 
• Solid waste emissions increase: Despite successful waste diversion programs, increasing trends in visitation led to an increase in waste generated compared to 2019 levels. Tourism results in an above average generation of waste compared to national levels.

To view the full report, visit aspen.gov/ghg-summary.  

2025 Aspen Sustainability Action Plan: 

The ASAP is the city’s guiding document for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and is designed to be a living document that adapts to and incorporates changing priorities, community feedback, and new opportunities. The recommendations presented in the ASAP are the result of a year of work by various city of Aspen departments and dozens of key stakeholders and community leaders with expertise in sectors including energy, water, building science, transportation, waste, public administration, and community development. To view the updated report, visit www.aspen.gov/asap.

The city of Aspen remains dedicated to its ongoing sustainability efforts and meeting its climate targets. “We will see progress on local reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and our carbon footprint from recent Council actions” says Mayor Torre. “However, we must remain committed to environmental leadership, especially in transportation, waste reduction and diversion, and our energy resource efficiency in order to make greater gains toward our goals.”

For more information, email climate@aspen.gov. 

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For more information, please contact: 
 Tessa Schreiner, Environmental Health and Sustainability Manager

Phone: 970-920-5104

Email: tessa.schreiner@aspen.gov

Madie Bailey, Communications Coordinator
 Phone: 970-309-1569

Email: madie.bailey@aspen.gov