HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo - Mail Packet - 7/28/2020 - Memorandum From Michelle Finchum, John Phelan, Molly Saylor Re: Climate Action Plan UpdatesEnvironmental Services
222 Laporte Ave.
PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
970.221.6600
fcgov.com/environmental services
1 Includes Interim Utilities Executive Director Theresa Connor; Deputy Director of Community Services John
Stokes; Director of Planning, Development, and Transportation Caryn Champine; Chief Sustainability Officer Jackie
Kozak Thiel; and Environmental Services Director Lucinda Smith
MEMORANDUM
Date: July 22, 2020
To: Mayor and City Council
Thru: Darin Atteberry, City Manager
CAP Executive Team1
From: Michelle Finchum, Interim Climate Program Manager
John Phelan, Energy Services Senior Manager
Molly Saylor, Senior Sustainability Specialist
Re: Climate Action Plan Updates
Purpose: To provide a status update on the City’s climate actions and upcoming engagement
opportunities, including the following:
Our Climate Future Accomplishments and Updates
o Phase 1 report
o Phase 2 launch
Climate Equity Update
o Equitable Engagement Grant
o Community Partner and Plan Ambassador Program
Carbon inventory update and IPPU
Rawhide Unit 1 Retirement
Roundhouse Wind Project Online
Other climate related initiatives
Next Steps
Our Climate Future Accomplishments & Updates:
Our Climate Future is in the planning process to update three City plans simultaneously: Climate Action
Plan, Road to Zero Waste Plan and Energy Policy.
The Phase One report is complete and available on the Our City webpage (Executive Summary
attached), containing background on Our Climate Future, design of community involvement, and
what we heard from the community on their priorities. Responses from this phase were analyzed
based on demographics, leading with people of color and members of historically
underrepresented groups and showed:
o Top three Community Priorities from all responses are as follows:
o More Reuse, Recycling, and Composting
o More Renewable Energy
o Local and Regional Transit
The top four Big Barriers identified from all responses are as follows:
o Not Enough Action by Individuals, Organizations, and Government
o Not Enough Information or Awareness of Sustainability
o Not Enough Funding and Infrastructure
o Racism, Inequity, and Exclusion
It is of significance that “Racism, Inequity, and Exclusion” was disproportionately identified by
people of color, particularly Hispanic/Latinx people.
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Launch of Phase Two: After pausing most engagement activities in mid-March, Phase Two of Our
Climate Future kicked off on July 6th with strategy identification. Over a nine-week period, the
community will participate in virtual engagement activities to brainstorm how to achieve waste,
energy and climate goals, address Community Priorities, and overcome Big Barriers identified in
Phase One. Each week is based on one or two of the Community Priorities and will offer public
strategy workshops. The community can also use a Virtual Idea Board to share ideas for how to
achieve a sustainable future and community priorities, such as affordable housing, local and
regional transit, and healthy economy.
Metabolic, a consulting firm based in the Netherlands, was competitively selected to serve as the
lead consultant on OCF, supported by Colorado firms The Brendle Group and WestUrb. Staff will
be working with the consulting team to develop Big Moves (transformational approaches) and
Next Moves (initial strategies and tactics toward the Big Moves) based on community
engagement responses.
Climate Equity Update:
Equitable Engagement Grant: The City has been awarded a $9,000 grant to conduct in-person
engagement that meets COVID-19 required safety practices in local manufactured home parks
experiencing barriers to engagement due to lack of digital access. The grant allows the City to
partner with local organizations (La Familia), artists, and equity consultants (L’Ancla).
Equity Primer: The Equity section (pg. 9-11) of the Fort Collins Existing Conditions Document
represents one of the City’s first (if not the first) publications to document aspects of Fort Collin’s
racial history, including specific examples of inequities. This section also explains how and why
OCF is centering equity, leading with race.
Community Partner and Plan Ambassador Program: Residents and community organizations
continue to support Our Climate Future’s mission to engage historically underrepresented
communities in Phase Two. These ambassadors leverage their networks to conduct engagement
on the City’s behalf. During the pandemic, their efforts were redirected to support the City’s
COVID response efforts and with the restart of engagement, ambassadors are holding strategy
workshops with their communities.
Carbon Inventory Update and IPPU
This Fall, staff will prepare one carbon inventory for 2019 that includes known industrial process and
product use (IPPU) emissions and will evaluate progress toward climate action goals with these
emissions included. Implications for this change include:
2005 baseline calculation for goals with IPPU emissions. Staff plans to assume zero IPPU
emissions in the 2005, as this is the most conservative estimate.
Expected changes to inventory. The 2019 inventory has not yet been completed; however, when
including IPPU emissions in the 2018 community carbon inventory, percent decrease from the
2005 is 7%, compared to 2018’s previously reported value of 14%.
Expected changes to progress on the 20% by 2020 goal. With the addition of IPPU, projections
place the 2020 inventory at a 5-18% decrease from the 2005 baseline. Projections are based on
the 2018 inventory and recent high and low IPPU data.
Data availability. 2019 IPPU emissions data are expected to be released by the Environmental
Protection Agency in the fall of 2020. Staff will plan to report the 2019 inventory once these data
are available.
Communication with Broadcom. City Manager Darin Atteberry reached out to Broadcom to make
them aware of this change in Fort Collins emissions reporting. Broadcom acknowledged this
change and that Broadcom’s emissions data are already publicly available via EPA annual
reporting.
Additional details can be found in the memo to Council from June 3rd, 2020.
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Rawhide Unit 1 Retirement
The Platte River Power Authority announced on June 16 that its Rawhide Unit 1 generating resource will
cease producing electricity by 2030, 16 years before its planned retirement date. Platte River’s Board
approved the Resource Diversification Policy in December 2018, calling for a 100% noncarbon energy
mix by 2030, and planners began studying future energy mix options without the use of its 280 MW coal-
fired unit as part of its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) process. While the IRP is currently on hold until
public meetings and stakeholder engagement resumes, Platte River’s leadership announced Unit 1’s
retirement to support state regulatory timelines that align with the broader objectives for a noncarbon
future.
Along with other utilities in Colorado, Platte River has been called upon to produce a clean energy plan
to outline steps necessary to meet the goal to decrease electric utility carbon emissions by 80%
statewide by 2030. Platte River is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment, the Colorado Energy Office and Public Utilities Commission in pursuit of this objective. The
Rawhide retirement decision and announcement aligned with the timelines of these agency’s filings.
Roundhouse Wind Project Online
After several weeks of testing, the 225-megawatt Roundhouse Wind Energy Center located north of the
Colorado-Wyoming border has begun commercial operations on June 25. Nearly 50% of the energy
delivered to Platte River Power Authority’s owner communities comes from noncarbon sources now that
the wind farm is fully operational. The project is located 10 miles north of Platte River’s Rawhide Energy
Station and extends approximately 20,000 acres. The site features 82 wind turbines, capable of
producing up to 225 MW of output and is estimated to produce enough energy to power approximately
100,000 homes per year. It nearly triples the amount of wind power Platte River delivers to its owner
communities and is expected to result in achieving the 2020 community carbon reduction target in 2021.
Other CAP Related Items:
The Institute for Market Transformation and the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Alliance
announced the City of Fort Collins as a 2020 Green Lease Leader during the Better Buildings,
Better Plants Summit in June.
The Distributed Energy Resource Strategic Planning project with Platte River, Fort Collins,
Loveland, Longmont and Estes Parks is working with a consultant from the Smart Electric Power
Alliance (SEPA)
Fort Collins Utilities received a grant to replace all of the public electric vehicle charging stations
throughout town. Work was completed in late June.
The Climate Mayors Congressional Leadership Statement, signed by Mayor Troxell and 198
other U.S. mayors, was sent to Congress on July 22, 2020.
Next Steps:
September - Our Climate Future Phase two engagement summary
September - Shift campaign – focus on Shift Your Ride: fcgov.com/shiftyourridemonth
October – 2019 Carbon Inventory Results
November 24 - OCF Council Work session
Attachments
Understanding Our Community Report Executive Summary
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Understanding Our Community
Fall 2019-Winter 2019
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Executive Summary
Our Climate Future (OCF) is the City of Fort Collins’ joint planning process for updating the Energy Policy,
Road to Zero Waste plan, and Climate Action Plan. OCF strives to center both its engagement process
and the final plan outcomes in equity for all, leading with race. Additionally, the impacts of climate
change are already happening in Fort Collins and will continue to increase in the decades to come,
therefore it is key that OCF integrates climate resilience into the process. This document illustrates how
staff developed and deployed the first phase of OCF called “Understanding Our Community” while
embedding both equity and climate resilience.
The first phase of OCF has been crucial to center staff and the process in people’s needs. Past versions of
the energy, waste, and climate plans focused primarily on implementing solutions to technical problems,
but human behavior change is not a technical problem. It is a people-centered one. By understanding
people’s fundamental needs and their barriers to action first, OCF can ground all strategic plan
development with a people-centered approach at its core. This is why centering OCF in equity, leading
with race is critical. The entire community of Fort Collins must be active changemakers if the community
is going to achieve its long-term goals integrating equity, economic health, and environmental
wellbeing. By addressing historically underrepresented group’s needs, they can become active
participants in creating Our Climate Future.
Understanding Our Community followed a deliberate process to engage and reflect a diversity of
community voices.
1.Staff designed five outreach approaches and engaged Community Partners and Plan
Ambassadors to reach individuals and businesses across our community.
2.Five questions were asked of our community to learn the collective vision for a sustainable
future as it relates to energy, waste, and climate and the barriers to getting there.
Staff analyzed each response to craft themes called Community Priorities and Big Barriers,
beginning with people of color and members of historically underrepresented groups’
responses.
When looking at all responses together, the following three priorities and four barriers were mentioned
the most. However, there were a total of eleven Community Priorities and eight Big Barriers which are
summarized in later sections of this document.
Community Priorities Big Barriers
More Reuse, Recycling, and Composting
More Renewable Energy
Local and Regional Transit
Not Enough Action by Individuals,
Organizations, and Government
Not Enough Information or Awareness of
Sustainability
Not Enough Funding and Infrastructure
Racism, Inequity, and Exclusion
Staff analyzed the data by demographics to better understand how historically underrepresented parts
of Fort Collins might identify different priorities and barriers to success compared to other members of
the community. In total, responses suggest that the highest priorities in our community are waste
management, transit, and energy. The most mentioned barriers were also aligned across demographic
groups with people expressing concern about the top three in the table above; however, one barrier
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that was disproportionately identified by people of color, particularly Hispanic/Latinx people, was
racism, inequity, and exclusion.
Overall, staff’s interpretation of responses is that our community is aligned around what our biggest
priorities and barriers are to achieving our climate future, but our communities of color are
disproportionately experiencing additional barriers around racism, inequities, and exclusion that must
be addressed in order for us all to achieve a sustainable future together.
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