Brief

The City Administrative Officer submitted a report to the Energy and Environment Committee on measuring and reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with goods and services the city purchases. The file proposes tracking emissions from the city's supply chain and procurement practices. It has been pending in the Energy and Environment Committee since October 2025, with a committee meeting scheduled for May 19, 2026.

Full summary

This file contains a City Administrative Officer report presenting the results of a consultant study on greenhouse gas emissions embedded in the city's purchasing operations. The CAO hired Arup US, Inc. to analyze 2023 city expenditure data and establish a baseline of so-called Scope 3 emissions — the indirect emissions generated by the goods and services the city buys, rather than by its own facilities and vehicles. The analysis found that Council-controlled departments generated approximately 1.07 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent through their purchases in 2023, a figure roughly 1.5 times larger than the city's combined direct and utility-related emissions of 692,000 metric tons. Proprietary departments such as LADWP, the Port, and the airports were excluded due to data quality problems in the Checkbook LA database. Two procurement categories dominate the emissions picture. Sanitation and sewer operations account for about 26 percent of the total, driven by landfill activity, waste collection fleets, and energy-intensive wastewater treatment. Construction of buildings and infrastructure accounts for another 23 percent, largely from carbon-intensive materials like cement, steel, and asphalt. Together these two categories represent nearly half the city's procurement-related emissions. The Arup report also flags office goods and information technology equipment as high-volume, high-frequency categories worth targeting despite lower per-item carbon footprints. The report recommends a suite of strategies organized into three tiers. Citywide actions include developing an embodied carbon reduction roadmap, establishing a cross-departmental circular economy task force, updating the city's existing sustainable procurement policies to incorporate circular economy language, and integrating emissions tracking directly into procurement data systems. Construction-specific recommendations include adopting zero-waste standards for new buildings, incentivizing fossil-fuel-free job sites, and updating the city's green building code to set embodied carbon limits. For sanitation, the report calls for embedding sustainability requirements into waste hauling contracts, requiring facility-level emissions data from service providers, and encouraging electrified fleets and optimized collection routes. The CAO notes that implementation costs have not been identified and that many of these strategies will be further developed through a separate Climate Action and Adaptation Plan being prepared by Buro Happold Consulting Engineers. The CAO's formal recommendation is simply that the City Council note and file the report, meaning no immediate policy action is proposed. The file was referred to the Energy and Environment Committee upon submission in October 2025 and has remained pending there. The committee scheduled the item for a hearing on May 19, 2026. The file does not expire until May 2028.

Activity (3)

• 2026-05-15 Energy and Environment Committee scheduled item for committee meeting on May 19, 2026.
• 2025-10-02 City Administrative Officer document(s) referred to Energy and Environment Committee.
• 2025-10-02 Document submitted by City Administrative Officer, dated October 2, 2025.

Documents (1)

• 2025-10-02 Report from City Administrative Officer · report