Businesses can help make cities more sustainable

Paris initially developed a district heating system in 1927 to reduce air pollution from burning coal. Today, renewable energy provides over 50 percent of co-generated heat to the equivalent of 500,000 households. Paris also developed Europe's first and largest district cooling system using water from River Seine while improving energy efficiency by 35 percent.

In Dubai, air conditioning represents 70 percent of electricity consumption. The city is developing the world's largest district cooling network which will cut this electricity use in half while also reducing its consumption of fresh water through the use of treated sewage effluent. In China, the city of Anshan is integrating isolated boilers into their district heating network and capturing waste heat resulting in a 1.2 million ton reduction in annual coal use.

Driven by aggressive State of California goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption, Stanford University has developed and implemented an innovative strategy to reduce building energy use. The new energy system provides 90 percent of campus heating needs from heat recovery chillers and reduces water consumption by 15 percent. The design includes chilled and hot water storage systems managed by sophisticated predictive control algorithms that forecast weather conditions, campus energy requirements and energy costs 10 days in advance.

Increasing urban efficiency must be a priority for leaders at all levels as we collectively strive to promote the quality of life for city residents and address the great challenges of global climate change, energy security and economic development. A number of global partnerships are helping build capability and capacity through increased collaboration between the public and private sectors. With a record numbers of cities, businesses and institutions making ambitious commitments at the Paris talks, now is the time to leverage the experience, resources and solutions of the private-sector combined with the leadership of local governments to accelerate action toward urban efficiency and sustainability.

The author is chairman, president and CEO of Johnson Controls.