Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program Support

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) received an EPA Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) to embark on regional climate action planning for 167 communities within Greater Boston and retained Weston & Sampson to serve as the technical lead for various project components.

Spanning both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Weston & Sampson worked to integrate activity data related to buildings, energy, transportation, waste, agriculture, and natural and working lands into one seamless regional greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Our team leveraged existing tools, including a community specific tool that MAPC had previously developed and EPA resources, to create a custom regional inventory tool, employing local, high-quality data that reflects the communities it represents. This unprecedented inventory scale enabled MAPC to focus greenhouse gas reduction measure development in the highest emitting sectors of buildings, energy, and transportation to create a plan with high-impact actions to achieve net-zero emissions reduction goals. We individually analyzed each measure to quantify emissions reductions, understand the benefits to low-income and disadvantaged communities, identify funding sources, and review the authority to implement. This was a critical component to creating a Priority Climate Action Plan that is both realistic and aggressive enough to make considerable progress in reducing emissions across the metropolitan statistical area.

Weston & Sampson continues to support MAPC in the Comprehensive Climate Action Plan development with an expanded scope of work, including emissions reduction projections and targets, full geographic area benefits analysis, and continued stakeholder engagement support.