Cedar Rapids Community Climate Action Plan

September 2021   Cedar Rapids, IA

Client

  • City of Cedar Rapids

Team

  • Great Plains Institute (Prime)
  • LHB, Inc

Category

Key Personnel

Key Points

The Cedar Rapids Community Climate Action Plan outlines concrete actions that the City, residents, and businesses of Cedar Rapids can take to implement a vision of a carbon-free, resilient and accessible City by 2050.

Equitable Engagement

The creation of the Community Climate Action Plan involved a multi-pronged, equity-focused public engagement process that prioritized input from populations classified as vulnerable by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Concrete, Implementable Actions

The Plan lays out 24 actions within two key goal areas: Carbon-Free and Resilient & Accessible. Each action includes clear steps towards implementation and metrics by which to measure impact.

The Cedar Rapids Community Climate Action Plan puts into action the City’s 2020 resolution declaring an urgency for the community to take climate action.

The Plan draws on extensive, multi-faceted community engagement as well as analysis of both greenhouse gas emissions data and a spatial analysis of community vulnerability to the effects of climate change.

Objectives of the plan target all sectors from heavy industry to individual residents, and include concrete, actionable metrics to reduce carbon emissions and increase renewable energy; build resilience to climate hazards; and ensure equitable access to healthy food, clean air and water, and high-wage green jobs. Each recommended action contains details regarding how the action will impact equity, the environment, and the economy, as well as details on the timeline, resources and funding, key stakeholders, and which City department will support the effort.

As a sub-consultant to the Great Plains Institute, Asakura Robinson led the vulnerability mapping component for the resilience assessment, assisted with public engagement, contributed to the development of the Plan’s strategies and actions, and contributed to the final layout of the plan.

View the final plan here

Southbridge Neighborhood Action Plan October 2021   Wilmington, DE