Environment
About
The primary goal of our Environment Program is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help communities respond to climate change, especially in jurisdictions where decision-makers want to act but lack the expertise or resources to achieve meaningful outcomes for both the environment and their communities.
Our program focuses on helping municipal leaders and staff understand, develop, adopt, and enforce policies that will enable far-reaching and enduring climate action through local decarbonization programs and other environmental protections.
To help communities reduce their carbon emissions, we use three levers of change:
- Research – We support organizations that conduct preliminary non-partisan research and analysis to determine whether local jurisdictions might benefit from new or amended climate change ordinances.
- Technical Advice – We support organizations that serve as a resource for local government leaders and staff as well as other policy specialists, decision-makers, and practitioners who seek technical or legal advice or assistance as they customize decarbonization policies for their unique jurisdictional circumstances.
- Policy Implementation – We support organizations that help elected municipal and other local leaders and staff as well as other specialists, decision-makers, and practitioners effectively implement and enforce decarbonization programs.
When investing in climate change work, our strategy is to foster scalable models for national change that also address potential legal challenges, thereby providing small and medium size jurisdictions not just with the tools and templates they will need to adopt new or enhanced greenhouse gas reduction policies but with the confidence to implement and enforce them as well.
Our program also includes a smaller, separate initiative focused on nature-based climate change solutions in Prince George’s County, MD. The goals, here, are to enhance Prince George’s County’s ability to mitigate and adapt to climate change and improve local ecosystems by reducing downstream pollution, sequestering carbon, and engaging community members, especially in historically disadvantaged communities, around climate change mitigation and resilience.