Sustainability and Climate Action Plan for Lake Oswego City of Lake Oswego May 2020 TO: Mayor Kent Studebaker Members of the City Council FROM: Members of the Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) SUBJECT: Support for the adoption of Lake Oswego’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan DATE: April 23, 2020 We, the members of the Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB), unanimously support Council’s adoption of the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (SCAP). The SCAP represents achievable actions and goals that will have community-wide benefits both in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation. The SCAP is not a stand-alone document. Instead, the SCAP is intended to work alongside existing plans in order to guide civic and community actions towards more sustainable outcomes. Over the past three years, the SAB has championed the development of the SCAP by providing research and guidance. Its development has been a key manifestation of our mandate to work towards the following goals: advise and assist the City Council in efforts to make City operations more sustainable, promote plans and policies that enhance the sustainability of the City as a whole, and educate and engage the public in efforts to make the community of Lake Oswego more sustainable. A brief summary of SAB’s actions in support of the Climate Action Plan as follows: • December 2016 – The SAB makes the recommendation to City Council that it supports the creation of a Climate Action Plan. In the subsequent January 2017 goal-setting session, City Council votes 4-3 to support the creation of a Climate Action Plan. • February 2017 - The SAB, along with key City staff and the Lake Oswego Sustainability Network (LOSN), form a Climate Action Plan Working Group in order to research and prioritize climate action recommendations. • March of 2018 – The CAP Working Group submits Practical Climate Actions for Lake Oswego, a document outlining steps to provide “near term inspiration and long-term direction” for the Lake Oswego City, School District, and community at large. • 2019 – The SAB continues to guide the development of the recommended actions, culminating in the SCAP Study Session document, submitted to council in February 2020. In November of last year, the SAB submitted to Council our stated goals for 2020. First on our list was the following: “Advance our climate actions by supporting Council and Staff as the City moves towards the adoption of Lake Oswego’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan.” While many actions contained within the SCAP have longer horizons, the implementation of others can begin right away. Two areas of action that can be addressed immediately are electric vehicle charging and emissions from gas powered landscaping equipment. • Action EV3: Work with developers to educate them on the benefits of providing EV charging stations at multifamily housing developments and new parking garages. • Action TO3: Investigate strategies to reduce exposure to emissions from gas powered landscaping equipment and diesel construction equipment. These two actions represent some of the areas that that can help catalyze the process of climate action implementation. The SAB has and will continue to gather information that aims to inform stakeholders on possible paths forward. We are pleased that our many hours of deliberation and collaboration with City staff and community groups have finally brought the SCAP to City Council for adoption. Addressing climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and the adoption of Lake Oswego’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan is a prime opportunity for City Council to demonstrate clear and commendable leadership in the face of this complex yet critical issue. Respectfully, Paul Soper, Chair Richard Canaday Stephanie Glazer Sarah Hussion Allison Kim Bob Sack Kathleen Wiens Jessica Green, Alternate Ella Feathers, Youth Anna-Marie Guenther, Youth CONTENTS Background and Introduction ___________________________________________________ 1 Reduce Transportation Emissions _______________________________________________ 11 Electric Vehicles __________________________________________________________________ 11 Transit and Carpooling/car sharing Options ____________________________________________ 14 Bicycle Options ___________________________________________________________________ 15 Promote Energy Efficiency _____________________________________________________ 17 Solar Installations _________________________________________________________________ 17 Energy Efficiency for New Construction________________________________________________ 18 Energy efficiency for existing construction _____________________________________________ 20 Promote Water Conservation __________________________________________________ 23 Protect Natural Resources _____________________________________________________ 27 Reduce Exposure to Toxins _____________________________________________________ 30 Reduce Waste _______________________________________________________________ 32 Enhance Public Education _____________________________________________________ 35 CIty Employee Health and engagement __________________________________________ 37 Adapt to climate change ______________________________________________________ 39 Wildfire Smoke ___________________________________________________________________ 42 Moving Forward _____________________________________________________________ 46 Acknowledgements __________________________________________________________ 46 Appendix 1: Draft climate Action Plan _____________________________________________ i Appendix 2: ICLEI revised Climate Action plan and report _____________________________ ii Appendix 3: ICLEI temperate adaptation recommendations ___________________________ iii Appendix 4: 2012 Community Greenhouse Gas Inventory _____________________________ iv Appendix 5: City Staff Sustainability Survey ________________________________________ v Appendix 6: Letter from the Youth of Lake Oswego __________________________________ vi BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION What will Lake Oswego’s climate look like 60 years from now? 80 years from now? Over the past few years, we have already experienced hot, drier, and smokier summers, increased flooding risk, a decreased mountain snowpack, and more air and water quality issues. Climate projections indicate that Lake Oswego’s climate in 60 years will be similar to that of Sacramento, California. What does that mean for our native species, outdoor recreation, and quality of life? Preparing for climate change brings with it many opportunities for the wider community. Expanding transportation options and building more resilient and energy efficient housing helps to address equity issues in the community, along with improving air quality. Preserving tree cover helps keep our neighborhoods cooler and our watersheds cleaner. Using renewable energy helps build a regional sustainable energy economy, while reducing our waste helps keep Oregon communities cleaner by not trucking as much to landfill, compost facilities, or overseas for recycling. The Sustainability Action Plan for City Operations 2014 has provided the framework for the Sustainability program at the City since its adoption. Many of the actions included in the plan have been completed, some remain in progress such as installation of Automatic Meter Reading and transition to a hybrid or electric fleet, and other actions were tried and found to not be workable. In 2017, the City Council passed a goal instructing to staff to begin work on a Climate Action Plan. The first stage of that work was to analyze progress on the existing sustainability plan. In 2018, a staff sustainability committee worked through the existing document, providing feedback on every action in the plan. It became apparent that the plan is essentially obsolete and needed to be updated with new actions in a new framework that can incorporate the climate Figure 1: University of Maryland Center for action recommendations contained with the Draft Climate Action Environmental Science https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/ Plan (Appendix 1). Staff also recognized that there were some sustainability goals missing from the existing document and made recommendations that we include these in the revisions. Many goals around building efficiency are covered in the High Performance Buildings Guidelines 2015, but this document is mostly used in RFPs for new municipal construction or significant remodels. Both the Sustainability Action Plan for City Operations and the High Performance Buildings Guidelines applied only to City operations. The Draft Climate Action Plan includes recommendations for the City and wider community, and the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan contains actions that apply to both the City, and community groups interested in working on climate change issues. The new format is for the Sustainability and Climate Action Plan includes the following Goals: • Reduce Transportation Emissions • Promote Energy Efficiency 1 • Promote Water Conservation • Protect Natural Resources • Reduce Exposure to Toxins • Reduce Waste • Enhance Public Education • Improve Employee Health and Engagement • Adapt to Climate Change Each of the 10 draft climate action plan recommendations fit into these categories and sit alongside wider sustainability goals for the City. It is important to understand that goals and actions that result in greenhouse gas emission reductions are only one part of sustainability. The Sustainability and Climate Action Plan will take the standard