The process for this Cli­mate Action Plan began in 2007. For his first exec­u­tive order of the year, County Exec­u­tive Ken Ulman signed the Mayor’s Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion Agree­ment. By sign­ing the agree­ment he was com­mit­ting Howard County to reduc­ing our green­house gas emis­sions oth­er­wise known as a car­bon foot print. As he said that day — that was the easy part.

Down­load the Cli­mate Action Plan (PDF)

This plan is a very cru­cial next step. As many of the juris­dic­tions in the region con­tinue along the sus­tain­abil­ity path we are proud to again be in a lead­er­ship role – espe­cially on an issue that clearly has regional impli­ca­tions since we get our energy from the same sources and we travel through­out the juris­dic­tions to live and work etc.

This Action Plan includes a com­plete green­house gas inven­tory for County oper­a­tions and affil­i­ated insti­tu­tions such as the school sys­tem and the com­mu­nity col­lege. This is what a “car­bon foot­print” is. It also includes a Howard County community-wide green­house gas inventory.

From that inven­tory we move into goal set­ting – where every sec­tor, sets forth there own goals in order to reach our over­all reduc­tion goals.

Finally, the plan lays out a series of activ­i­ties that we have accom­plished, are in the process of accom­plish­ing, or plan to accom­plish in the future that will allow us to attain our goal.

The strongest endorse­ment of this plan is that all of the rec­om­men­da­tions – the way in which we reach our goals – truly fol­low triple bot­tom line deci­sion mak­ing. They will pro­tect our envi­ron­ment, they will improve people’s qual­ity of life, and they will SAVE US MONEY.