Greenhouse Gas Inventories

Key takeaways from the most recent report: the 2023 Greenhouse Gas Inventory

The 2023 Community-Wide and Municipal Operations Greenhouse Gas Inventory, a collaboration between the City of Bloomington Department of Economic and Sustainable Development and ClimateNav, was published in January 2025.

• Grid-supplied electricity continues to be the main source of GHG emissions in Bloomington (51%), although the amount of emissions from electricity has decreased since 2008, thanks in part to the growth of renewable energy sources.
• Stationary combustion (such as gas heat) and transportation are the second and third largest sources of GHG emissions in Bloomington. The amount of emissions from these sources has remained steady in recent history. Reducing emissions from these two sources is challenging because they require expensive upgrades or significant behavioral change.
• Emissions from the solid waste sector increased since 2008, despite Bloomington’s lack of significant population growth in that timeframe. This reflects the national trend of consistent increases in per-capita solid waste generation since 1960.
• The City is on track to meet its 2030 target to reduce community-wide emissions by 25% of the 2018 baseline (per the 2021 Climate Action Plan).
• The City is not on track to meet its 2050 carbon neutrality goal and must grow the rate of annual GHG emissions reductions by about 30% to reach the 2050 goal. Our 2021 Climate Action Plan, like many climate plans, assumes that future technological advances will speed up the rate of emissions reductions.

History of GHG Inventories in Bloomington

One of the first actions recommended by the 2018 Bloomington Sustainability Action Plan was to develop a greenhouse gas inventory in alignment with the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) standard.

The City of Bloomington completed its first standardized greenhouse gas inventory in 2018, aligned with the Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Emission Inventories (GPC) standard, as a significant stride towards completing the recommended actions laid out in the City’s 2018 Sustainability Action Plan. Since the 2018 inventory, the City has continued to strive towards upholding its commitment to sustainability with a number of initiatives, including passing the official Climate Action Plan in 2021, and setting community-wide emissions reductions targets. 

With the 2018 inventory serving as the emissions baseline, the City is committed to reducing its emissions 25% by 2030, and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050. In order to continue tracking progress towards these goals, the City completed another greenhouse gas inventory in 2023, which encompasses community-wide emissions for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.  

Both inventories were presented to the City Council by City staff with assistance from Gnarly Tree Sustainability Institute, who collaborated with the City on the 2022 inventory. A recording of the presentation can be found below. 

The City of Bloomington partnered with ClimateNav to produce the 2023 Community-Wide and Municipal Operations Greenhouse Gas Inventory, published in early 2025. This report includes the first inventory of the City’s municipal government carbon footprint. The City plans to provide updated GHG inventories on an annual basis using a new streamlined process going forward.

Please view the FAQs in the webpage attachments below, or reach out to sustain@bloomington.in.gov for additional information.