City Of Lancaster Adopts Municipal Climate Action Plan To Be Carbon Neutral By 2050

On September 24, Lancaster City Council unanimously adopted a Municipal Operations Climate Action Plan, which aims to make the City’s operations carbon neutral by the year 2050 in an effort to mitigate its greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate change. 

In the near term, the City aims to draw 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025. 

Lancaster is among the first third class cities in Pennsylvania to adopt such a plan, which advances Mayor Sorace’s previous commitment to the goals of the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement.

The plan identifies 30 strategies in the areas of Energy, Vehicle Fleet, Water and Wastewater, Stormwater, Waste, Culture of Sustainability, and Carbon Offsets. 

When implemented, these strategies will eliminate or offset all the greenhouse gases produced by the City’s various facilities and staff operations, which includes the water and wastewater systems that serve more than twice the City’s population. 

Click Here for a copy of the Plan.  Click Here for a fact sheet.

The plan builds on the City’s previous efforts to inventory greenhouse gas emissions from City operations and the city community as a whole. City operations are estimated to be less than 4 percent of city-wide emissions.

The project was funded through a competitive national grant called Partners for Places – a project of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities-- which was matched by local dollars from the Lancaster County Community Foundation, Lancaster County Solid Waste Management Authority (LCSWMA), and the Steinman Foundation. 

The City contracted with Elevate Energy and the Center for Neighborhood Technology; both are based in Chicago and specialize in urban sustainability and energy policy. 

The firms worked closely with Mayor Sorace’s Climate Action Committee to produce the plan, which included City staff and energy experts from Millersville University and the LCSWMA.

In recent years, the City of Lancaster has been recognized for numerous achievements in environmental and equity related work, including earning LEED for Cities Gold, becoming Certified a Welcoming City, and winning accolades for its green infrastructure program.

For more information, visit the City of Lancaster’s Climate Action Plan webpage.

Related Article:

Regional Transportation & Climate Initiative Makes Draft Policy Framework Available For Comment