Google Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE)
About Google EIE
The City of South Bend has partnered with Google to create a tool to provide insights into environmental data and identify areas for climate action. The Environmental Insights Explorer (EIE) uses freely available data from aerial and survey data to measure emissions and find solutions. The tool has four sections:
How to use Google EIE
Emissions and rooftop solar insights uses a tCO2e measure, which is short hand for metric tonnes of CO2 equivalents. This means all non-CO2 emission amounts such as methane and nitrous oxide are converted to the equivalent amount of CO2 with the same global warming potential. With this figure, we can compare total emissions to potential emission offsets like increased canopy coverage and solar.
Residential and non-residential (such as industrial and commercial) building output similar emissions and encompass a large portion of overall emissions in South Bend.
South Bend has a set a target for 40% canopy coverage by 2050, which means planting one tree for each resident or doubling our current estimated canopy coverage.
For additional data inquiries, please email data&performance@southbendin.gov.