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Honolulu was selected as one of the nation’s “most improved cities” by a national organization that scores 100 U.S. cities on their programs to improve energy efficiency and move toward a cleaner electric grid and fuels.

Overall, Honolulu moved up 17 places to tie Baltimore, Maryland, for 24^th overall, according to the “2021 City Clean Energy Scorecard” published by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research organization that develops policies to reduce energy waste and fight climate change. Others tapped for their improvements were Madison, Wisconsin, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The council’s report scores cities on a 100-point scale using five categories — community-wide initiatives, building policies, transportation policies, energy and water utilities, and local government operations – which are weighted by importance. Honolulu earned 41.5 out of 100 available points, with its best performance coming from its water and electric utilities; those earned nine of 15 available points.

The top city, San Francisco, earned a score of 74. Seattle; Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis and Boston rounded out the top five.

According to the report, all of the cities, even those in the top 10, have room to improve.

The report’s top recommendation is for city officials to “lead with a commitment to racial and social equity.” That, the report says, means “creating a formal clean energy decision-making body of historically marginalized community residents, supporting minority- and women-owned businesses in securing local government clean energy contracts, and pursuing policies and programs designed to reduce the energy use and costs of affordable and rental housing.”

Honoulu’s improvement comes at a time when, the report says, many cities managed to adopt new initiatives despite dealing with unprecedented challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Cities planned clean energy strategies, for example, and invested in clean energy infrastructure such as microgrids. Altogether, the council found, cities undertook at least 177 new clean energy actions between May 2020 and June 2021.

Among the category of mid-sized cities with population growth of 0.27% or lower – which included cities like Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Akron, Ohio; and Syracuse, New York – Honolulu stood out to the report’s authors as a model for improving energy performance of municipal operations and assets and engaging with utilities to promote clean energy.

Specifically, the report singles out Honolulu for adopting a stringent emissions and renewable energy goal for its municipal operations, converting all its street lighting to LEDs, installing eight megawatts of on-site solar, and adopting a procurement policy prioritizing the purchase of energy-efficient vehicles.

The report also commended Honolulu officials for engaging with Hawaiian Electric. The company is a regular participant in Honolulu’s Climate Action and Resiliency stakeholder meetings, the report said, and has encouraged more utility-scale and distributed energy generation. It also noted the city’s Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment Plant that captures and processes the biogas emitted from its operation.