The town is kicking off the summer review period of its draft Climate Action Plan at a virtual event on Thursday, June 29 from 7–8 p.m. Residents are invited to learn more about the plan and the strategies to reduce carbon emissions and increase the community’s resilience to climate change impacts (click here to register).
The plan — which was developed by Assistant Director of Planning and Land Use Jennifer Curtin and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council along the lines of other towns’ climate action plans — lists Lincoln’s climate action goals and groups strategies into six categories:
- Energy
- Mobility
- Built environment
- Working land and natural resources
- Water and solid waste
- Social resilience
More than 200 strategy ideas were received from community engagement activities during the spring that included workshops, focus groups and a survey. After public review this summer, the final draft will be submitted to the Select Board for approval in the fall.
When the plan was presented to the Select Board on June 26, board member Kim Bodnar was intrigued by one of the proposed strategies: establishing an “ambassador program” to help residents understand and access grants for weatherization, building energy retrofits, adoption of solar power, battery storage, etc. “Is it like a Geek Squad for green folks?” she asked. “That would be incredibly helpful — sometimes people just don’t know.”
“We heard from folks that they would rather hear [about steps they could take] from their neighbors rather than Mass Save or people who want to sell you things,” Curtin said. The ambassador program “is my #1 focus… it’s really impactful and not an expensive thing for the town to do.”
Board member Jim Hutchinson asked whether the town would need more staffing to carry out various elements of the plan, which will also involve extensive grant application writing. “We’re going to have to give some serious consideration to that when we have a real solid sense of priorities and timeline,” Town Administrator Tim Higgins replied.
“A lot of this stuff is kind of aspirational” and will involve more detailed feasibility studies, cost/benefit analyses and data gathering, Curtin added.
More information on the draft Climate Action Plan:
- MAPC summary presentation
- PowerPoint presentation to the Select Board
- Executive summary of the plan
- Full text of the plan
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