The following is a press release written by Justin Crossley for the City Of Bloomington
BLOOMINGTON, IN – The City of Bloomington is excited to unveil its Climate Action Dashboard, an innovative digital platform to learn more about the City’s efforts around local climate action and sustainability. The dashboard is part of the City’s commitment toward making progress on local climate action more transparent and accessible to residents. To view and interact with the dashboard, residents can visit bloomington.climatenavhub.com.
The dashboard was developed in partnership between the City’s Economic and Sustainable Development Department and ClimateNav, a public-benefit startup that builds tools and resources to help local governments fight climate change. The dashboard breaks down the City’s sustainability goals into the different sectors they address and includes information about City initiatives and opportunities within each sector. As an added benefit, the dashboard includes useful information and resources about actions that Bloomington residents and businesses can take to reduce their own personal carbon footprint within each of the sectors.
"Bloomington continues to lead the charge on climate action,” says Mayor Thomson. “In addition to implementing the City’s ambitious Climate Action Plan, we are investing in solar installations, energy-efficient buildings, and dedicating more than $1.6 million each year toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout the community. Bloomington is also developing a Climate Resilience Plan, and a Beat the Heat program, and is making substantial improvements to our stormwater management system. We understand the impacts of climate change and are doing all we can to protect our community and the vulnerable populations who live here."
In 2021, the Bloomington City Council unanimously adopted the Climate Action Plan, setting an ambitious goal for achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 and defining several milestone goals along the way. The dashboard is designed to serve as a central tool in promoting greater transparency and data-driven leadership in implementing this plan. For each of the City’s major initiatives, the dashboard will track key metrics such as the amount of energy generated by municipally-owned solar installations or the total number of climate-related grant dollars City staff have applied for. In this way, the dashboard provides a data-driven and hands-on way for residents to interact with the City's Climate Action Plan, while also serving as an accountability tool for monitoring the City’s advancement toward its climate goals.
The dashboard will be updated on a consistent basis in order to promote new programs, announce important sustainability-related events, and maintain up-to-date metrics to share with the public. The ClimateNav Hub platform that powers the dashboard also provides City staff with powerful tools that can estimate the mitigated greenhouse gas emissions from City-run programs, calculate up-to-date greenhouse gas inventories each year, and manage important annual climate reporting. Collectively, these tools will help City staff to identify and fund the most cost-effective programs in terms of climate impact, ensuring that Bloomington’s sustainability work is both data-driven and maximally impactful.
Please visit bloomington.climatenavhub.com to view the Climate Action Dashboard directly. If you have any questions regarding the dashboard or issues accessing it, please contact sustain@bloomington.in.gov.
