The County’s Department of Sustainability worked with the Brendle Group, a sustainable engineering and planning firm with extensive experience completing greenhouse gas inventories for cities across the country including the City of Cleveland, to complete a Cuyahoga County community-wide inventory of greenhouse gas emissions.

Due to the county’s commitment to the Covenant of Mayors, the Global Protocol for Community-Scale GHG Inventories (GPC) was chosen as the basis for the inventory calculations, reporting at the Basic level. The completed Cuyahoga County Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory is available. Highlights from the inventory include:

Trends in County Total Emissions from 2010-17

graph of county greenhouse gas emissions from 2010-17

  • 10% reduction in overall GHG emissions from 26.1 to 23.5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MT CO2e).
  • 21% reduction in emissions from stationary energy (electricity and natural gas)
Trends in Vehicle Miles Traveled and Emissions

Graph of county vehicle miles traveled and emissions from years 2010-17

  • 9% increase in emissions from transportation
Comparison of 2010 and 2017 county emissions make up by source.

Two pie charts showing the County's emission makeup by source in 2010 and 2017

  • Energy related emissions have decreased from 59% of county total emissions to 52%
  • Transportation emissions have increased from 20% to 24% of county total emissions
County per Capita Emissions vs Other Jurisdictions

this bar chart compares cuyahoga county per capita emissions to other jurisdictions

  • Cuyahoga County per capita emissions for 2017 were 18.82 mtCO2e

*Methodologies may vary among jurisdictions. Comparison is for illustrative purposes only

In addition to data on overall county emissions, disaggregated data by each community in the county is also available for each sector for years 2010-17. These community breakouts can be viewed on our interactive dashboard.

Key Terms

Greenhouse Gas: Any gas that absorbs infrared radiation (heat) in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide

Carbon Dioxide Equivalents (CO2e): A standard unit for measuring carbon footprints that expresses the impact of all gases in the amount of CO2 it would take to create the same warming effect.

Metric Tons CO2e (MT CO2e): Standard units for reporting GHG emissions under international protocol. 

*Please note that all data is still being validated – data is not expected to significantly change during this process