Praising local efforts to tackle climate change, the San Antonio Water System’s board of trustees approved a resolution in support of the City’s climate plan.
At their meeting Wednesday, SAWS board members spoke highly of the plan, which calls for San Antonio to reduce or offset its greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
“On water, this plan recognizes what, for us, is our most important feature: conservation,” said SAWS Board Chair Heriberto “Berto” Guerra Jr.
The climate plan suggests SAWS develop a water rating system to inform renters or buyers about a building’s water efficiency and to continue its efforts to reduce per-person water use, among other conservation ideas.
“With climate the way it could change over the next few years, conservation becomes an even bigger portion of what we have to do as a city,” Guerra continued. “And we’ve done a good job.”
The climate plan has been less controversial at SAWS than at its sister utility, CPS Energy, although SAWS is CPS Energy’s largest electricity buyer.
“Certainly SAWS is a huge player in this,” SAWS board member Amy Hardberger said. “Thinking about CPS as the energy conserver and SAWS as the water conserver isn’t really reflective of the embedded nature of energy and water.”
CPS Energy officials last month also formally agreed to support the latest climate plan draft, months after formally criticizing a previous draft that contained hard targets to cut fossil fuels. SAWS did not submit formal comments on the draft climate plan.
