Kingston PCP Climate Action Plan: Corporate and Community plans

Building on previous sustainability and climate change initiatives, the City of Kingston will develop a comprehensive climate action plan to engage the community in a concerted effort to improve the performance of municipal facilities and services, generate energy and cost savings, and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A member of the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program since 2001, the city has completed the initial stages of the PCP milestone framework. This project will update milestones 1 and 2, and will meet milestone 3 requirements for both municipal operations and the community as a whole.The City of Kingston will start by bringing together a Kingston Climate Plan Management Team and developing a preliminary change management plan based on Kotter’s Change Management Model to help guide the development of the plan within the community. The city will update its existing GHG inventory (baseline year 2000) using the ICLEI and World Resources Institute protocols and the PCP Milestone tool. Kingston will then review progress toward current GHG reduction targets, established in 2003 as 10 per cent for the community and 25 per cent for the corporation by 2014. Based on this analysis, the city will recommend new targets for both corporate actions and community-wide measures. Kingston will then review proposed actions using a triple-bottom-line approach to determine the most promising and cost-effective options. Proposed actions will link to objectives of the Sustainable Kingston Plan, such as reducing energy consumption among residents and businesses; generating enough local renewable energy to supply demand; managing GHG emissions to a carbon-neutral level; promoting active living and public transportation; reducing water consumption; and diverting waste from landfill. Due to low community involvement in past initiatives, the city will place a significant emphasis on public outreach throughout the planning process. Consultations will feature open houses, roundtable events, a GHG speaker series, public event live feed, and activities tailored for youth participation, as well as leveraging the interactive website of Sustainable Kingston, a local not-for-profit. The city will solicit feedback from specific stakeholders, such as the Kingston Environmental Advisory Forum. Kingston will also develop an implementation and monitoring plan that will identify resources and indicators for each target and action leading to the reduction of GHG emission.The City of Kingston envisions a collaborative planning process to inspire change, and will share its experience and project resources with other municipalities that seek to improve the engagement of their community to achieve greater GHG emissions reductions.