Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches "Climate Action is for All of Us"

The Healey-Driscoll Administration has kicked off a statewide media campaign aimed at spreading the word about climate change awareness and highlighting the many resources available for taking meaningful climate action as individuals. Led by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), this initiative began with research to better understand how Massachusetts residents perceive climate issues, what motivates them, and what obstacles they face. From this groundwork emerged a vibrant campaign theme: “Climate Action is for All of Us”.

The campaign directs to resources hosted on www.mass.gov/ClimateAction. Here, you'll find information on participating in state-led initiatives, such as boosting energy efficiency, weatherizing your home, transitioning to electric vehicles, and tapping into residential solar programs.

In Massachusetts, we are experiencing the effects of climate change first-hand. If we work together, we can do something about it. Massachusetts has a climate action plan with ways for every person, business, city, and town to make a difference. No matter where you live, how you get around, your job, your family, or your budget, we can all help protect our communities, save energy, and save money!

Help Shape the Climate Resilience Playbook

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the state’s Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program, and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission are developing a Climate Resilience Playbook to help municipalities identify, prioritize, and implement strategies to enhance their physical and social resilience to climate change. The Playbook is set to launch in Spring 2025 and will include tools, project ideas, and detailed strategies to support municipalities in developing strong proposals for state and federal funding opportunities. To ensure that the strategies included in the Playbook are comprehensive and tailored to local needs, we are asking municipalities to share their resilience priorities, challenges, and resource needs via this survey or focus group.

Do you work for a local government, community-based organization, community health center, or another group contributing to local resilience initiatives? Help us understand your resilience priorities, challenges, and resource needs!

FY25 MVP Action Grant RFR Deadline Extended to Friday, April 26th at 4:00PM

The MVP Action Grant RFR application deadline is extended to Friday, April 26th at 4:00 p.m.

As a reminder, EEA posted the responses to questions received during the Q&A period outlined in the RFR. Please take a moment to review these answers before preparing your application and note that there have been a couple small updates to the RFR document and Attachment B as outlined in Question 10 and Question 35 of the Q&A document. The application and Q&A document can be accessed through COMMBUYS.

If you have any questions, please reach out to marissa.robertson2@mass.gov.

Healey-Driscoll Administration Launches Climate Science Advisory Panel

The Healey-Driscoll Administration recently launched a Climate Science Advisory Panel through the new Massachusetts Office of Climate Science (OCS) to provide expertise on statewide climate science and future projections used to inform state and local climate adaptation planning and projects. The Panel is comprised of experts within Massachusetts and across the region who will advise OCS on the latest advances and applications in climate science related to hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, sea level rise, and health impacts to inform the state's climate adaptation and resilience strategy.

OCS was established within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs as part of the ResilientMass Plan. OCS supports agencies, municipalities, and the public in understanding, accessing, and appropriately utilizing the state’s climate change data in planning, policy, and projects. The Climate Science Advisory Panel will provide critical guidance and understanding of climate research findings to support our communities in adapting to a changing climate. Panelists will guide the development of the State of the Climate Science Report that will inform the Commonwealth’s strategy for updating climate projections to incorporate the latest science and ensure projections are designed to serve the needs of priority populations as well as key adaptation sectors.  

Status Update: Building Decaronization Clearinghouse

In its final report in late 2022, the Massachusetts Commission on Clean Heat recommended the development of a building decarbonization clearinghouse, the goal of which “should be to create a public ‘one-stop shop’ to support Massachusetts building owners, residents, and businesses in evaluating, selecting, and implementing building systems and projects that accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and improve the quality of the building stock.” (Commission Final Report, p. 26). This recommendation was amplified in a report of the Governor’s Climate Chief in October 2023.

Toward that end, EEA has been working with a consultant team led by VEIC with support from the Solomon Consulting Group to provide support on three tasks:

1. Assess the current program landscape related to building decarbonization, both within and beyond Massachusetts, with a focus on understanding customer needs.
2. Develop a scope and structure for a decarbonization clearinghouse with options for how Mass Save could fit into that vision.
3. Facilitate stakeholder engagement to understand needs, gain perspectives, and refine recommended approaches to the clearinghouse following initial consultation with EEA to narrow the initial set of options.

EEA is committed to substantial stakeholder input in this process. Look for future updates in this newsletter. 

EEA Climate Team Convenes Community Climate Advisory Council

The Community Climate Advisory Council is a group of engagement experts from municipalities, regional planning agencies and community organizations across the state who are advancing local climate action. This group began meeting in 2024 and will provide input on specific climate planning efforts and direction of capacity building and technical assistance. The EEA Climate Team welcomes the expertise this council will bring to ongoing and future climate work!

EEA and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) joined forces to launch an ad campaign in South Station for the month of April, with tabling events informing visitors about the programs they can participate in to advance climate action. If you have the chance, we recommend a visit!

Grant Opportunities

• Upcoming Coastal Resilience Grants - Pre-Application Support Available from CZM - CZM anticipates the release of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Request for Responses (RFR) for the Coastal Resilience Grant Program soon. Coastal Resilience Grants provide funding and technical assistance to coastal communities, eligible nonprofit organizations, and tribes to reduce risks associated with coastal storms, flooding, erosion, and sea level rise through innovative and transferable local and regional projects.

• Parks and Conservation Grants - DCS is seeking applications for the FY 2025 Parkland Acquisitions and Renovations for Communities (PARC), Local Acquisitions for Natural Diversity (LAND), and Conservation Partnership grants. PARC grants help communities acquire parkland, develop new parks, and renovate existing parks. LAND grants provide funds to municipal conservation commissions to purchase conservation land. Conservation Partnership grants provide funds to nonprofit organizations for land acquisitions. DCS will hold two workshops for the PARC and LAND grants and strongly recommends that potential applicants attend the in-person workshop, which will be held on May 6 at 11:00 a.m. at DFW Field Headquarters in Westborough. A second workshop will be held on Microsoft Teams on May 9 at 2:00 p.m. To RSVP for either session, please email Melissa Cryan at melissa.cryan@mass.gov if you are interested in applying for a PARC grant, and email Vanessa Farny at vanessa.farny@mass.gov if you are interested in applying for a LAND grant. PARC and LAND grant applications are due by 3:00 p.m. on July 11. Conservation Partnership applications are due by 3:00 p.m. on July 15.

• Water Quality Management Planning Grants - The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) is seeking proposals for §604(b) Water Quality Management Planning Grants to fund assessment and planning projects to address nonpoint source pollution. For more information, including a link to the RFR, see the MassDEP website. To view the RFR directly, see the COMMBUYS website. Project proposals are due by May 8 at 5:00 p.m.

• MassDEP is seeking proposals for the §319 Nonpoint Source Competitive Grants Program to fund comprehensive projects that address nonpoint sources of pollution affecting water quality. For more information, including a link to the RFR, see the MassDEP website. To view the RFR directly, see the COMMBUYS website. Project proposals are due by May 24 at 5:00 p.m.

Tools & Resources

• ResilientMass Maps and Data Center: ResilientMass was created by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to support the Commonwealth with climate change science and tools. This maps and data center features interactive applications to explore the latest statewide climate data and projections curated to support climate resilience in Massachusetts. Learn more about how Resilient Mass bolsters resilience with climate data and tools here.
• The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Climate Grant Viewer has been updated. The URL has changed, so if you had it bookmarked, please be sure to replace it. This new version has:
• FY24 updated grant information for existing MVP and CZM programs
• Addition of the new Coastal Habitat & Water Quality grant program to the CZM tab
• New filtering options in the All-Grants tab
• Future enhancements will include an update to the PARC grant program data and the incorporation of additional grant programs
• 2022 Massachusetts Climate Change Assessment Data: the datasets created during the Climate Change Assessment are now available for download. These include spreadsheets and GIS layers for the Climate, Economy, Environment, Governance, Human, and Infrastructure sectors, along with general statewide datasets. See the 'Find or Browse Data by Theme' section to download this data.
• Guides for Equitable and Actionable Resilience (GEAR) Maps - originally designed to be used with and accessed through the GEAR guides for the MVP 2.0 pilot process, this interactive mapping tool is also now available on the Maps & Data Center page for use by the general public for all planning and grant application support. Visit the 'Maps and Data Gallery' section to access this tool.
• Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Metrics: Public resources that provide key information and performance indicators relevant to Massachusetts' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plans (CECP).
• Digital Coast: The Digital Coast was developed to meet the unique needs of the coastal management community. The website provides not only coastal data, but also the tools, training, and information needed to make these data truly useful. Content comes from many sources, all of which are vetted by NOAA.

Contact the EEA Climate Team

The EEA Climate Team, led by Undersecretary Katherine Antos, seeks to stem the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and prepare Massachusetts communities to be resilient to the effects of a changing climate.

For direct contact information, you can reference our team directory here: EEA Climate Team Contact and Staff Directory