The plan will guide Moab’s sustainability efforts
The City of Moab’s sustainability action plan is moving forward. During the regular City Council meeting on August 8, council members heard from City Sustainability Director Alexi Lamm and two consultants with the Brendle Group, the consulting firm that’s helping to create the plan.
The city’s last sustainability plan was passed in 2016; since then, sustainability directors for the city have tried to update it. The plan will establish Moab’s sustainability goals, and will “map out the next steps for the City to equitably pursue sustainability and climate action,” according to a presentation by the Brendle Group.
Lamm said the city’s main goals are to establish 100% renewable electricity by 2030 and 80% emission reductions by 2040. In 2021, greenhouse gas emissions in Grand County were mainly from transportation, commercial energy use, and residential use.
“We’ve undertaken the sustainability action plan with the idea of collaborating and engaging with the community, and empowering our community to achieve some of those goals,” she said.
Lamm said she expects the plan to be finalized, and brought before council, in December.
Imogen Ainsworth, who works with the Brendle Group, said there are six sustainability focus areas the plan will address: ecosystems and air quality, energy and buildings, land use and planning, transportation, materials management, and water. Topics like economy, well-being, and the natural environment are “cross-cutting considerations” that will be addressed in each focus area.
When discussion opened to the council members, Kalen Jones addressed the plan’s drafted vision statement. The statement reads, “Moab aspires to be a thriving, resilient, and equitable community, with a robust economy and healthy natural environment. This sustainability action plan will guide community collaboration on actionable steps toward our sustainability vision. We commit to inclusive implementation and to transparently sharing our process.”
The word “robust” Jones wanted to avoid. The community has been talking about economic diversification for “decades,” he said, “which seems like it might be a backlash against that we’ve tended to be a one-horse town.” Even with a robust economy, he said, underlying issues like inequity and housing still exist.
“In the local dialogue, sometimes quality of life exists along with, or sometimes in opposition to, economic development interests,” Jones said. “I’d like the economic statement to either be inclusive of that or reflect that, or else include quality of life—that’s a huge issue for a lot of citizens because of the rate of change we’re experiencing.”
Councilmember Rani Derasary suggested a word like “stable” to describe the economy in the statement.
Lamm said the vision statement is constantly evolving and open to edits, as with the rest of the plan. She and the Brendle Group will prepare another update to present at a later date.
