RALEIGH, N.C. – The city of Raleigh is taking action to combat climate change through the first Community Climate Action Plan.
The plan aims to reduce 80% of greenhouse gas emissions in the city by 2050 under three main umbrellas:
- Energy Use and Buildings
- Transportation and Land Use
- Waste
“We’ve broken up the strategies into short-term goals, we should be able to be thinking about how we can build resiliency and equity at the same time,” said Megan Anderson, sustainability manager for the city of Raleigh.
Anderson says residents and businesses in the community play a huge role in reaching this goal.
“We should be thinking about everyday life, how you live work and play every day, how you can reduce energy in your home, and where you work, your organization, can you take a bike, can you walk, can you think of a different way to do that,” said Anderson.
What has the city done in the past?
In 2007 the city committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions when they joined the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement.
Since then, two greenhouse gas emissions inventories have been performed in 2007 and 2014. Between those periods, the emissions from the community increased by 2%.
“The city is also thinking about how we can help support that through different land use, creating more walkable computes, and greener communities,” said Anderson.
What a local business is doing:
The Produce Box delivers fresh and local produce, dairy and meat products to more than 14,000 people from Wilmington to Charlotte.
Courtney Tellefsen founded the business in 2008. Her goal was to operate a sustainable company by supporting local farmers in North Carolina while increasing access to fresh produce.
“One of the things I’m really proud of is, we are trying to be very conscious of reusing our containers, so these boxes here aren’t a one-time use box. Members leave their boxes out so we pick it back up, clean it out, reuse it again, distribute it to the member again,” said Tellefsen.
Tellefsen says most boxes will get six to seven uses.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“The other nice thing about working with small and medium-sized farms, they have a lot more biodiversity in their crops, so it’s not these huge large industrial farms that are growing one crop. They are using less fossil fuel-based fertilizers,” explained Tellefsen.
This time of year, The Produce Box is using about 50% local products, with the rest being state-wide, but by summer, all of the boxes will be filled with almost 100% of food from local farmers.
“We are not just produce anymore, we’ve gone to provide a lot of local meats as well. We support two or three beef farmers in the area that give us ground beef and other beef products,” said Tellefsen.
Another component is food miles, which is how far food travels to get from farm to table. In the U.S., food miles are estimated to be 1,500 miles.
“This is a great example of reducing greenhouse gases, this is not a propane tank traveling thousands of miles to bring us asparagus, this is Roger Lane delivering his asparagus in his SUV from Turkey, N.C. which is about 70 miles away, and this will go in the boxes tomorrow,” said Tellefsen, referencing a delivery that arrived during our conversation.
Tellefsen says they reequipped their delivery fleet with propane tanks to reduce their carbon footprint, thanks to a grant from the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center.
They also have a team of stay-at-home moms that help deliver boxes to members in their neighborhoods.
“This whole program is about sustainability, reusing the boxes, using trucks with propane tanks, using an army of stay at home moms who deliver only in their neighborhood, members who choose to buy a box of produce and have it delivered to their door instead of going to the grocery store, a small family farm that is more diverse, that uses less fossil fuel-based fertilizers, that travels a shorter amount of time to get the produce box to deliver their product, it all combines into this whole program of sustainability,” said Tellefsen.
Tellefsen says from the farmers to the members it’s a small step for improving the community’s efforts.
“It just tastes good to eat local, and it feels good,” said Tellefsen.
What can the community do to help?
The community is welcome to join the city’s webinars on April 22, 2021 beginning at 12:00 p.m. — 1:30 pm to learn more about the Community Climate Action Plan.
They will also be holding additional online meetings in the weeks to come to continue educating residents on how they can reduce their carbon footprint.
The Community Climate Action Plan can be found here.