Monitoring and Updating
The City of Burlington formed the Policy, Research, and Education Group to ensure the implementation of the Climate Action Plan (CAP) through constant coordination with stakeholders and regular annual assessment of the city’s progress. Their action items are outlined below.
City Government:
- Dedicate a city position responsible for the management of Burlington’s Climate Action Plan. This position will involve assessing progress as well as overseeing the involvement of partner agencies such as the Burlington Sustainability Action Team (BSAT) and the Energy and Environmental Coordinating Committee (E2C2).
- Identify progress assessment metrics for each Climate Action Plan item.
- Create an Implementation Matrix to clarify how action items will be accomplished and how assessment metrics will be used to track progress.
- Develop a progress assessment structure. We recommend:
- Doing an annual progress report using the Implementation Matrix
- Updating Burlington’s greenhouse gas inventory every three years using the ICLEI Clean Air and Climate Action tool to measure progress on reduction targets.
- Periodically revisit the action items identified for Burlington’s Climate Action Plan to assess relevance.
- Integrate climate protection into all department levels citywide.
Community Wide:
- Make the Climate Action Plan and all related documents easily accessible and widely publicized to familiarize the community with the work that is occurring and help make it visible.
- Provide a community forum that invites the participation of all stakeholders that will facilitate community engagement with and connection to the Climate Action Plan.
The City’s GHG inventory is being updated this year based on 2010 data.