In 2006, the Town of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill committed to a 60 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. As part of this effort, the UNC Institute for the Environment, in collaboration with the Carbon Reduction Program at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, developed the Community Carbon Reduction (CRed) Program of Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The program's goal is to help individuals and organizations identify and carry out effective strategies to reduce carbon emissions at the local level.

As part of the CRed Program, Ying Li, a doctoral student in Public Policy, conducted a quantitative estimate of annual carbon savings that can result from each of more than a hundred proposed actions within five sectors of Chapel Hill and Carrboro: the municipal government, UNC-Chapel Hill, the transportation sector, the residential sector, and the commercial sector.

Li's findings allow CRed Program participants to know how much of an impact their pledges and actions have on annual carbon savings. It can also be used to inform local governments, businesses and residents about some of the most cost-effective, technologically feasible and socially acceptable strategies available for reducing carbon emissions.