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Action

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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Initiatives

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. See links below to enroll today, learn more, and to watch an informational webinar.

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

The second Boston Climate Report by the Boston Foundation outlines the challenges, opportunities, and progress made around pledges by the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It calls on systems-focused philanthropists seeking long-term climate and equity impact in Boston to help develop a new effort to transform the way Boston pursues its small building retrofit goals.

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: