The Community Resiliency Working Group is emerging as Harvard’s lead organizer in the development of a townwide climate action and resilience plan. Established in late 2019 as a subcommittee of the Planning Board, the group has the twin goals of reducing the town’s carbon footprint and developing ways to adapt to climate change.
Harvard’s climate initiative will address six areas—built environment, transportation, waste, natural resources, economic development and land use, and social resilience, said Chris Ryan, the director of community and economic development. In addition to the creation of this plan, the committee is working on other projects that promote sustainability and engage the community.
Climate action and resilience plan
Because of climate change, Harvard is facing four environmental hazards in particular—pests and invasive species, extreme precipitation, extreme temperatures and temperature swings, and ice storms, said Ryan, referencing an earlier subcommittee report. Through guidelines to be established in the climate action plan, the resiliency group will be prioritizing ways to adapt to these environmental impacts.
Although the climate action plan is a work in progress, at its March 27 meeting the group discussed a few examples of how these issues could be addressed. For instance, to best prepare for weather-related emergencies, the town can install solar power and battery-powered generators in buildings to avoid power outages. The group also plans to develop an emergency management system with safety protocols and ways that residents can learn and help one another, like workshops and volunteer opportunities. Ryan said these proposed actions were developed last year with the help of a consulting group, Kim Lundgren and Associates. KLA recommended the use of solar power, electric heating, public transportation, and composting, and advocates “environmentally conscious” land development.
Ryan told the Press that the resiliency group is working to adapt the KLA model to meet Harvard’s needs and that the committee has also looked at what other towns have done. Concord, Northampton, and Natick have all developed climate action plans similar to the one the group hopes to produce, he said. Because of the ambitious scope of the climate initiative, Ryan said the town must decide what can feasibly be accomplished, particularly as Harvard may not have the same resources as some of the larger towns in the area.
Despite this question of feasibility, resiliency group members are ready to dive into action. “We got the conversation going in town, but now we need a plan with short- and long-term goals. We need to get people involved and start doing things,” said resiliency group member Ellen Sachs Leicher.
Future initiatives
The resiliency group has a few initiatives in the works for the coming weeks. Sachs Leicher told the Press the group plans to engage the community in sustainability projects at home. For instance, she explained, members will create a series of short, five-minute videos about subjects like the seed library and beekeeping so residents can learn more about easy ways to take climate action on their own. The committee will also host talks on sustainability. The first of these discussions is about waste and is currently scheduled for May 13.
Sachs Leicher said the group is also working to set up a MassEnergize webpage for Harvard. Through this site, residents can commit to certain sustainability tasks, which can be anything from using less electricity to switching to solar power or buying an electric vehicle. MassEnergize tracks commitments and tells residents the expenses of each project and how much energy it will save. “I hope that everyone tries to do something, even if it’s little,” Sachs Leicher said.
The Community Resilience Working Group is hoping to engage Bromfield’s Green Team in community sustainability engagement as well. The students, who attended the committee’s March 27 meeting, plan to install “no idling” signs at the school so parents don’t waste energy idling their cars while waiting to pick up their children. Sachs Leicher said she hopes the Green Team will also participate in the MassEnergize initiative because doing so will help get families involved.
Ultimately, Harvard’s climate initiative will be a comprehensive plan, addressing several key issues and involving input from other town committees. “We’re not in a vacuum,” Sachs Leicher said. “We need to work with the other organizations in town. … We need to know how to work together and communicate.” Particularly when it comes to projects that could negatively impact the environment, many town committees end up overlapping and/or conflicting with each other, she said. Therefore, a climate action plan will provide useful guidelines for approving projects based on a “sustainability matrix,” Ryan added. He said he also plans to conduct a townwide survey to “see what people would be willing to commit to.”
Apple Country Project
In addition to developing a climate action plan, the group is working with Bolton and Devens on an initiative called the Apple Country Natural Climate Solutions Project. This project, funded by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, is aimed at researching “nature-based solutions” to improve towns’ resilience to climate change, with a focus on agriculture. According to the resiliency group’s webpage, nature-based solutions “increase the resilience and adaptive capacity of the region’s ecological, economic, and physical infrastructure utilizing natural resource assets, including soils, farmland, forests, wetlands and other ecosystems.”
Ryan said learning how to best enhance soil will be useful to farmers, and that learning how to best manage land will be useful in increasing the town’s sustainability efforts. “There is greater push from the whole town on which lands to protect,” Sachs Leicher added, noting that the project’s data will help committees decide which land parcels should be preserved and which can be developed without a significant environmental impact. Reports and recommendations from this project are likely to be shared soon, Ryan told the Press.
Outreach
One of the group’s top priorities is community outreach, Sachs Leicher wrote to the Press. She said the Community Resiliency Working Group is looking for more members—adults and students alike—who are willing to commit to helping develop Harvard’s climate initiative.
The group launched its website (harvardsclimateinitiative.org) and Facebook and Instagram pages last week. Information and updates about the climate action plan, sustainability initiatives, and environment-related events will be shared online.
