Mayor Emily Styron’s administration has released Zionsville’s first Climate Action Plan, a plan that takes on ambitious community-wide efforts to start mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Our goal: to keep emissions stable while the population continues to grow.
The Town of Zionsville has passed resolutions formally adopting the plan: on Feb. 10, 2021, the Park Board unanimously passed a resolution and on Feb. 16, 2021, Zionsville Town Council unanimously passed a resolution.
Key components of the Climate Action Plan include an inventory of GHG emissions in Zionsville and their sources, GHG reduction goals and strategic measures to reduce community-wide GHG emissions. By implementing this plan, the Town hopes the community can greatly reduce its impact on the environment while working alongside other Midwestern communities.
“The Town is taking steps to do our part to reduce local GHG emissions and promote sustainability,” said Mayor Emily Styron. “We need every household and business to support these strategies and goals – opt into the curbside compost service, ride your bike to school and work, find out if solar energy can work for you, volunteer to serve on a Town committee, advocate for more green areas and pathways.”
Last spring, the Town of Zionsville conducted a GHG inventory. Once the Town established the quantity of emissions and where they were coming from, Zionsville’s projected population growth was used to estimate how the Town’s cumulative emissions will change without any intervention. The Town used this information to work with the public and other stakeholders to pinpoint what the community could do to strategically reduce GHG emissions in Zionsville. The results of these efforts produced the Climate Action Plan. Within the plan, the Town’s GHG reduction initiatives are organized into four categories: Energy, Transportation, Solid Waste and Sustainability & Resilience.
Every three years, the Town will provide updates on the plan’s progress, incorporate new sustainability and GHG reduction strategies and update older strategies as needed.
As part of the Climate Action Plan, the Town has partnered with Earth Mama Compost, a local woman-owned business providing fee-based curbside compost to residents. If 300 households participate and compost just 25% of their solid waste weekly, we will divert 86 tons of waste from landfills annually. Zionsville residents can sign up for this service for $10/month, a discount of 50%. Sign-up is available through the Earth Mama website.
The Town was also selected to join the Environmental Resilience Institute’s 2021 cohort and to host an Indiana Sustainability Development Program Climate Fellow, an undergraduate or graduate student who will intern with the Town of Zionsville in the summer of 2021.
Mayor Emily Styron and the Town of Zionsville thank the following Steering Committee members for their work on the Climate Action Plan: Eliana Armstrong, resident; Wayne DeLong, Department of Planning and Economic Development; Carol Johnson, Office of the Mayor; Lance Lantz, Department of Public Works; Terry McCain, resident; Madeline Miller, ISDP Intern; Mindy Murdock, Department of Parks and Recreation; and Jill Pack, Board of Park and Recreation.
To download and view the Climate Action Plan, click here. For more information, visit the Climate Action Plan webpage.
Source: Zionsville Town News