Preparing a Climate Action Plan and Setting Priorities
At this stage of formulating a climate action plan, research campuses choose greenhouse gas reduction goals, set dates for achievement, and determine financial constraints and opportunities.
The resulting plan can be goal driven or finance driven.
In preparing climate action plans, there is usually a desire for specific goals and a need to stay within financial constraints. Because of this, a hybrid approach that combines goals and financial constraints is most typical.
Developing a climate action plan is an iterative process that sets preliminary goals, evaluates specific measures, calculates financial impact, and then revises the goals.
Set Preliminary Goals
Research campuses should carefully consider where to set greenhouse gas reduction targets because it is a long-term goal against which you will measure progress for many years. Targets are usually expressed in terms of percent reduction in energy consumption or greenhouse gas emissions by a certain year.
A typical date range for climate-neutral targets is between 2020 and 2050. Plan your targets and dates to achieve goals on time and at the lowest cost possible. Remember, climate neutral means a 100% reduction in your current baseline carbon impact.
Many climate actions reduce greenhouse gases and save money at the same time. For example, energy conservation projects can sometimes result in very high rates of return. Calculating a return on investment or simple payback for these projects allows measures to be ranked relative to each other in terms of financial performance.
Revise Goals
The final step in the planning process is gathering information gleaned from the process and revisiting the original goals. Research campuses often find the need to revise climate action plan goals based on financial constraints and results uncovered by evaluating specific measures and/or the portfolio approach.
Revising goals at this stage increases the likelihood of success. There is little point in striving to meet preliminary goals when financial and specific measure analysis shows them to cost-prohibitive or outright unattainable.
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Mariya Zelenskyy – Media and Outreach Coordinator sustainability@everettcc.edu