The Carbon Efficient City

The Carbon Efficient City shows how regional economies can be aligned with practices that drive carbon efficiency. It details ten strategies for reducing carbon emissions in our cities: standardized measurement, frameworks that support innovation, regulatory alignment, reducing consumption, reuse and restoration, focus on neighborhoods, providing spaces for nature, use of on-site life cycles for water and energy, coordination of regional transportation, and emphasis on solutions that delight people.

Although climate change is recognized as an urgent concern, local and national governments, nonprofits, and private interests often work at cross purposes in attempting to address it. The Carbon Efficient City's focus on concrete, achievable measures that can be implemented in a market economy gives it broad appeal to professionals and engaged citizens across the political spectrum.

"We have to change the human systems that affect how we generate and consume energy. It can be done and this book tells us how." -William D. Ruckelshaus, founding head of the Environmental Protection Agency

"The Hurds' comprehensive approach covers a continuum of strategies for addressing sustainable environments across a truly broad range of public policies, building construction, land use patterns, and transportation issues. Their book will make a difference in the way we plan, design, finance, construct, and use our built environment." -George R. Rolfe, director of the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, University of Washington

"This is an excellent and essential primer for public officials, progressive developers, and students of sustainability and public policy programs." -Liz Dunn, Developer of urban infill projects and head of the Preservation Green Lab

A-P Hurd lives in Seattle where she is vice president of a commercial real estate development company and she has worked on a number of public policy initiatives at the state and local level. Her father, Al Hurd, is business strategy consultant in Victoria, BC, and has served as executive director of government services with EDS Canada and Hewlett Packard.