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RVAgreen 2050 Plan
RVAgreen 2050: Climate Equity Action Plan 2030 is an equity-centered, community based, integrated climate action and climate resilience plan. It is a roadmap that lays out how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 45% by 2030, achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and help the community adapt to Richmond’s climate impacts of extreme heat, precipitation, and flooding.
The Plan’s Vision is that all Richmonders, regardless of their identity or neighborhood, thrive in a climate-resilient and climate-neutral community.
RVAgreen 2050 consists of five Pathways. Each Pathway provides detailed Strategies and Actions that help us reach the stated Goals of the Plan.
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Buildings & Energy - Accelerate the equitable transition to healthy, resilient, climate neutral buildings and energy sources.
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Community - Create an equitable and resilient Richmond while honoring and ensuring focus on community priorities.
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Environment: Invest in resilient, healthy, and equitably distributed natural resources throughout the community to support biodiversity and human well-being.
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Transportation & Mobility: Accelerate the transition for all to clean and equitable mobility.
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Waste Reduction & Recovery: Foster sustainable methods of waste reduction - wasting less, reusing more
Buildings and Energy
Accelerate the equitable transition to healthy, resilient, climate-neutral buildings and energy sources.
Greenhouse gas emissions generated from the energy used within Richmond’s building stock made up the largest percentage of Richmond’s 2018 carbon footprint at 66%. Looking at emissions by source, within Richmond’s geographical boundaries, emissions from electricity usage made up 47% of the 2018 carbon footprint due to the mix of fuel sources used to produce electricity. The use of natural gas made up 18% of Richmond’s 2018 carbon footprint.
Successful implementation of all the strategies and actions in the Buildings & Energy Pathway for both municipal and private sector buildings will move Richmond well on its way to achieving the 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals and is projected to reduce emissions from all buildings 36% by 2030 and 80% by 2050 towards RVAgreen 2050’s overall emissions reduction goals.
Implementation of strategies in this Pathway to lower emissions generated from building energy usage and improve building resilience to heat and flooding will also create many co-benefits including cost savings on utility bills, lower building maintenance costs, improved health from better indoor air quality, electric grid stability, energy independence, workforce development and economic development opportunities. The City is committed to improving neighborhoods and the lives of the people who live in them, which is why these efforts are aligned through Mayor Stoney’s Equity Agenda, Richmond 300, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and city department priorities.
Buildings and Energy Objectives and Strategies
BE-1: Achieve climate neutrality and increase resilience in government buildings, infrastructure, and operations.
BE-1.1: Municipal Energy Efficiency Program: Develop a program to achieve the energy efficiency goals of RVAgreen 2050 and Richmond 300.
BE-1.2: Municipal Clean Energy and Net Zero Construction: Incorporate measures toward the goal of converting all city buildings to clean energy by 2050.
BE-1.3: Municipal Climate Impact Mapping: Establish a protocol for tracking greenhouse gas emissions and planning for climate impacts.
BE-1.4: Municipal Resilient Infrastructure Assessment: Conduct a climate vulnerability and risk assessment of all city property (including buildings and parcels). Identify and prioritize properties for specific resilience projects.
BE-2: Maximize energy efficiency, performance, and resilience in all existing buildings.
BE-2.1: Residential Energy Burden: Implement measures to reduce the energy burden of Richmond’s most vulnerable communities and improve residential resilience to climate change.
BE-2.2: Commercial Energy Efficiency Programs: Develop policies, incentives, and financing mechanisms to improve commercial energy efficiency; offer assistance and technical expertise to those that are financially challenged and facilitate workforce development.
BE-3: Ensure all Richmonders have equitable access to affordable and renewable clean energy.
BE-3.1: Solar Energy Education & Outreach: Provide equitable education and outreach to make homes and small businesses healthy, safe, and affordable through solar installations, focusing on frontline communities reducing disproportionately high energy burden in these neighborhoods.
BE-3.2: Solar Installation Incentives and Access: Encourage solar installations through the removal of zoning restrictions, incentivizing opportunities, and increasing funding for microgrids.
BE-3.3: Clean Energy Workforce Development: Establish training programs, apprenticeships, and a conservation corps/job placement program in low-income and diverse neighborhoods to build capacity for jobs related to solar installation and maintenance, weatherization upgrades, and energy efficiency auditing (e.g., prison to solar training).
BE-4: Achieve climate neutrality and maximize resilience in all new buildings.
BE-4.1: Net-Zero Energy Design: Incentivize builders to incorporate measures to advance net-zero energy design and green building in all new buildings.
BE-4.2: Resilient Design Guidelines: Develop Resilient Design Guidelines and incentivize builders to incorporate design measures to reflect a changing climate, increased precipitation and flooding in concert with a public education campaign to convey the benefits of adaptive and resilient buildings.
BE-4.3: Construction & Energy Code Enforcement: Prioritize the most recent energy requirements in all new construction, site plan approvals, and retrofits to existing buildings.
Community
Community
Create an equitable and resilient Richmond while honoring and ensuring focus on community priorities.
As described in the Climate Equity section, climate change is impacting some members of our community more than others based on a number of factors, many of which stem from historical and persisting legacies of discriminatory policies and practices. Although the 2030 Action Plan will not resolve these complex and colossal issues; it is important to ensure that no additional harm is done and that the City and community work together to center equity and community priorities in the implementation of this Action Plan.
The RVAgreen 2050 planning process timeline overlapped with a critical period in Richmond’s history and reckoning for equity - particularly racial equity. The strategies and actions in this Pathway seek to continue that work along with reducing the community’s greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing resilience to climate impacts by ensuring that historically disinvested communities most affected by local climate impacts are centered and involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating solutions and that the Richmond community’s social resilience to climate change increases.
Accomplishing these strategies will create co-benefits including developing pathways to green jobs, enhancing the climate readiness of affordable housing, protecting human health, and enhancing community cohesiveness for a more resilient Richmond.
The Richmond Equity Agenda proposed by Mayor Stoney and adopted by City Council in the summer of 2021 provides a foundation for implementing the strategies and actions in this Pathway. It establishes the City’s definition of equity and underscores that racial equity in particular will improve the quality of life for all residents. It also specifically calls out implementation of the RVAgreen 2050 initiative as one of the priorities for achieving equity and justice in access to resources and opportunities.
Also launched in 2021, the Richmond Racial Equity Essays project, is a collection of essays, interviews, podcasts, and other media featuring voices of Richmonders from all backgrounds and walks of life exploring what an equitable Richmond looks like. Many participants in the project were also RVAgreen 2050 stakeholders, and several solutions for a more equitable Richmond are connected to RVAgreen 2050, the environment and climate change.
Community Objectives and Strategies
C-1: Ensure that historically disinvested communities that are most affected by local climate impacts are centered and involved in the processes of developing, implementing, and evaluating solutions as a result of equitable communication and engagement strategies.
C-1.1: Climate-Ready Affordable Housing: Climate-Ready Affordable Housing: Develop and implement climate mitigation and resilience requirements for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
C-1.2: Sustainable Employment Practices: Develop incentives for employers to facilitate greenhouse gas-reducing activities among employees.
C-1.3: Climate Action and Resilience Information Navigator: Help small businesses, homeowners, and renters navigate programs and incentives for reducing emissions and increasing climate resilience.
C-1.4: Community Benefits Scorecard and Agreements: Develop tools with frontline communities to evaluate City development projects and ensure they address community priorities for climate action and resilience, and encourage use by private developers as well.
C-1.5: Community Partnerships Program: Develop a climate action and resilience neighborhood partnerships program.
C-2: Increase the Richmond community’s social resilience to climate change.
C-2.1: Climate-Ready Community Fund: Establish a Climate-Ready Community grant program to provide funding to neighborhood-focused organizations to work with residents on climate action and resilience projects.
C-2.2: Community Compensation: Establish a policy and structure for paying community members for their time.
C-2.3: Organizational Collaboration: Partner with community leaders, organizations, and businesses to build community capacity for climate resilience.
C-2.4: Resilience Hubs: Create neighborhood resilience hubs in frontline communities.
Environment
Environment
Invest in resilient, healthy, and equitably distributed natural resources throughout the community to support biodiversity and human well-being.
The Richmond 300 Master Plan sets a vision for Richmond’s Thriving Environment:
Richmond is a sustainable and resilient city with healthy air, clean water, and a flourishing ecosystem. Carbon emissions are low, air and water quality are high, and city-wide solid waste production is minimal. The City is positively adapting to the effects of a changing climate, with a built environment that enhances and protects natural assets, including the James River. All residents have equitable access to nature and a healthy community.
The natural environment plays a critical role in achieving the goals of the Master Plan as well as this 2030 Action Plan, both in terms of equitably reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the community’s resilience to climate change, as well as protecting the natural environment itself from the impacts of climate change so that Richmond’s human, animal, and plant life are safe and healthy for years to come.
The strategies and actions in this Pathway aim to provide more equitable access to healthy natural spaces, protect the natural environment from the impacts of climate change, and engage the natural environment to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change.
Accomplishing these strategies will create co-benefits including more beautiful neighborhoods, protecting human health, and creating pathways to green jobs.
Impervious surfaces - those that are paved or hardened and do not allow water to infiltrate, such as roads, rooftops, and sidewalks - make up 36% of Richmond’s land. This means that a significant portion of Richmond’s 62.5 square miles is more prone to hotter temperatures during heat waves and increased stormwater runoff during extreme storms.
Slightly over 40% of the city is covered by tree canopy (compared to the national average of 27%), but it is not evenly distributed throughout Richmond. The same neighborhoods where there is less tree cover and more impervious surface are also often where there are more residents of color, lowerincome households, and more people with underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to harm from the local impacts of climate change.
Environment Objectives and Strategies
ENV-1.1: Green Space Management: Create a program and public-private partnerships to maintain and expand high-quality public green space.
ENV-1.1: Green Space Management: Create a program and public-private partnerships to maintain and expand high-quality public green space.
ENV-1.2: Parks Master Plan: Support the development, funding, and implementation of a Parks Master Plan.
ENV-1.3: Urban & Community Agriculture: Develop, fund, and implement an urban and community agriculture program.
ENV-2: Reduce risks and impacts to the community and natural environment from extreme heat and drought.
ENV-2.1: Urban Heat Island Reduction: Develop, fund, and implement an urban heat island reduction plan and program.
ENV-2.2: Urban Forest and Green Space Planning: Use urban forest and green space planning to increase climate resilience.
ENV-3: Reduce risks and impacts to the community and natural environment from extreme precipitation and flooding.
ENV-3.1: Neighborhood Prioritization: Identify and prioritize extreme precipitation and flooding projects using community engagement and data.
ENV-3.2: Extreme Precipitation Resilience Planning and Operations: Increase planning and capacity for green infrastructure management and flood resilience measures.
ENV-3.3: Land Management Practices: Enhance land management practices to increase capacity for flood resilience measures.
ENV-4: Engage the natural environment to improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
ENV-4.1: Carbon Sequestration: Implement equitable carbon farming, sequestration, and removal.
Waste Reduction & Recovery
Waste Reduction & Recovery Pathway
Fostering sustainable methods of waste reduction - wasting less, reusing more.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated from the waste sector within the City of Richmond made up 3% of Richmond’s 2018 carbon footprint. Successful implementation of all the strategies and actions in the Waste Reduction and Recovery Pathway is projected to achieve net zero emissions in the waste sector by 2030, move Richmond well on its way to achieving the 2030 and 2050 GHG emissions reduction goals, realizing an adaptive waste management infrastructure, ensuring a healthy natural environment, and enhancing climate resilience for all Richmonders.
While the GHG emissions generated from solid waste only accounted for 3% of Richmond’s 2018 carbon footprint, the co-benefits of a zero waste Richmond are far-reaching.
All of the efforts in this Pathway encourage individual and collective participation in a growing and circular economy that will also improve the health of our natural environment. Every effort toward waste reduction on a local level can make significant positive upstream effects on reducing emissions from processes outside Richmond’s geographic boundaries. By implementing the strategies that reduce GHG emissions associated with waste we will create 1000s of jobs over the product life cycles through recycling and composting.
Reducing the amount of waste that Richmonders generate in our households, businesses, industries, and institutions is a responsibility that the entire community shares.
Aiming for ‘zero waste’ can only be achieved through a variety of commercial and industrial solutions including smarter materials production and material reuse in addition to changing personal practices such as extending the useful life of the materials we use, encouraging alternatives to single-waste plastics, and composting organic waste.
Improving recycling, composting, and source reduction efforts will lead to a 70% reduction in landfill waste by 2050 as modeled in the scenarios below by Integral, which calculated specific GHG intensities for each component of the waste stream using the EPA’s industry-standard Waste Reduction Model (WARM) taking into account the emissions intensity of the waste stream.
For example, in a landfill, organic waste decomposes and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but metal and glass are inert. Greenlink took Integral’s waste modeling and identified policies and programs that led to the development of the strategies and actions in this Pathway that will reduce specific types of waste, resulting in both reduced tonnage and a shifting GHG intensity for the residual refuse.
Waste Reduction and Recovery Objectives & Strategies
WR-1: Lead by example and model zero waste strategies in all municipal operations.
WR-1.1: Zero Waste Practices: Demonstrate high-impact zero waste practices through a commitment to meeting the standards set forth by Governor Northam’s Executive Order 77 and Governor Youngkin’s Executive Order 17.
WR-1.2: Waste Stream Reporting: Track and make available the impact of the City’s waste reduction programs in order to provide a model for other institutions, business, organizations, and Richmonders.
WR-2: Encourage community waste reduction by equitably prioritizing a circular economy.
WR-2.1: Incentivize and Reward Institutional Waste Reduction: Promote institutional and corporate best practices for zero waste initiatives.
WR-2.2: Consumer Education: Better inform Richmonders about the impacts of waste, litter, and consumer choices.
WR-2.3: Recycle Specialty Materials: Address materials in the waste stream that cannot be managed through curbside recycling or composting initiatives.
WR-3: Develop and implement a comprehensive and equitable citywide composting plan.
WR-3.1: Municipal Composting Initiatives: Provide education about and options for composting at city-owned properties and events, including opportunities for the distribution of matured organic matter.
WR-3.2: Citywide Composting Program: Develop an equitable organic waste composting program that includes regular curbside pickup and accessible dropoff locations.
WR-4: Ensure that policies and standards for waste generation and disposal reflect the community’s priorities for an equitable, clean, and sustainable Richmond.
WR-4.1: Public Advocacy for Waste Reduction: Engage Richmonders to develop and mobilize support for legislation, policies, and programs aimed at reducing waste.
WR-4.2: Construction and Disposal Standards: Require new and updated standards for site development and waste management.
WR-4.3: Transparency and Environmental Justice: Protect communities from industrial waste by requiring regular waste audits and impact assessments for all new and existing facilities.
Transportation and Mobility
Accelerate the transition for all to clean and equitable mobility systems.
Greenhouse gas emissions generated from the transportation sector within the City of Richmond made up the second-largest percentage of Richmond’s 2018 carbon footprint at 31%. Specifically, these are emissions from gasoline and diesel fuel. Successful implementation of all the strategies and actions in the Transportation & Mobility Pathway will move Richmond well on its way to achieving the 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas emissions reductions goals and is projected to reduce transportation emissions 40% by 2030 and 98% by 2050.
While the energy used in buildings creates the most GHG emissions, emissions generated from the transportation sector are the most harmful to Richmond’s air quality due to localized pollution.
Lowering transportation emissions creates co-benefits including fewer respiratory diseases and conditions like asthma caused by exposure to pollution. In the max case scenario where city- and community-wide emissions are projected to decrease 59% by 2030 and 89% by 2050 with successful implementation of all strategies in this Plan, Richmonders will realize $231M in public health savings through 2050.
Within Richmond, passenger cars outnumber all other classes of vehicles combined in terms of the most vehicle miles traveled.
Improving infrastructure and encouraging behaviors that shift Richmonders to clean mobility options by increasing alternative modes of transportation through walking, biking, clean public transit and micro-mobility are essential to reducing GHG emissions. As Richmond’s population grows, it will be important to manage Richmond’s infrastructure and public transit system to improve equitable mobility for all. These efforts are aligned through the Mayor Stoney’ Equity Agenda, Richmond 300, Richmond Connects, Vision Zero and city department priorities.
In addition to increasing alternative modes of transportation, accelerating the decrease of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is important to clean mobility in Richmond. Greenlink’s Business as Usual (BAU) EV ownership projections are aligned with Richmond registration data and projected to grow at the same rate as the official Virginia EV forecast, where EVs are 40% of all new light-duty vehicle sales by 2030 and half of such sales by 2050.
In the max case scenario, transportation energy demand drops by 40% by 2030 and 70% by 2050 as the result of improved vehicle efficiencies from better mileper gallon for remaining gasoline and diesel vehicles and the significant improvement in efficiency by electric vehicles (EV) over internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.
Transportation and Mobility Objectives and Strategies
TM-1: Achieve climate neutrality in municipal fleet operations, encourage alternative travel options, and increase resilience and stewardship of transportation infrastructure
TM-1.1: Transportation Demand Management: Support commute alternatives for city employees through a TDM framework.
TM-1.2: Municipal Connectivity & Complete Streets: Advance the City’s Better Streets policy and prioritize walking and mobility-friendly connections between neighborhoods.
TM-1.3: Municipal Fleet Electrification: Electrify Richmond’s fleet of vehicles and equipment.
TM-1.4: Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Develop a climate resiliency plan for transportation infrastructure that prioritizes projects using Envision and the Climate Equity Index.
TM-2: Create vibrant neighborhoods where all residents can easily ride transit, walk, or bike to meet daily needs in alignment with Richmond Connects.
TM-2.1: Resilient Bus Transit System: Improve and expand bus routes, stops, and bike share options, with priority for low car ownership and underserved areas.
TM-2.2: Integrated Connectivity: Develop shared-use, green biking and walking paths that connect neighborhoods to Richmond’s employment centers and amenities.
TM-2.3: Residential Mobility and Complete Streets: Promote safely walkable and bikeable neighborhoods that connect Richmonders to jobs, necessities, and amenities throughout the city in alignment with the Richmond Connects Plan.
TM-3: Transition the community rapidly and equitably to clean-fuel vehicles and transit.
TM-2.1: Private and Commercial Vehicle Electrification: Facilitate the transition to electric vehicles across the city.
TM-2.2: Charging infrastructure: Support the equitable and geographically-distributed expansion of publicly-available charging stations.