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Climate Action Plan Committee (CAPC)
About the Climate Action Plan Committee
The Climate Action Plan Committee (CAPC) was established to guide the Town in developing a plan that meets or exceeds the State’s climate mitigation and resilience goals. The Committee will make recommendations to the Select Board on approval of a Climate Action Plan (CAP), and may be asked to continue to serve as an advisory committee to oversee the implementation of the CAP.
The Committee is charted with reviewing the Town’s climate-related data, establishing a program to create a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventory for the entire Town of Needham, recommending long-term climate action goals that focus on reducing GHG emissions and building resilience within and across the Town’s residential, commercial, and municipal sectors, and recommending programs and policies to implement GHG reduction goals and climate resilience planning.
The Committee will develop a Climate Action Plan for the Select Board’s review and approval that includes:
- Definition of the climate action goals for each decade through 2050, with a focus on the next decade;
- Strategic options and incentives that seek to overcome barriers to implementation of climate action goals;
- Recommendations for any structural changes, resource, or staffing recommendations that would assist in implementation;
- Actions to protect environmental justice communities from disproportionate effects of climate change;
- Recommendations for implementing the plan across all sectors of the Town;
- Measures that assist in tracking and reporting Town’s progress towards fulfilling climate action goals; and
Climate Action Plan Committee Materials
Agendas, Agenda Packets, Minutes
Use our Notify Me feature to receive automatic email announcements related to Climate Action Plan Committee Agendas.
Contact the Committee: climate@needhamma.gov
Members
The Climate Action Plan Committee consists of nine appointed members for 2-year terms.
Members | Year Appointed | Term Expiration |
Marianne Cooley | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Kevin Keane | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Artie Crocker | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Natasha Espada | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Rachel Bright | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Paul Dellaripa | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Stephen Frail | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Joe Higgins | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Nick Hill | 2022 | 6/30/2024 |
Community Electricity Aggregation
The Climate Action Plan Committee has identified Community Electricity Aggregation (CEA) as the single most impactful step that Needham can take in the immediate term to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Needham can enter into an aggregation with no cash expenditure by the Town, and residents and businesses may opt out of the aggregation program at any time, without restriction or penalties. The Committee asked Town Meeting at the October 2022 Special Town Meeting to authorize the Select Board to start the process, which will take several months to complete. This ask was approved. Specific details about the structure of the plan will be developed and communicated, and public input will be sought by the Select Board. The Town may also choose not to finalize a contract for a CEA if the bids received from competitive electricity suppliers are unfavorable. Learn more about CEA in this Frequently Asked Questions document.
Working Groups
The Climate Action Plan Committee (CAPC) held a community wide Kick Off Meeting on October 17, 2022. The presentation from the Kick Off Meeting can be found here. That meeting included the initiation of six working groups who were tasked with evaluating potential items for the Climate Action Plan, compare anticipated impacts on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reductions to level of effort to implement, and make recommendations to the CAPC. The six working groups and their members are listed below:
Clean Energy Supply | Climate Smart Zoning & Planning | Governance | Natural Resources/Zero Waste | Net Zero Buildings | Zero Emissions Transportation |
Liz Gregg | Natasha Espada* | Peter Atallah | Deb Anderson | Lynn Deninger | Carol Brown |
Nick Hill* | Oscar Mertz | Rachel Bright* | Maureen Commane | Barry Dulong | Paul Dellaripa* |
George Kent | Lee Newman | Cyndi Gonzalez | Artie Crocker* | Reg Foster | Jackie DeWolfe |
Carys Lustig | David Roche | Amy Haelsen | Clayton Hutchinsen | Tali Golan | Michael Greis |
Eileen Mullen | Justin Savignano | Moe Handel | Joe Leghorn | Hank Haff | Robbie Havdala |
Mat Tuttleman | Karen Price | Ally Littlefield | Joe Higgins* | JP Mittaz | |
Donna Vello | Cecilia Simchak | Christine Mittaz | Matthew Mayerhofer | Nick Morris-Kliment | |
Ed Olsen | Shannon Nelligan | John Regan | |||
Mike Retzky | Bill Paulsen | ||||
Eleanor Rosselini | Ed Quinlan | ||||
Isabell Wells | David Roche |
*indicates Chair of Working Group