London, UK – A new citywide program aims to cut energy use by London’s public buildings by 25 percent.

The announcement came this week from London Mayor Ken Livingstone and would cover buildings within the Greater London Authority, which encompasses the city of London and 32 boroughs.

The program is the first of its kind and is based on a deal developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative for the C40 cities, the group of the world’s largest cities working against climate change.

Under the deal, a group of buildings are offered for retrofitting in one package, allowing energy service companies to take advantage of economies of scale and use the savings from quick and cheap tactics to fund long-term and expensive projects. Energy service companies are guaranteed a certain amount of energy and financial savings, allowing them to fund improvements like insulation, low-carbon heating and cooling, and energy management technology.

Energy service companies Dalkia and Honeywell were selected for the program, which starts with 42 police, fire, emergency and public transportation buildings.

Livingstone estimated the program could prevent 1 million tons of carbon emissions a year if all of London’s municipal buildings, schools, universities and hospitals took part. He also plans to work with the Clinton Climate Initiative to extend the program to commercial buildings, adding that if non-public buildings also cut their energy by one-fourth, the city’s annual carbon savings would grow to 3.6 million tons.