recode.org

This submission reflects this organization's contribution to the climate effort, representative of their current actions and commitments as well as the ways in which they intend to step up and collaborate with others.

recode.org's Climate Action Contribution

Climate Action Commitments

Current Climate Actions recode.org Is Taking:

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Commit to Responsible Engagement in Climate Policy

While individual organization action is necessary, local and federal government action is also needed to reach global climate goals. Your organization can have a critical voice in advancing public policy. A commitment to responsible engagement in climate policy means that your organization commits to supporting public policy to: promote energy efficiency and renewable energy; increase investment in a clean energy economy; support climate change adaptation, or put a price on carbon.

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Commit to Building Climate Resilience in your Community

By committing to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, companies and institutions can secure their operations and supply chains and conserve natural resources that are stressed due to climate change. While there is much a business can do within their community, primary among these options is reducing water usage. Organizations can commit to increase their own water security through a range of actions, including installing water-saving devices, capturing rainwater for onsite uses, and recycling grey water. Or just commit to get engaged with your community in resilience planning.

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Commit to Reducing the Climate Impact of Your Transportation

Organizations making a commitment to reduce the climate impact of transportation should consider practices such as measuring transportation greenhouse gas emissions and setting reduction targets, switching fuels, optimizing the efficiency of shipping operations, and reducing transit- and travel-related greenhouse gas emissions. Businesses can develop a green transportation action plan to map the movement of goods to market and identify opportunities to increase efficiency. Organizations can buy hybrid and electric vehicles within their own fleet, and can reduce the footprint of their workforce through incentivizing public transportation, installing EV charging stations, promoting telework, and locating near transit centers.

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Commit to Increase Your Use of Renewable Power

Increasing your percentage of renewable energy sources is a key component of reducing overall GHG emissions. Installing onsite renewable generation, like solar panels, is a good long-term strategy if possible. But renewable energy can also be procured through Renewable Energy Credits (RECs), renewable power purchasing agreements (PPAs), and in some locations from retail electricity providers or local utilities that offers a high percentage of renewable power. Also consider becoming an EPA Green Power Partner.

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Commit to Increase Energy Efficiency

Most companies begin by assessing energy usage or performing an energy audit to identify opportunities to increase energy efficiency throughout their facilities and operations. Energy reduction targets can be framed as either absolute reductions or reductions that are normalized per unit of production, such as per tons shipped, per dollars of revenue produced, or other relevant business metric. Some examples of commitments that can be taken include:

  • Conducting an energy audit or request a meeting with your building owner to explore scheduling an audit
  • Upgrading HVAC system to a more efficient model
  • Upgrading lights in your office/facility to LEDs
  • Upgrading insulation and windows
  • Replacing appliances in your office with Energy Star-rated models
  • Instituting a company policy of turning off lights other electronics when not in use.
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Integrate Climate Change into Portfolio Analyses and Decision-Making

Commit to integrate climate change-related risks and opportunities in portfolio analysis and decision-making processes through one or more of the following:

  • Analyzing and assessing climate change-related risks and opportunities (e.g. through carbon footprinting, scenario analysis).
  • Making commitments and setting targets (e.g. to carbon footprint reduction, to enhanced portfolio resilience, to decarbonization, including via the Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition).
  • Investing in low carbon investment funds and other products (e.g. low carbon indices, climate-aligned bonds).

New Climate Actions recode.org Commits To Take:

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Commit to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutant Emissions

Short-lived climate pollutants—such as black carbon, methane, tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons—are powerful climate warmers many times more potent than CO2 over their lifetimes. Because they are short-lived in the atmosphere, actions to reduce these super pollutants can have substantial, near-term climate, agricultural and health benefits and are an essential complement to CO2 reduction strategies. Policy-makers can announce regulatory or voluntary approaches to drastically reduce SLCPs, such as developing methane strategies or adopting rules on use of warming HFCs. Organizations can commit to engage with suppliers to provide training, conduct pollutant inventories, and establish systems for tracking, measuring, and monitoring these types of emissions. Analysis shows that SLCP emissions can be cost-effectively reduced by an estimated 40-50 percent by 2030.

Policymakers, companies and organizations are encouraged to accept the #SLCPChallenge of the U.S. Climate Alliance, which calls for ambitious action on SLCPs. Feel free to elaborate on your work towards reduction, along with your other efforts, in the "Other Commitments" field below.

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Commit to Remove Commodity-driven Deforestation from Supply Chains

Restoring our forest’s ability to store carbon on a global scale is a critical and cost-effective climate mitigation solution. Making a commitment to eliminate deforestation means setting targets to assure key commodities in your supply chain (like palm, soy, beef, paper and pulp) are from deforestation-free sources. An ideal target could be to establish a disclosure and reporting plan for your supply chain and/or conversion to 100% deforestation-free commodities by 2020.

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Commit to Reduce Climate Impacts of Packaging and Reducing Waste

There are many ways to reduce the climate impact of packaging including reducing materials (i.e., “source reduction”); replacing virgin materials with post-consumer recycled content; replacing traditional plastics made from fossil fuels with biopolymers; re-designing packaging to be more compact and therefore efficient for transport and storage; using biodegradable packing materials; and recycling at end of the packaging’s life to name just a few practices.

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Commit to Understand and Reduce Your Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Understanding your GHG emissions is the first step to making measurable reductions in those emissions. The EPA provides an overview report and CoolClimate Network provides a simple tool for “low emitters” to better understand sources of emissions, as well as how to use that information to set reduction targets. For this commitment, it is as simple as committing to complete a greenhouse gas inventory for your business or oganization, but in the future your inventory can be used to make a commitment to set a specific goal, such as “reduce GHG emissions by 50% by 2025.

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Commit to the Natural and Working Lands Challenge

The natural systems upon which we depend are essential to life and critical for reducing the impacts of climate change on our communities. These systems are also under threat from human activity and climate change. Maintaining the resilience of natural and working lands is an important part of any GHG emission reduction strategy. It is also important to securing the well-being of communities, economies and ecosystems. Actions that secure and enhance the “carbon base,” such as land conservation, restoration, and improved management, also support watersheds and food systems, improve air quality, protect against urban heat islands and sea level rise, and preserve the beauty and function of natural areas and parks. Those that accept the NWL Challenge should commit to securing natural and working lands as a resilient net sink of carbon. This will take different forms for different actors. For example, local, sub-national and national jurisdictions might take a broad approach like that of the U.S. Climate Alliance. Landowners and managers may wish to focus on restoration and implementing climate-smart practices on their own lands. Businesses may look at their supply chains and customers as potential partners, and incorporate natural and working goals into their own climate change commitments and strategies.

The U.S. Climate Alliance States commit to taking actions that will reduce GHG emissions and increase carbon sequestration in forests, farms, rangelands, wetlands and urban greenspace, and integrating these pathways into state GHG mitigation plans by 2020. The Natural and Working Lands Challenge calls on other states, cities, nations, tribes, businesses and others to make the same commitment within their organizations. Feel free to elaborate on your work towards this challenge, along with your other efforts, in the "Other Commitments" field below.

Areas For Collaboration

We are interested in collaborating on the following:

Efficient Buildings
  • Encouraging more aggressive state energy efficiency policies
  • Improving efficiency in existing buildings through real estate transactions
  • Supporting building thermal decarbonization and electrification

Electric Vehicles
  • Aggregating demand for electric vehicles with other actors
  • Encouraging more aggressive state targets for electric vehicles and GHG standards
  • Promoting increased charging infrastructure

HFC Phase Down
  • Encouraging states to adopt policies to phase out HFCs on an accelerated timeline
  • Promoting greater participation in voluntary programs to phase out HFCs

Local Collaboration
  • Collaborate on climate and clean energy action, and to advocate for stronger climate policy at the local level

Methane
  • Enacting policies and programs that cut fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas production
  • Scaling initiatives to reduce methane from livestock and increase production of on-farm renewable energy
  • Supporting adoption of state-level policies to reduce methane from upstream and midstream oil and gas operations
  • Supporting implementation of methane leak detection technology and processes in aging infrastructure

Natural Lands
  • Developing in measurement and monitoring systems to target efforts and track progress
  • Encouraging states to adopt incentive programs for forest management, tree cover expansion, and soil health
  • Promoting science-based targets for GHG emissions and removals in agricultural supply chains

Utility Sector
  • Aggregating demand for renewable energy with other actors
  • Encouraging more aggressive state renewable energy policies
  • Supporting states, cities, and utilities in decarbonizing their energy supply

Organization details

Founded in 2007, Recode led a multi-year grassroots effort to legalize graywater in Oregon. Today we work locally, regionally, and nationally to promote access to equitable and sustainable water, site sanitation and nutrient recovery systems. Recode’s vision includes governance that encourages innovation for watershed health and community resilience in the face of climate change and other disruptions. Recode convenes technical and lived experience/equity experts (who may or may not overlap) and other interested community members and organizations to write and rewrite building codes and policy. Our approach is to team with community members impacted by a lack of access to water and sanitation (recodenow.org/equity), especially people living on low incomes and people of color to implement solutions that benefit all communities.
Sector
Business
Location
Portland, OR
Twitter username
Secondary/Communications Email