A plan is only as good as its implementation. Too often communities invest considerable effort in preparing quality plans, policies, and programs only to see little happen because of failure to implement. Climate action planning presents an implementation challenge, since the field is rapidly evolving, issues often cut across organizational boundaries, and there is often a lack of dedicated funding. These are all challenges that can be addressed during the planning process. This chapter addresses phase 3, “Implementation and Monitoring,” of the climate action planning process presented in chapter 2. All climate action planning should address how implementation will be ensured and the following questions:
A study of successful implementation completed by the book authors over a seven-year period revealed several keys to successful implementation. These are common principles that emerged from communities all over the U.S. that completed a climate action planning process and showed early success at getting their plans, policies, and programs implemented:
Given the scope of the climate crisis and the need for “all hands on deck,” the responsibility for climate action cannot be limited to a single individual, agency, or organization. Local governments must broaden action by making climate action a regular and important part of business rather than isolating climate action responsibilities in the planning or public works departments, for example. All departments and agencies should establish procedures and policies that ensure the objectives of climate action are being pursued when it is most effective and efficient to do so. This may include standardized reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the same way that most agencies have to report budget tracking. Most departments wouldn’t think twice about being asked about the fiscal implications of a new program or project or for a report of their year-end budget balance. Climate action should be the same way—it should be a regular and expected part of business. During the climate action planning process, each department should identify how it will broaden action.
All departments should be tracking GHG emissions from their own operations and ensuring that data are collected to support community-wide emissions inventories. For example, a transportation agency should track the emissions attributable to their road maintenance operations to both support the local government operations inventory and provide better knowledge about how they might reduce their emissions. Also, they should be tracking VMT and vehicle type (if possible) to support periodic community-wide emissions inventories.
For climate adaptation, all agencies should be reviewing projects and programs to understand how climate change may present a risk. For example, the housing agency can evaluate whether increased future heat waves may necessitate retrofitting existing housing and building new housing to be more thermally efficient.
Perhaps most importantly for broadening action, climate goals and strategies need to be in the municipal budget. When climate action is in the budget, it signals its importance, motivates administrators, provides resources for planning and implementation, and creates a clear mechanism for accountability; more details on this are provided in subsequent sections.
As interest in climate change and sustainability has grown, many local governments are establishing specific offices or departments and creating a sustainability or climate program coordinator position to organize implementation across city agencies. The increasing sophistication and comprehensiveness of climate action planning is generating a need for this new profession. Examples include King County, Washington, which has senior climate change specialist and climate engagement specialist positions, and the City of San Luis Obispo, which has a sustainability manager in the city manager’s office (see box 8.1 for the job description).
In 2013, the Rockefeller Foundation created the 100 Resilient Cities program.1 Part of that program funded city chief resiliency officers (CROs) who would work directly for the chief executive of the city in developing and implementing resiliency programs. There are now about 90 CROs around the globe supported through this program, and this type of position is increasingly seen as valuable and necessary.
Most communities have chosen to house climate offices and staff in environmental, planning, or public works departments to take advantage of the specialized expertise and similarity of mandates. The risk here is that these offices may be seen as operating in a limited domain and may not be able to achieve the institutionalization of action as described above. It is recommended that communities locate these offices and staff in the mayor’s or city manager’s office to take advantage of the authority and visibility of those offices and ensure broad action.
Communities unable to establish new offices or hire for new staff positions can rely on the existing organization for implementation. The benefits of this approach are that it requires little or no new resources, does not disrupt the existing institutional culture, and empowers those closest to actual implementation to act. The potential problems are that existing mandates and programs may overshadow the new climate strategies, implementation may be uneven across parts of the organization, and accountability may be diffuse. Part of this limitation can be addressed through institutionalizing action as discussed above and creating an implementation (a.k.a. “green”) team. Regardless of which choice a community makes, all should consider following the City of Fort Lauderdale’s lead; in 2015, it had all 2,600 city employees go through a training on how they can support and contribute to the City’s climate action goals.2
Implementation teams can be a very effective approach for ensuring the implementation of climate programs and strategies. If a community decides not to have a dedicated team, then the plan should clearly designate a responsible entity for ensuring the implementation of each greenhouse gas reduction and climate adaptation strategy.
Decisions about how to structure an implementation team should be based on the nature of the emissions reduction and adaptation strategies in the plan (see box 8.2). Communities with plans prepared by citizen committees or task forces may want to continue or modify those groups so that they are directly involved in implementation or serve in an oversight or watchdog capacity over those who will implement the plan. Communities that adopt emissions reduction and adaptation strategies dependent primarily on government action may want to transition their climate action team (see chapter 2) into an implementation team.
Finding money for implementing climate action strategies can be the most challenging aspect of implementation. Climate action must compete against all the other needs in a community, which in difficult economic times can be a problem. Communities that are successful in implementation allocate funds that are ensured rather than dependent on uncertain potential funding sources. Often communities will prepare plans, policies, and programs where implementation is dependent on competing for public or private grants or where funding simply isn’t identified. This can mean that well-intentioned plans sit on a shelf collecting dust. Local governments should allocate funds under their control through the budgeting process to support their key climate actions. Brent Toderian, former chief of planning for the City of Vancouver, says, “The truth about a city’s aspirations isn’t found in its vision. It’s found in its budget.”3 Communities that go through the effort of developing visions and strategies for addressing climate change should follow through with specific funding allocations.
Emissions reduction and climate adaptation strategies should have estimated costs for implementation attached to them. These costs can then be assembled into a budget based on the prioritization and timeline that have been established. In addition to the costs for each strategy, there should be a budget for overall program administration that includes staffing, education and outreach, plan monitoring and updating, and so forth. The following are potential sources of funding for climate action (e.g., see box 8.3).
A community may choose to allocate a portion of the local government’s general funds to implementation. The general fund is the local government’s primary operating account with revenues that are usually generated from property taxes, local sales taxes, and other local taxes and fees. Assigning general funds can be challenging because it usually means shifting them from another community program. Most local governments have tight operating budgets that make assigning them to climate action a challenging proposition, yet this is the most consistent source of funding available.
Local governments may issue bonds, essentially borrowing money from the bond holder to finance climate strategies. Bonds are usually used for capital projects (e.g., public buildings, roads, sewer and water infrastructure) or for projects that generate revenue to pay off the bond (pay-parking garages are a typical example). If an emissions reduction strategy fits one of these project types, then issuing a bond may be a viable approach.
Local governments can initiate new taxes or fees to fund climate programs. Taxes and fees can be broadly applied, such as a sales tax, or they could be tailored to link certain behaviors. For example, in the City of Boulder, Colorado, voters approved Initiative 202 in November 2006, which established the climate action plan tax (also known as the carbon tax or CAP tax). The local utility provider, Xcel Energy, collects a tax on electricity for the City, and the City uses it to fund implementation. Not only does the tax raise funds, but it also increases the cost of electricity, which should lower its use, thus providing a direct emissions reduction benefit.
Federal and state governments offer a variety of grants to assist local governments in implementing emissions reduction and climate adaptation strategies. The types of grants will need to be monitored year to year, since they change frequently. Some grants require matching funds, some are competitive, and some require certain conditions to be met. Communities should investigate these and prepare to satisfy these types of conditions in advance so that they can quickly take advantage of new rounds of funding.
There are numerous for-profit and nonprofit organizations that offer grants to support programs that have climate action benefits or co-benefits. These may not be obvious because they may not directly fund climate action but support things like biking and walking, energy efficiency, public safety, or public health. Communities should look to their nonprofit partners, who likely have expertise and experience in finding and securing grants.
Some climate strategies may attract private investment. Two common examples are micromobility services (such as bike and scooter sharing services) and solar power purchase agreements (SPPAs). Public–private partnerships or cooperative agreements can leverage public funding to provide a greater benefit.
Certain activities can be linked to the required or voluntary payment of an additional fee in relation to the amount of GHGs the activity would create. Activities could be driving, flying, disposing of waste, using water, and the like. The idea is to offset the GHGs the activity creates by funding strategies that compensate with an equivalent reduction. This is usually done when reducing the emissions of the original activity itself is very difficult, or perhaps impossible, at the local level. For example, the City of San Francisco has the San Francisco Carbon Fund, which is voluntarily funded by conferences and conventions in the city looking to offset associated GHG emissions, especially from air travel. The fund then supports community-based projects such as urban gardens and forests, open-space conservation, and environmental education. Communities should look to develop carbon-offset programs that fund local projects rather than paying them into global carbon-offset programs. While offset programs are generally seen as a last-resort option for emissions reduction, they can be a good source of funding for programs.
These are programs established to generate their own revenue and are similar to municipal enterprise funds. Usually the revenue generated is directly from the recipient of the benefits of the program; thus they are often seen as fair and equitable programs. The City of Berkeley, California, created the Berkeley FIRST program to finance the cost of solar energy installations through an annual special tax on a homeowner’s property tax bill that is repaid over 20 years. The key innovation is that since the installation is an improvement to the property, the loan stays with the house. If the house is sold, the new owner would take over the payments for the improvement, since they would reap the benefits of the lower utility costs. The Berkeley FIRST program requires little up-front cost to the property owner and thus creates a strong incentive to install solar. The City of Phoenix, Arizona, created the Phoenix Energy Conservation Savings Reinvestment Fund to provide capital for energy efficiency projects. As the City invests in energy efficiency measures, such as installing high-efficiency lighting, it reinvests half of all documented annual energy savings, up to a limit of $750,000, into a revolving fund.
In many communities, nonprofit and service organizations, businesses, and individuals are willing to donate money and services to important causes. The City of San Luis Obispo, California, has bicycle valet parking year-round at its Thursday-night farmer’s market. The bike valet is provided at no charge to the community by a local nonprofit and is staffed by volunteers.
Communities that successfully implement climate strategies usually have a climate champion. The climate champion educates, inspires, demands accountability, and mediates. Often, the climate champion is a mayor or elected official. In 2005, Mayor Greg Nickels of the City of Seattle began the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, and by 2018, 1,060 mayors had signed the agreement. These visionary mayors committed to inventorying GHG emissions in their communities and developing climate action plans. These mayors championed climate action in their communities and began the movement for local action.
Not all climate champions are mayors; they can also be prominent or respected members of a community who have leadership skills, a strong network, and the willingness to take risks and push hard for climate action. Occasionally, climate champions are staff members of the local government who are able to drive climate action because of their knowledge of the bureaucracy and ability to motivate others. The City of San Luis Obispo, California, included “climate champion” as a responsibility in the job description for its sustainability manager (see box 8.1). And of course, communities may have multiple climate champions, sometimes organized as coalitions. Regardless of who the climate champion is, they need support.
The City of Cincinnati, Ohio, included an explicit role for climate champions in their Green Cincinnati Plan (2018); the plan states, “Cincinnati is full of businesses, nonprofits, and other institutions that play a key role in moving Cincinnati toward sustainability. Many times, these entities can help accomplish sustainability measures that are not well suited for City implementation. The City will partner with these entities and promote their initiatives. Each recommendation in the Plan identifies one or more ‘Champions’ who will lead the implementation of that recommendation. The City will monitor and support the efforts of these champions to ensure that implementation is progressing.”4
Often public participation will end once a plan or policy is adopted, but this should not be the case (see chapter 3 for a detailed description of public participation in climate action planning). Many climate action plans, policies, and programs require significant cooperation from community stakeholders and the general public. For example, increasing bicycling in a community isn’t just about adding bicycle infrastructure. It also requires that the public make the choice to leave their cars at home and begin bicycling. This behavioral and cultural change will not occur with just a public education campaign. It requires a more fundamental level of ongoing engagement with the public.
The public wants to be kept informed on progress in implementing strategies, achieving GHG emissions reductions, and increasing community resilience. Moreover, successes should be celebrated, including the achievement of co-benefits such as saving money or improving public health. The salience of public policy issues can wax and wane; therefore, it is important that the community come to see the importance of climate action and view it as a regular and indispensable part of the community, such as having running water or fire protection services.
Communities that develop citizen advisory bodies or task forces during the planning phase should consider extending or reconstituting similar groups for the implementation phase. These groups can be tasked with evaluating progress and adjusting strategies to optimize success. They can support outreach and information campaigns, and they can provide continuity for climate action that could be lost through election cycles or municipal staff turnover.
As mentioned in chapter 1, co-benefits are community benefits that occur from climate action in addition to the GHG emissions reduction or climate adaptation benefits. For example, urban street trees that provide both carbon sequestrations and urban heat mitigation also provide aesthetic benefits and can be shown to increase shopping activity in downtowns. Some members of a community may be more interested in these kinds of benefits, especially if they are skeptical or uninterested in the issue of climate change. Co-benefits also can broaden the base of support for climate actions. For example, climate actions that have public health benefits can attract the interest and support of public health agencies and the medical community.
For implementation, it is important both to communicate the co-benefits of action and to track and demonstrate its success and impact. Implementation often requires sustained effort. An important consideration when developing a communications strategy is whether to lead with the co-benefits or the direct climate benefits, so it is important to understand how receptive the community may be to different messages (see chapter 3 for more information on this).
Most climate actions are sufficiently complex and cross-cutting that they are best implemented by developing robust, committed community partnerships among government agencies, businesses, and community groups. Many climate actions cannot be accomplished by local government action alone, which may lack the formal or moral authority, resources, or expertise.
Take, for example, a community with a goal to increase bicycling. They usually need to increase the amount of bicycle infrastructure. This requires the action of municipal transportation agencies to create bike paths and lanes, but it also may require the participation of businesses and developers to provide bicycle parking at destinations. Although local governments could take on the role of bicycle education, this might better be provided by school boards for K–12 students and by bicycle advocacy groups for adults. Local bike shops can provide education and services that make it easier to choose to bike. And employers can provide bicycle commute incentives and provide showers and changing facilities. The best way to increase bicycle ridership is to work collaboratively with a variety of community partners to address all facets of the issue.
One of the most important local partners is the utility provider. Most actions aimed at energy conservation, renewable energy, and electrification will be more successful with their active cooperation and partnership. Moreover, actions may only be possible with the cooperation of the utility. Utilities can provide funding or rebates, help with outreach and communications, and provide technical expertise on energy issues. In some communities, the utility providers have become fully committed partners in addressing local climate and energy issues.
Communities that have shown success in climate action have local governments that are leading by example. The classic case is putting solar panels on city hall. The public and potential partners and champions are more motivated to act when they see the City taking the issue of climate change seriously. This approach is valuable in two ways. First, by demonstrating a commitment to climate action, it positions the city for moral leadership and messaging on the issue. It is easier and more compelling to ask people to do things you yourself are willing to do or have already done. Second, these actions may be able to serve as demonstration projects. Putting solar panels on city hall can serve to show payback periods to local businesses that may be considering solar.
Local governments can take many climate actions, including the following:
Perhaps one of the most notable actions by local governments has been the commitment to carbon-free or net-zero-GHG-emissions energy for municipal operations. The City of Atlanta, Georgia, has developed a plan to achieve 100% clean energy for municipal operations by 2025 and community-wide by 2035: “The Plan provides different models for how the City of Atlanta’s municipal operations and the entire community can transition to 100 percent clean energy using different policies and programs.”5
The implementation team or climate program coordinator must identify a specific individual, agency, department, or partner organization responsible for implementing each strategy. For example, a strategy to replace lightbulbs in traffic lights with high-efficiency LEDs would likely be assigned to a municipal transportation or public works department. Assigning this responsibility may be met with some resistance from local staff. Local government agencies and departments may feel this is another burden on their already busy staff. Community partners may not feel they have the knowledge or capacity to implement strategies. This is why chapter 2 suggests that local government and community partners be involved in preparation of the plan from the beginning. They need to buy in to the process and contribute to the development of strategies knowing they may be assigned some responsibility for implementation.
One consideration in implementation is how to hold these entities accountable. This is where having an implementation team with the right people can be critical to success. If it is staffed by the people who have decision-making authority in their respective agencies and partner organizations, then it is much easier to ensure implementation. This is usually easier to accomplish with strategies that are to be implemented by local government agencies and departments, since they usually have clear lines of authority compared to those delegated to community organizations such as nonprofits, which may have unclear hierarchies or little organizational capacity. In this case, the implementation committee may have to take a stronger role in ensuring accountability.
Previous chapters on GHG emissions reduction and climate adaptation strategies discussed strategy evaluation and prioritization. This information should be used by the implementation team or climate program coordinator to program the priority and timing of strategy implementation (see box 8.4). Typically, priority and timing are driven by access to funding or the capacity/capability of the implementing organization. For funding, budget cycles, grant-funding cycles, and fund-raising programs may drive when a strategy can be implemented or how quickly it can be fully implemented. For capacity and capability, issues of staffing levels, staff expertise, workload, consistency with current mission, and timing will be important. Other projects may need to be completed first, staff may need additional training to support the program, or some level of reorganization may be needed; each of these can delay action.
Priority and timing may also be driven by external events or circumstances, strategy synergy, and outreach considerations. Sometimes a higher-priority strategy may partially depend on or be synergistic with a lower-priority strategy or other community action. In this case, it may make sense to deviate from a strict prioritization scheme. Communities should consider which strategies can be piggybacked on existing actions—for example, taking advantage of a road repaving to add bicycle lanes. They should also consider strategies that have high public visibility that can serve to educate or motivate the public. Regardless of the rationale, all strategies should be assigned a priority and timing for implementation.
Climate action strategies should contain a program for monitoring progress on implementation and achieving GHG emissions reduction or adaptation targets as well as a program for reporting and publicizing these achievements and a process for evaluating and updating the plan:
Each of these levels of monitoring can be linked to performance indicators that show how well the community is doing in achieving expected levels of performance for each strategy (see box 8.5). For example, if a community identified that it needed energy efficiency retrofits on 10% of its houses and businesses to achieve the desired GHG emissions reduction in that sector, then the performance indicator would track and report the number or percentage of retrofits led by the implementing organization and partners. These performance indicators can be tracked regularly and reported as a scorecard for implementation. This allows progress to be easily communicated so that decision-makers can adjust program implementation. For an example, see the City of Fort Collins’ Climate Dashboard (https://ftcollinscap.clearpointstrategy.com).
Communities should consider annual or biannual reporting of progress on implementation, GHG emissions reductions, and enhanced resilience. An annual report can be used to inform those who participated in creating and adopting the plan of the progress of their work. In addition, the annual report can serve as an important component of educating and motivating the public about what needs to be done to address the climate change problem and helps ensure that the climate action isn’t ignored, holding accountable those responsible for implementation. For example, the sustainability coordinator for the City of San Mateo (California) provides an annual climate action implementation and monitoring report, including a summary of progress and key metrics, to the City’s sustainability commission and city council, and it maintains all annual reports on the City’s website for transparency.6
It would not be reasonable to expect a GHG emissions inventory, climate vulnerability assessment, and planning update to occur annually or biannually; instead, communities should consider a five-year evaluation and update schedule. In between the major updates, the community can use the annual report as an opportunity to modify strategies and include interim updates as needed. Press releases can accompany the releases of annual reports and updates, which can be made available on websites and in public places such as libraries.
More communities are considering integrating their climate action policies and strategies into their comprehensive land use plan. There are several reasons for this: the comprehensive plan is an existing, recognized legal instrument for implementing and enforcing policies and strategies; comprehensive plan implementation is usually linked to specific departments, thus providing ownership and accountability; and there will often be overlap in issue areas where synergies can be captured and potential conflicts resolved. In the long term, complete integration of climate action strategies in community planning documents may become standard. Integration with comprehensive plans requires consideration of how they are structured and where climate action may best fit.
The content and structure of comprehensive plans will vary based on state law or local preferences. An accepted hierarchy has evolved to include a vision, planning principles, goals, objectives, policies, actions or implementation measures, and indicators or performance measures. Comprehensive plans include multiple components or elements to address key issues such as land use, transportation/mobility, public utilities and infrastructure, safety and hazards, noise, housing, agriculture, open space, energy, air quality, water resources, biological resources, historic preservation, cultural resources, public health, parks and recreation, and economic development. Comprehensive plans often balance land use and social, environmental, and economic objectives.
Communities should identify their key goals related to climate action and then develop, update, or amend their comprehensive plans to reflect those goals accordingly. The integration of climate action into a local comprehensive plan is most straightforward when the plan is being updated or developed concurrently with or following a climate action planning process. Climate action goals, policies, and actions should be incorporated across the various elements of the comprehensive plan rather than into a single element.
In the long term, it is possible that the goals of reduced GHG emissions and resilience in the face of unavoidable climate impacts will become ubiquitous and a standard component of comprehensive plans.