Action
Action
GRC advances City climate action by advising on strategy, based on research and analysis; executing on ideas by designing, testing, and scaling actionable solutions; leading by example to support Members in developing organizational climate strategies that align with the City’s goals and targets; and advocating for the equitable implementation of resilience and mitigation policy changes.
Working Groups
The work of the Green Ribbon Commission is structured through sector working groups that tackle efforts outlined in the strategic plan with fellow participants – sharing best practices and findings as they go.
Commercial Real Estate
The Commercial Real Estate Working Group convenes leading Boston property owners and developers to accelerate leadership of Boston’s commercial real estate organizations to support the City in meeting the aggressive goals laid out in its Climate Action Plan.
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Cultural Institutions
The Cultural Institutions Working Group comprises a wide variety of arts, sports, nature-based, historic, and entertainment organizations in and near Boston, as they build awareness and drive action on climate issues on behalf of their own organizations, the cultural sector, the City, and audiences.
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Health Care
The Health Care Working group unites leading healthcare facilities in the Greater Boston to catalyze; a focus on energy efficiency, the transition to renewable energy, and advocate for the significant health benefits of carbon mitigation to patient and home communities.
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Higher Education
The Higher Education Working Group leverages the higher education sector’s capabilities for climate action by sharing knowledge and fostering collaboration within and across sectors to support the City of Boston in meeting its climate goals.
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Coastal Resilience
The Coastal Resilience Working Group convenes cross-sector representatives to support the City of Boston as it prepares for the impacts of climate change on Boston’s coastline. The group offers a forum for members to deliver input into Boston’s coastal resilience plans, governance issues, and financing strategies, among various topics.
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Boston Grid Modernization
The Boston Grid Modernization Working Group brings together the City of Boston, the region’s three major utility companies, and high-energy users whose electricity uses include a variety of building, transportation, and infrastructure needs. The group works together to identify opportunities for positive action to modernize Boston’s electricity grid to advance electrification, decarbonization, and resilience.
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Collaborative Climate Action Planning
Aligned business and civic leadership prepares the way for aggressive climate action. To help develop climate planning as a regular practice, the GRC offers an in-depth and comprehensive program on Collaborative Climate Action Planning (CCAP) to reduce barriers to taking organizational climate action and developing a strategy for compliance with the City of Boston’s Building Emissions Disclosure and Reporting Ordinance (BERDO). This program includes a peer learning community, trainings, and technical assistance to support companies and organizations in addressing mitigation, resiliency, and climate justice work. The fall’s cohort is open to organizations in any sector and provides a highly cost-effective way to begin organizational strategic climate planning.
Advancing Climate Justice Initiative
In support of the City’s strategy of promoting equity through climate action, the GRC incorporated climate justice into our strategic goals. First, in collaboration with Embrace Boston, we published the “Our Shared History” report to open a dialog among a wide variety of stakeholders in Boston’s future who hope to use the shift to a resilient post-carbon economy as an opportunity to eradicate the harms of racism embedded in our built environment. Second, we have convened member organizations to build a “Climate Justice Network.” This network is exploring opportunities for large Boston institutions (aka “anchor institutions”) to use their organizational climate strategies and assets to support broader community resilience. In this GRC-convened network, institutions are learning from each other’s work and collaborate on climate justice initiatives. If you are interested in learning more, or getting involved, please contact Azanta Thakur at azanta@greenribboncommission.org for additional details.
Boston Climate Progress Report
Released in November 2022, the inaugural Boston Climate Progress Report was prepared for The Boston Foundation – in partnership with the GRC – by researchers at Northeastern University’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. The first-of-its-kind report assesses Boston’s progress toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 while building durable resilience and climate justice. In addition, four supplemental reports highlight the following “big lifts” to explore broader systemic challenges with recommendations for how to address them: 1) Retrofitting the Small Building Stock; 2) Local Energy Planning for an Electrified City; 3) Building a Resilient Coastline through Improved Governance, and 4) Reparative Planning for Boston’s Frontline Neighborhoods.
Massachusetts Community Climate Bank
The Massachusetts Community Climate Bank is an innovative financing initiative that will support local efforts to drive the retrofitting and decarbonizing of Massachusetts buildings, with a focus on those in environmental justice communities. Over two years ago, with funding from the Bank of America Foundation, the City of Boston and the GRC began working to create a business plan for a specialty finance entity whose mission would be to stimulate investments in buildings that need energy efficiency retrofits and assistance transitioning to sources of clean energy. As the business plan progressed, the GRC and City were joined by MassCEC, which brought additional funding and a connection to the Commonwealth. The Climate Bank, which will be under the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities in collaboration with MassCEC and MassDevelopment, is designed to address multiple building segments, with an initial prioritization of multi-family affordable housing.
Carbon Mitigation Policy Advocacy
Creating a standard set of rules for reducing carbon over time creates a fair and predictable framework for managing large assets toward the net zero target. The GRC supports specific city and state policy initiatives that align with the recommendations and goals outlined in the Climate Ready Boston and Carbon Free Boston reports. Policies recently enacted and currently in progress include: