The City of Raleigh won the prestigious Community-Wide Award for the implementation of our Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP). Raleigh won the award in the 2024 American Planning Association (APA) Sustainable Communities Division Awards for Excellence in Sustainability.
The award honors community plans that excel in:
- Addressing social equity and justice;
- Protecting the environment;
- Enhancing community health and quality of life; and,
- Building community resilience.
Raleigh's CCAP stood out for its comprehensive and innovative approach to tackling climate change. The CCAP was one of the first plans in the country to center climate action around three primary goals:
- Reducing community-wide greenhouse gas emissions;
- Addressing equity, environmental justice and community health; and,
- Building community resilience to the impacts of climate change.
“Raleigh is leading the way locally and nationally in climate action, and this is thanks to the amazing partnerships and community leaders who really show up and make change happen,” says Megan Anderson, Sustainability Director. “I am so proud of the work we’ve been able to achieve, along with Raleigh’s leadership in making sure that equity, environmental justice, health and community resilience are always prioritized in our work."
The APA award was given to Raleigh for our leadership in the design of CCAP and for our ongoing implementation of high-impact climate action strategies. A few highlights of CCAP actions include:
- Raleigh is the first municipality in the 18-year history of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Literacy Program to receive a grant. In partnerships with groups such as Partners for Environmental Justice and North Carolina’s State Climate Office, Raleigh was awarded over $440,000 in grant funds to build climate resilience in neighborhoods that experience disproportionate harm from our top climate impacts such as heat and flooding.
- The City has created an electric vehicle (EV) implementation rollout strategy and EV infrastructure mapping tool, which prioritizes community equity and was adopted state-wide. This work also includes a goal to convert Raleigh’s own fleet of more than 4,700 vehicles and equipment to electric and clean fuels over the next 10 years.
- The award-winning Solarize the Triangle program, where Raleigh partnered with 12 other local governments, broke national records for having the most community members sign up for solar. This program was also the first of its kind to pilot installing solar on low- to middle-income residents’ homes.
- Raleigh was named a Bloomberg American Sustainable City through which it receives an innovation team to work directly in the City. This partnership will turbocharge the City’s ability to focus on closing the racial wealth gap and climate change through the development and expansion of various projects and programs.
- The Sustainable Business Toolkit and Sustainable Neighborhood Toolkit provide free resources for businesses, organizations, neighborhoods, and individuals to become more sustainable, save money, be recognized for their sustainability work, and get involved in their community.
The CCAP was created with the help of hundreds of community stakeholders and close partnerships with all City departments that embed climate action and equity into their initiatives. Raleigh Planning and Development staff head up the City's participation in APA and accepted the award in-person during the 2024 Minneapolis conference on behalf of the City of Raleigh and Office of Sustainability. Planning and Development leads city planning efforts and continues to embed CCAP into short- and long-term projects to ensure we plan for a city where everyone has the opportunity to thrive into the future.
To learn more about what the City and community are doing to take climate action, check out the Raleigh Community Climate Action webpages and view the Climate Implementation Reports and data dashboards.
