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The summer heat collected inside a fire station in Reno, the nation’s fastest-warming city , where Nevada’s governor and key local government leaders had gathered in July 2021. They were there to announce what they called a “groundbreaking” step to address climate change through a “landmark partnership” with a little-known green tech company.
“We get to be the city, the county and the state that lead the way into a new day and a new era,” Bob Lucey, then-Washoe County Commission chairperson, told the small crowd of reporters, lobbyists and government officials.
“This is how we fight climate change and protect our state,” proclaimed then-Gov. Steve Sisolak, who’d set a goal of nearly halving the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
The governments they led had each given the company, then called Ledger8760 and now known as NZero, contracts on the promise it could provide real-time tracking of carbon emissions from scores of buildings, hundreds of vehicles and the travel of thousands of employees. Such information would allow hour-by-hour decision making to reduce their carbon footprints and move toward their climate goals, according to NZero’s pitch.