Organization: Equity must be a greater focus of climate programs

The High Country Conservation Center, a Summit County-based environmental nonprofit, is seeking to make equity a greater focus of the county’s climate goals after recent community outreach showed some residents face systemic barriers to accessing climate programs.

The newly released Climate Equity Plan is intended to serve as a companion document to the Summit County Climate Action Plan — a multi-jurisdictional plan which was adopted by local leaders in 2019 to bring a 50% reduction in the county’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

“We very much consider (the equity plan) a community plan,” said High Country Conservation Center Climate Action Director Jess Hoover during a Tuesday presentation to the Summit Board of County Commissioners.

Hoover said the plan was made possible through a $75,000 federal grant the conservation center received from the Environmental Protection Agency. This was used in part to form a steering committee of local residents who were paid stipends to meet and help develop the new plan’s framework.

The nonprofit also held focus groups and a community survey to better understand the pitfalls facing certain communities when it comes to participating in climate-friendly programs.

One major takeaway was that much of the conservation center’s efforts to reduce residential building emissions, which account for roughly one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the county, benefit single-family homeowners.

With funding from the county government and local towns, the conservation center provides rebates to homeowners for a slew of home energy upgrades including solar panels, heat pumps and electric appliances.

It can be difficult for renters to access this funding for properties they do not own.

For the county’s most vulnerable populations, including immigrants, asking for home upgrades can be seen as a risk.

“They are worried that they would get displaced,” Hoover said.

Even for some singlefamily homeowners, energy upgrades can be “costly and expensive,” said Hoover, even with the subsidy programs the conservation center currently offers.

While the nonprofit provides up to $2,000 in rebates for upgrades through its Energy Smart Colorado program and up to $1,950 for solar panels through its Solarize Summit initiative, for lower- and middleincome households those still aren’t enough to bridge the gap for high- cost appliances.

“Not everyone has a few thousand dollars lying around to just invest in energy efficiency in their home. At some point, it becomes a luxury,” Hoover said.

Other barriers include language differences. The county has a large community of Spanish speakers, with 2020 census data showing a 15% Hispanic population — though nonprofit leaders estimate that number is likely greater.

“If we’re not making people feel welcome in our programs and if we can’t communicate with them, they’re not going to participate or feel that they are welcome to participate,” Hoover said.

While more recycling centers have popped up in the county, some multifamily developments are still without their own waste diversion areas. And getting to centers around the county becomes more difficult for residents who don’t have access to a car, Hoover said.

Hoover said the conservation center is looking to increase funds to lowerand middle-income residents, especially for subsidies for heat pumps.

“We know from our work that electrification of space heating in particular is a key strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” she said. “So we’re trying to figure out how do we help folks increase this transition without increasing their energy burden.”

While the nonprofit has no oversight of transportation policy, Hoover said it would advocate more for multimodal transit options. One idea would be to increase access to electric car-sharing programs, such as the one that is being piloted by the town of Breckenridge.

And the county should continue to develop and ultimately pass its own payas-you-throw and universal recycling ordinances, which are already being implemented in Breckenridge and Frisco.

County leaders said they were supportive of the nonprofit’s recommendations, with Commissioner Nina Waters adding, “I think that equity is essential to all of these outcomes that we’re trying to implement in these plans.”

Being able to communicate with diverse demographics is the centerpiece of that effort, officials said.

When asked by Commissioner Elisabeth Lawerence what the first priority would be if the conservation center “had a magic wand,” Hoover replied, “To have someone on staff who speaks Spanish so we can start doing this outreach.”