The City of Boston recently made headlines for an ambitious plan to mandate all new city-owned buildings to be carbon neutral, part of a wider plan for the city to achieve net zero status by 2050.

The challenge, of course, isn’t in getting people excited about the prospect of going net zero — fervor around the term has grown with the number of buildings that meet the standard. The challenge is preparing cities for what it's going to take to actually make net zero a realistic possibility.

An ambitious goal like Boston's requires a total overhaul in how we think about sustainability at every level of impact. The changes must go beyond recycling, using LED light bulbs, and even constructing net zero buildings, since individual buildings or projects can only go so far. Cities will have to embrace bigger, district-wide or neighborhood-scale solutions that create change at a scale that will make a difference.

Read the full article about getting cities to net-zero carbon emissions by Tom Sieniewicz at Smart Cities Dive.