September 2024
The Summer Scoop
New Work, New Services, New Learning
LOTUS NEWS
EXPANDING WORK IN THE SOUTHEAST
In July, the City of Birmingham, Alabama selected Lotus with partner, Hummingbird Firm, as the vendor for the development of the City’s first Sustainability Plan. The project will complement the work that has already taken place for the federal Climate Pollution Reduction Grant for the Birmingham-Hoover Metro Area.
Lotus is also performing ongoing work for Georgia Tech including projects related to GHG inventories, Climate Action and Sustainability planning, and GHG modeling and visualization. We are excited to begin our work with Birmingham and extend our services to communities in the Southeast.
Services We Offer
LOTUS OFFERS GRANT WRITING SERVICES
Lotus offers grant writing services to help our partner communities implement their climate action strategies. This includes research, grant writing, grant management, and grant evaluation. Our client, DRCOG (Denver Regional Council of Governments), shared the following exciting grant opportunities:
Federal Highway Administration: Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grant
Colorado Energy Office: Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant
Please reach out if you need grant research and writing support!
Streamlined Program Impact Reporting and Evaluation Tools
Lotus offers program impact evaluation tools as part of our suite of data visualization services. Program impact dashboards make it simple and efficient to comply with State and Federal reporting requirements, especially when new funding becomes available. These tools can also be used internally to measure program effectiveness.
Lotus breaks program impact evaluations into four steps.
1. Background research and metric identification. Metrics can include GHG emissions reductions, energy use and cost reductions, jobs created, impacts in disproportionately impacted communities, etc.
2. Data collection.
3. Calculation and development of summary dashboard.
4. Reporting and sharing results with stakeholders.
If you are interested in implementing a tool to track your impact, please reach out!
Image: Sample program impact dashboard summarizing impacts of program implementation on energy use, emissions, air pollution, and jobs.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
Mission, Kansas: Climate Action Task Force
As a continuation of the greenhouse gas emissions inventory work we completed in 2023, the City of Mission, Kansas was ready to prioritize its list of recommendations for climate action. Mission reassembled its Climate Action Task Force and Lotus facilitated the Task Force meetings.
Together, the City, Lotus, and the Task Force developed a prioritization matrix to help think through the implementation of the strategies initially developed in 2022. Using metrics such as greenhouse gas emissions reduction, equity, and feasibility, we created a scoring rubric and scored the strategies based on that rubric. Watch out for some amazing work to come from the City of Mission!
Colorado energy office: energy code board
The State’s Energy Code Board reconvened in 2024 to create a Low Energy and Carbon Code for Colorado. This code, based on the recently released 2024 IECC, will be the new State minimum energy code, starting July 1, 2026.
Lotus is facilitating the Board’s process and providing technical support, code drafting, and review with support from Group14 and Shums Coda. Lotus is also convening an equity committee for the Board to ensure the final code advances equity and minimizes unintended consequences.
The Low Energy and Carbon Code will be published in September of 2025. Communities, organizations, and companies across Colorado have the opportunity to weigh in on the Board’s process. Colorado professionals and community members can submit comments at any time using the online comment form. In addition, the public will have two opportunities in 2025 to review and provide input on the draft code language. The first public comment period and draft code will be available in early January 2025, and the second in early April 2025.
Those interested in learning more about the Energy Code Board’s work or discussions can find more information on the Colorado Energy Office's website. Meeting notes and recordings are publicly available for review on the site along with comments and code proposals from the general public submitted to date.
Aspen, Colorado: Construction & Demolition Waste Audit
Construction and Demolition (C&D) debris management can be a considerable challenge for communities with limited landfill space and/or concerns about methane production in their landfill. While most C&D debris is bulky and heavy, it can still be diverted from the landfill to be recycled or repurposed. The City of Aspen has taken this challenge head-on.
In January 2022, the Aspen City Council set a Science Based Target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 63% by 2030 and net zero by 2050. They also set waste reduction targets to reduce organic material going to landfill by 25% by 2025 and 100% by 2050, with a reduction of all waste going to the landfill by 70% by 2050. To continue to work toward these targets, Aspen wanted to better calculate fees based on the environmental impact of C&D materials that should be diverted, but arrive at the landfill instead.
Using an Embodied Carbon dataset for materials and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Social Cost of Carbon, Lotus quantified the present cost of future environmental damage from the material’s life cycle including extraction, production, transportation, and ultimately disposal. Aspen is currently in the process of applying this metric to C&D debris that originates within the City of Aspen.
If you would like to utilize an embodied carbon or Life-Cycle Analysis for your community or company, reach out to the Lotus team!
Learn with Us!
LOTUS EQUITY PRESENTATIONS OCCUR MONTHLY TO EXPAND OUR LEARNING AND GROWTH. BELOW ARE RESOURCES WE ARE EXCITED TO SHARE.
THE DUST BOWL, CAPITALISM, AND INJUSTICE
This equity presentation covered the origins and history of the Dust Bowl, particularly highlighting injustices to indigenous peoples, and the legacy of environmental destruction that still abounds in the area today.
SPIRIT OF THE SUN
This presentation introduced the Lotus team to some of the work Spirit of the Sun is doing around permaculture and mycelium. The content explored not only the benefits of permaculture and mycelium, but their roots in indigenous culture and their role in providing resiliency for BIPOC communities here in Colorado.
U.S. Permaculture and the Legacy of Colonizing Ideologies Reading