City of Geneva

The City of Geneva is committed to successfully achieving its energy transition. The city buildings and infrastructure are the City’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. To deal with this situation, Geneva has set itself two ambitious goals for 2030: reducing its energy consumption by 30% and cutting the greenhouse gas emissions of its region and administration by 60%.

Geneva raises awareness and is taking action to tackle the climate emergency

In 2020, Geneva declared a climate emergency. In February 2022, the City adopted its Climate Strategy to become climate neutral and based solely on renewables. This climate plan presents 30 objectives and 78 measures covering 9 strategic areas. Through its actions, Geneva intends to consume less and better in order to drastically reduce its emissions and reach the “100% renewable – zero emissions” target by 2050.

Strategic areas are prioritised according to their local carbon footprint. Firstly, Geneva wants to establish responsible consumption patterns and decarbonise the food system (responsible for 43% of greenhouse gas emissions – GHGs). Energy and housing come second (30% of GHG emissions).

To illustrate its ambition in terms of energy and buildings, the City of Geneva completed the energy transition of its first neighbourhood in May 2020.  The social housing complex of the Minoteries, built in the 1970s, was the second most energy-intensive municipal asset (more than 500,000 litres of oil consumed per year). The renovation of the complex, which houses almost 600 residents, has achieved the “100% renewable and zero carbon emissions” target. After three years’ work on an occupied site, the neighbourhood is now heated by the sun and wastewater circulating in the sewers (more details here).

Reducing energy consumption for a 100% renewable Geneva

Since 2006, in line with its “100% renewable in 2050” strategy, the Swiss city has been seeking to phase out fossil fuels. Twenty years ago, Geneva was still dependent on oil: local dwellings consumed 73% of it in 2006. Today, the City has virtually eliminated its use of this energy. The City Council offers loans to help people change over to renewable energy and get rid of the last oil heaters by 2025.

The city has renovated a hundred of its public buildings according to the criteria of high or very high energy performance. To reduce the 13 tonnes of CO2 emitted per capita each year (in 2019), in 2022, the City applied for the largest loan in its history. It required a sum of 150 million francs to improve the energy performance of 128 buildings.

Sources: Official website of the municipality; Samantha Serafini, Information and Communications Officer at the City of Geneva; official website of the city’s 2050 energy transition