Town of Erie | Sustainability Master Plan and community-wide GHG Inventory
Lotus worked with the Town of Erie to create the Town’s first Sustainability Master Plan. The process included in-depth research; informational interviews with staff, community members, and partner agencies; a series of advisory board meetings; stakeholder workshops; and community outreach at community events and a project open house. The result was an actionable plan for strategies that the Town and its partners can implement over the coming five years to enhance sustainability as the community grows. This Plan will serve as a decision-making tool and includes information on potential funding sources, partners, and actions that the Town can pursue in the areas of energy, recycling, transportation, and education and outreach.
Since completing the Town’s Sustainability Master Plan Lotus has also supported work on behalf of the Town to obtain grant funds for charging stations, support community engagement efforts related to waste diversion policy, and is embarking on completing the Town’s first GHG emissions inventory.
In 2022, Lotus developed the Town of Erie’s first-ever 2020 community GHG inventory and 2020 municipal GHG inventory. Lotus synthesized the results of the community and municipal inventories into a report as well as a dashboard to visually communicate the results of the inventories. Lotus also created inventory management plans for the two inventories, trained the Erie team on how to update the inventories in future years, and presented the results in person to the Town’s Sustainability Board.
“Julia Newman, Senior Associate at Lotus Engineering and Sustainability has led the Town of Erie Colorado’s effort to develop a community-focused Master Sustainability Plan. Community input along with the Town Administration and the Sustainability Advisory Board was critical in this process. Julia was masterful in her ability to facilitate a diverse group of people and opinions in public forums along with small teams sessions. Our success was due to Julia’s attention to detail and ability to help all contributors feel heard and understood.”
Town of Mountain Village | GHG Emissions Inventory and Climate Action Plan
Lotus worked with the Town of Mountain Village to complete a 2019 greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the Town’s first-ever Climate Action Plan! This effort was necessary in order to understand the specific emissions sources and impacts that the Town could influence, as well as modeling the status-quo emission projections over the coming years. The resulting Climate Action Plan (CAP) for Mountain Village presents the framework for achieving significant emissions reductions in the community between 2020 and 2050. Lotus then developed Mountain Village’s 2020 community GHG inventory and 2020 municipal GHG inventory. Additionally, Lotus modeled the impact of various current and proposed incentive programs on GHG emissions through 2030.
2020 Community GHG inventory Results Summary, Community and Municipal GHG Emissions Inventory Results Memos.
Urban Land Conservancy | Implementation Plan
In early 2021, Lotus had the opportunity to work on a small project with the Urban Land Conservancy (ULC), a nonprofit development organization that focuses on projects that benefit the whole community, such as affordable housing and below-market commercial space for nonprofits. We met with a core team from ULC to help them to define their goals and next steps for embedding sustainability into their operation.
Building off of these new goals, Lotus is now helping ULC develop an implementation plan for the sustainability goals and strategies defined in January 2021. Lotus is developing green leasing language and policies, internal office sustainability practices, a sustainability scoring rubric for RFPs, tenant energy use education toolkit, and sustainability language and procedures for a material and vendor procurement policy. Lotus is excited to continue working with ULC to grow its sustainability policies and procedures.
Xero Shoes | GHG Inventory
Xero Shoes creates a variety of shoe styles that embody the natural feeling of running barefoot. As part of the Recreational Equipment, Inc (REI) Product Standards Climate and Environmental Stewardship Valuation, Xero Shoes has committed to measuring its carbon footprint and reducing its carbon emissions in alignment with the recommendations of the United Nations (UN) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To help Xero Shoes accomplish this, Lotus completed the company’s 2021 and 2022 operational greenhouse gas inventories, the results of which were shared with REI. Lotus identified all potential GHG emission sources from operations and supply chains and obtained the necessary data to develop the inventory. In completing both inventories, Lotus followed REI’s requirements using the GHG Protocol and including emissions from scopes 1, 2, and 3. For the 2022 inventory, Lotus helped Xero Shoes translate the energy-use data from their secondary office in Prague, Czech Republic, as well as evaluate the emissions from the addition of a new, larger warehouse in Denver. Lotus also created inventory management plans for both inventories.
“Hillary and her team at Lotus have been phenomenal to work with. They are always on or ahead of deadlines, professional, and do a great job of making GHG data easy to digest. As a brand that was measuring its footprint for the first time and is looking to measure it annually moving forward, we really appreciate Lotus’ open-door policy for any questions we had or will have in the future. We highly recommend Lotus to any company that is looking to measure its emissions and make a meaningful change.”
