The Climate Action Support Centre (CASC) project was implemented to address staff and budgetary constraints faced by municipalities in implementing climate action. These constraints posed a major challenge in the implementation of ambitious municipal climate action plans, especially around the advancement of community climate action.
This project created three peer-to-peer implementation teams – Green Development Standards Team, Retrofit Team and Corporate Team. Working in conjunction with strategic municipal partners and industry experts, these teams focussed on advancing tangible climate action in key pre-identified areas, where the “planning to implementation” gap existed.
Community Green Development Standards Implementation Team (GDS Team)
The GDS team identified and synthesized municipal processes and resources to create a GDS toolkit, tracked municipal GDS progress provincially, created a GDS staff training program, developed external consultation resources and processes, and, developed education materials on the GDS metrics for the development community. The GDS toolkit presented a new Milestone Framework with key actions and processes identified for municipalities to track their GDS development and implementation. View the GDS webinar for more information.
Home Energy Efficiency Retrofit Implementation Team (Retrofit Team)
The Retrofit Team employed the Local Improvement Charge (LIC) mechanism to facilitate pilot communities in putting this program into practice. The Retrofit Team developed a Home Energy Efficiency Retrofit Model Program Toolkit highlighting the resources and actions available to municipalities and their community partners to address barriers to single-family home energy efficiency retrofits to meaningfully tackle GHG emissions from their residential buildings. A Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework was developed to support municipalities in monitoring the success of their LIC pilot programs.
Corporate Implementation Team (Corporate Team)
The Corporate Team focussed on developing corporate energy reduction mechanisms as corporate action was identified as a key driver behind the success of community climate actions. A Municipal Corporate Energy Plan Guide was developed to provide analysis of the supporting policies and practices such as financial policy updates, carbon budgeting frameworks, use of public-private partnerships, and use of integrated design to advance our low carbon future. A Green Fleets Business Case Series was also developed to demonstrate the financial case for municipal fleet electrification, while providing public health and climate benefits to the community.
Through the CASC project, a range of resources including toolkits and guides were collaboratively developed with inputs from 12 municipalities. These resources have been downloaded over 370 times in the past year. Check out the CASC Project page for more information, or contact Kevin Behan at kbehan@cleanairpartnership.org.
By Devanshi Kukadia, Research and Communications Manager, Clean Air Partnership.