At KLA is fresh off two conferences: the American Public Works Association (APWA) PWX Conference and the New England Chapter of APWA (NEAPWA) Conference. Speaking to an audience of public works professionals at both events, we joined our partners on panels to discuss public works’ ongoing role in climate action implementation and how to embrace collaborative approaches that integrate sustainability considerations across all local government operations.
We've shared some broad brushstrokes from those presentations here, the focal point of both being our Climate Action Framework -- a tool that can help make your climate, sustainability and resilience plans stick.
You’re Already Doing Climate Work, Even If You Don’t Yet Know It
While climate action planning is often driven and motivated by elected officials, planning departments, state or federal mandates, or community demand, the nuts and bolts of implementation—of actually reaching emission reduction and resiliency goals—often lands with the Department of Public Works.
That was the message in our NEAPWA session “You’re Already Acting on Climate Change—You Just Don’t Know It”, with Tacy Lambiase, KLA’s Director of Climate Solutions, Keith Baldinger, Assistant Town Manager for Shrewsbury, MA, and Louise O’Neill, Shrewsbury’s Assistant Town Planner. They discussed how public works can make a significant impact by simply recognizing the work they are already doing is related to climate action.
The truth is that most public works professionals are already taking action on climate change every day, from building upgrades to fleet maintenance to stormwater systems – they just might not realize it. Understanding the connection between climate change and their work can help public works employees see the impact and importance of their roles and better position them to effectively communicate that to the public. This can be true of other municipal departments and staff given that climate, sustainability and resilience touch nearly every facet of our communities (as Shrewsbury confirmed when they surveyed their staff).
Shrewsbury shared their Green Team approach, led by Public Works, which engages a cross-departmental team of champions to promote sustainability, track and monitor progress, and can bring and keep climate considerations top of mind. This team ensures that the Town is doing its part and leading by example before moving to a community climate action plan.
Innovating Climate Ready Communities
At PWX, our CEO Kim Lundgren joined Matt Flynn, Director of Public Works for the Town of Cary, NC, and Sara Caliendo, the Town’s Energy Manager, to headline a session titled “Innovating Climate-Ready Communities”. We define a “climate-ready community” as one that is able to prepare for and recover from the effects of climate change, while continuing to thrive.
Cary has made significant strides to lay the groundwork for a more sustainable future through the implementation of a variety of programs including stormwater modeling, floodplain corridor acquisition, satellite leak detection, discrete food waste collection, autonomous shuttles, and the adoption of an electric fleet and renewably powered maintenance assets. And they've done that while being mindful of the Town's core values and how those are factored into decisions and investments.
Cary exemplifies a community that is taking action on climate change while building resilience in case of future climate impacts. But where do other communities start? How can communities tap into their existing resources to plan for a more sustainable future? A good place to start is by utilizing a Climate Action Framework (or Climate Innovation Framework, Climate-Ready Community Framework or Resilient Community Framework – whatever best reflects your community!).
Put the Framework to Work for Your Community
Cary and Shrewsbury are shining examples of taking an intentional and collaborative approach to make strategic upgrades and investment decisions that can reduce emissions, build resilience, and protect community health.
At both NEAPWA and PWX, we walked through Shrewsbury's Climate-Ready Community Framework (shown below) and Cary's Climate Innovation Framework to exemplify how such tools consider the causes and impacts of climate change to help guide decision-making, design, and evaluation of municipal projects, programs, and budgetary processes. Session participants had a chance to test drive the framework and apply it to their own communities.
You can use this basic framework template to:
- List out the core values or climate priorities for your department, agency or community.
- Define those values.
- Build a framework based on these defined values with positive, negative and neutral contributions.
- Design and/or evaluate programs, policies and projects using the framework.
All in all, the takeaway from both our NEAPWA and PWX sessions is that tapping into the systems that are already in place and embracing a collaborative approach can help integrate sustainability, climate, and resilience considerations across all operations in alignment with your community’s priorities and values.
Download this worksheet and apply it to your upcoming climate, sustainability and resilience projects.
We dive a bit more into the nuts and bolts of the framework in this earlier blog post: “This Framework Can Institutionalize Your Climate + Sustainability Goals.”
