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residential community and businesses, which have provided great support to achieve one of the goals of developing a Plan that the City could implement. Mr. Smith explained that one of the reasons for the CAP is that AB 32 requires the City to reduce its GHG emissions by 2020 back to the 1990 levels. He stated that staff completed its GHG inventory in 2005 and because they could not go back to 1990, they used a model to take it back to what it would be at that point. Mr. Smith stated that another big reason for the CAP is the business case for becoming a more sustainable City and community. He noted that it is important to have sustainable practices to ensure that we have enough water and energy to go into the future and to create jobs and economic development, as sustainability saves money when fossil fuels are increasing at a tremendous rate. He added that there are environmental concerns, protecting the environment and our natural resources, as there are 7.5 billion people on Earth now and projected to increase to 9 billion, and we are at that tipping point where we have only so many resources we can rely on. He indicated that national security reduced the dependence on fossil fuel, which is not an infinite supply as seen with the cost of fossil fuel just in the last few years. Mr. Smith stated that he would talk about CO in terms of metric tons and continued that 2 everything in the Plan is related to CO and based on CO equivalents, because there 22 are different kinds of gases that cause GHG. He indicated that methane has over 20 times more potential for GHG emissions than CO, and explained that one metric ton 2 is equivalent to about 2.1 barrels of oil, 38 propane cylinders used on a barbecue, or 102 gallons of gas. He noted that the potential for GHG for one metric ton of methane is much greater, and this is important when talking about the waste reduction stream built into the CAP. Mr. Smith stated that at the start of this Plan, the City looked around the country for best practices about how it would develop its Plan. He indicated that staff wanted to have a framework as the City went forward, and benchmarks used were to formulate specific targets and performance measures in the CAP. He added that to promote citizen and stakeholder participation, City staff embarked on a collaborative process and met with residents of Pleasanton and held special meetings with businesses in Pleasanton to get their assistance to design measures in the Plan. He stated that they engaged interested parties and shared knowledge through sustainable networks, and the last couple of years, the OSD worked closely with several Bay Area cities such as San Leandro, San Ramon, Danville, Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose to collaborate on these regional initiatives. He added that they also worked together with Dublin and Livermore on Tri-Valley initiatives to help develop more synergy in the program. Mr. Smith indicated that the City has established a dedicated sustainability office of one and has hired an Energy and Environment Manager that works for the OSD. He added that the City also has a lot of assets in the OSD of almost a hundred employees, and the OSD is in charge of all the infrastructure in the City; so if there is a project that the City decides to do, the OSD has the capability to do it and actually make it work. He PLANNING COMMISSION MINUTES, October 17, 2011 Page 28 of 36