The Climate Investment Plan has been adopted by City Council!
City Council adopted the CIP on Sept. 27, 2023. We will be implementing the CIP by issuing a request for proposals for Community Responsive Grants (RFP 3) winter 2023. Want updates? Sign up for our newsletter!
Read about Council's decision on our news page.
Read the Climate Investment Plan
Background
At the direction of Portland City Council, PCEF developed the 5-year CIP to guide PCEF investments.
PCEF is funded through a 1% surcharge on the Portland sales of large retailers with $1 billion in national revenue and $500,000 in local revenue. Through the CIP, PCEF will invest $750 million over five years, roughly $150 million annually. These investments help ensure our most impacted residents are prepared for a changing climate as we support the City’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The CIP is grounded in climate research, deep community engagement, and multiple rounds of input from residents, businesses, subject matter experts, government partners, and community organizations to ensure the proposed solutions address the needs of Portland residents hit first and hardest by climate change. All programs are evaluated within PCEF’s equity and climate framework, which considers benefits to frontline communities, community leadership, implementation feasibility, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, and accountability.
Funding priorities
Funds will be spent on the 10 priority areas below, which are based on the original funding categories in the ballot initiative and allocations set by City Council in October 2022:
- Energy efficiency, renewable energy, and embodied carbon in housing and small commercial buildings ($300 million over five years)
- Building upgrades for government and nonprofit owned buildings that provide services in climate emergencies (also referred to as “community resilience hubs”) ($30 million over five years)
- Transportation decarbonization or efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in transportation ($100 million over five years)
- Low-cost access to capital for carbon-reducing projects ($100 million over five years)
- Building community-based organization operational capacity for organizations that have a meaningful connection to advancing climate justice ($8 million over five years)
- 82nd Ave planning and early investment for low carbon equitable communities ($10 million over five years)
- Growing a diverse and well-trained workforce and contractor pool to perform work that reduces or sequesters greenhouse gases
- Regenerative agriculture and green infrastructure projects that reduce or sequester greenhouse gases within the City and focus on priority populations
While the CIP is in development, City Council directed that PCEF launch two strategic programs based on timeliness, need, community impact, and greenhouse gas savings opportunity:
- Growing an equitable tree canopy to support the City’s 2035 goals - $40 million allocated over five years.
- Developed in collaboration with Portland Parks and Recreation's Urban Forestry Division and through community input.
- Next step: creating the Equitable Tree Canopy workgroup to advise on program design. Recruitment for the workgroup starts in late summer 2023, and Urban Forestry will begin staffing up for implementation.
- Raising the bar on efficiency and renewable energy upgrades in new and redeveloped regulated affordable multifamily housing - $60 million over five years.
- This program has two phases.
- Phase 1 has been launched. These affordable housing projects are well into design and development.
- Phase 2 guidelines should be complete by early 2024.
- This program has two phases.
What is included in the CIP?
- Outcomes and goals for each funding priority
- Allocation and priorities for community responsive grants
- Allocation, program elements, and eligibility information for strategic programs
Learn the difference between community responsive grants and strategic programs
Project steps and timeline
Step 1: Project overview and accessibility survey (completed January 2023). Before launching efforts to write a plan, we listened to what you needed to participate in the Climate Investment Plan process. Read the recap of what you told us and how we’ve responded.
Step 2: Community visioning and priorities (January to February 2023). At this stage, we wanted to hear a diverse range of ideas from all stakeholders and develop a vision of what’s possible when we invest in community-grounded solutions to address the climate crisis. To get input, we invited residents, nonprofits, and subject matter experts to share what solutions would achieve major greenhouse gas reductions that advance racial, social, and climate justice.
Step 3. Preliminary draft (March to April 2023). Using information collected from workshops, surveys, subject-matter roundtable discussions, community studies, research, and best practices, we developed a preliminary draft of the Climate Investment Plan for public review and comment. The preliminary draft contained proposed funding allocations, strategies, and goals.
Step 4. Full Climate Investment Plan draft (May 2023). After considering comments from the preliminary draft, we refined a full draft of the Climate Investment Plan and circulated it for public review and comment. The full draft contained more detail on program elements.
Step 5. Committee deliberation (June and July 2023). After considering comments from the full draft, proposed changes to the CIP were presented to the PCEF Committee for review and deliberation. The PCEF Committee agreed to incorporate the proposed changes and recommended a final Climate Investment Plan to City Council on July 20, 2023.
Step 6. City Council approval (September 2023). City Council reviewed, discussed, and heard comments on the plan on September 20, 2023. The second reading was held on September 27, 2023 and the CIP unanimously approved.
Step 7. Implementation of the Climate Investment Plan and reflection and evaluation feedback (Fall 2023). Following City Council approval, a community-responsive grant solicitation is anticipated to be released and strategic programs may begin implementation. We will collect feedback on how decisions were made during the process and recommendations for the next update of the plan.