MA Chapter to Support Cities and Towns for the Green Communities Act
– Volunteer Opportunities
Background
As part of the 2008 Green Communities Act, a statewide program has
come into effect, offering benefits to municipalities that make a
commitment to efficiency and renewable energy. The state Department of
Energy Resources, includes a Green Communities Division to provide
technical and financial assistance to municipalities for energy
efficiency and renewable energy efforts.
Many municipalities in Mass. and elsewhere have developed, are
developing, or will eventually develop “climate action plans” with the
aim of reducing GHG emissions. An increasing percentage of these plans
may aim to conserve natural resources in general, and thus be termed
“sustainability plans.” We expect that such planning will also become
integrated with existing, traditional long-range planning processes.
At present there is no one-stop, or even obvious first-stop, source
of support for municipal energy planning. Each municipality has to
reinvent this particular wheel. It is highly inefficient for each of the
351 Mass. municipalities to independently go through the daunting
process of creating a climate action plan, then implementing and
enforcing it. This is especially so when the economic situation is
forcing municipalities to look for opportunities to share resources.
The Campaign
The Massachusetts Chapter is developing a program to fill a very
significant gap in the current array of programs, services and
incentives intended in these and other state programs. The Sierra Club
has for several years encouraged CO2-reduction planning through its
“Cool Cities” program (www.coolcities.us).
We will to build on these efforts to make the municipalities’ work
easier and more effective, and build communications and interactions
among them, by providing global analysis, tools, and support, doing so
through a Web site, database, wiki, discussion board, and local
activists who bring these resources to bear on each locality with whom
we work, through the following endeavors:
Part (a) Catalog best plans and best practices. Not only from around
the state but from around the nation and beyond.
Part (b) Develop an exemplary website that can be an unparalleled
resource for our members in their local communities and also for their
municipal officials, other organizations, and citizens in general.
Part (c) Work with Massachusetts cities and towns in providing them
with our information, coordinating among them, and following up on their
efforts.
Volunteer opportunities
Part (a): Obtain information specific to as many cities and towns as
possible. This includes their local energy/green plans, meeting minutes,
relevant archival and current local data, newsletters and electronic
publications and social media, events of note coming up, and goals and
action items that they commit to.
Obtain information of use to any city or town. This includes the GCA
and GWSA legislation text, availability of funds and the paperwork
necessary to apply, model energy and green plans, tables of legislative
requirements, articles of general interest, and events such as talks and
discussion seminars, including slides from previous events.
Part (b): Obtain requirements for, design, develop, and implement the
Web site:
Part (c): Establish working relationships with cities and towns to
make them aware of what we are doing and obtain buy-in and input from
them.
Obtain a working knowledge of the Green Communities and Global
Warming Solutions Act, in order to serve as a resource to fellow
volunteers and to cities and towns
Form local action committees in cities and towns to work with them
and to organize into the effort Club members living there.
In this way, the Chapter will build on the existing motivation at the
municipal level established by the Green Communities Act and by previous
Chapter effort. A successful effort will make the municipalities’ work
easier and more effective, build communications and interactions among
them, and save tons of energy and CO2 emissions!
For more information, please contact David Heimann
at office@sierraclubmass.org, telephone (617) 423-4775.
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