Title: Cool Roofs as a Municipal Strategy in Zone 5 Climate Cities
Description: The central purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the effectiveness of the City of Pittsburgh’s 2013 Cool Roofs Program, of which the author of this thesis was one of the administrators. The original stated goal of the program according to mission statement and grant agreements was to engage volunteers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions & lessen the heat island effect, and save the City of Pittsburgh operating costs due to a reduced cooling load. The realization of volunteer engagement occurred at the conclusion of the project’s implementation, but the other two key metrics for project success required several years of data collection and observation to determine if the project had achieved its stated goals. It has been 3 years since the implementation period of the Cool Roofs Project and the following thesis evaluates whether or not the two remaining goals were achieved and whether this is a viable strategy for other cities in the same climate zone with comparable municipal building assets.