Evansville climate collaborative releases first community greenhouse‑gas inventory, outlines $20 million EPA-funded projects

Evansville’s Municipal Climate Collaborative on Jan. 21 released results from its first city‑boundary community greenhouse‑gas inventory and presented plans tied to a newly awarded U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant the collaborative said will fund resilience hubs, electric‑vehicle infrastructure and other climate projects.

“ECC worked with Climate Nav to conduct our first ever community wide greenhouse gas inventory for Evansville for the city boundaries only,” Municipal Climate Collaborative staff member Lauren Norvell said during the meeting. She said the inventory covers all sectors (stationary energy, transportation, waste and land use) and that the full report is posted on the Evansville Climate Collaborative website.

The inventory’s headline finding: Evansville’s 2023 community emissions were about 2,800,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent. By sector, Norvell reported roughly 79% of those emissions came from stationary energy, about 15% from transportation and about 6% from waste. Within the stationary energy total, Norvell said about three‑quarters of emissions were attributable to residential grid‑supplied electricity and just under 20% to residential natural gas.

Why it matters: the Collaborative said the apparent dominance of residential electricity in the local inventory points to two levers for reducing emissions—pushing the local utility’s generation mix toward renewables and increasing residential efficiency and rooftop solar uptake. Norvell noted the local utility, CenterPoint, has an integrated resource plan that the collaborative expects will shift the grid away from coal toward renewables; she summarized the utility’s proposed 2030 mix as roughly 54% solar, 27% wind and 9% natural gas.

The Collaborative emphasized local limits. Norvell said the utility’s plan must be filed with and approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) and is subject to federal standards overseen by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). “Policy wise, starts up there,” she said when board members asked how much local influence the city has over the utility’s resource choices.

Norvell also described technical limits in the municipal emissions accounting. She said the municipal inventory—typically a small share of community emissions—was incomplete because utility data needed to account for municipal stationary energy use were not available; where data were missing, municipal emissions modeling relied more heavily on transportation and fleet estimates.

Major new funding and near‑term work: Norvell said the Collaborative is the lead administering agency for a $20,000,000 U.S. EPA Community Change grant announced in December. She said the three‑year grant begins March 17 and will fund a mobility project manager focused on EV charging infrastructure, support converting municipal fleets to electric vehicles, and fund a second staff position to manage technical data and reporting (air quality, greenhouse gas tracking, performance and financial reporting). Procurement for solar on the METS building and terminal, EV charging installation and service, sidewalk construction and an outreach/education campaign will follow the city’s normal procurement process; Norvell said bid packages are expected in the second quarter.

Resilience hubs, workforce and other projects: the Collaborative said it was accepted into the EPA Sustainable Communities Accelerator Network and intends to concentrate on creating resilience hubs—publicly accessible facilities with solar and battery backup that can provide power, water, restrooms and kitchens during outages and extreme weather. Potential sites discussed include the CK Newsome Center and Swander Ice Rink. Norvell said she is partnering with Zach Garcia, Indiana outreach coordinator for the nonprofit Faith and Place, as the grant requires a nonprofit partner.

Separately, the collaborative has begun a partnership with Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute to pilot a workforce development program tied to heat‑pump HVAC installations. Norvell said two local nonprofit buildings will receive heat‑pump systems, serve as training sites and provide data to compare technologies and improve local uptake.

Other studies and outreach: Norvell said a composting feasibility study and an Evansville resiliency assessment are near completion and that the Collaborative plans to run greenhouse‑gas inventories biannually. She listed upcoming events and dates mentioned at the meeting: a tree planting in mid‑February organized by the Evansville Forest Alliance at West Laman Woods (date to be confirmed), a Climate Collaborative roundtable for nonprofits Feb. 19 (Oakland Library), an Indiana University sustainability and resilience conference Feb. 28 in Bloomington, and a Tri‑State Creation Care conference (Building Resilience Together) planned for March 8 at the CK Newsome Center.

Timing for the climate action plan: Norvell said the Collaborative’s draft Climate Action Plan (CAP) 2025 is nearly complete and that staff aim to present it to Evansville City Council in late February; the meeting included two slightly different tentative dates (Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 were both mentioned as targets). She said staff plan to circulate a revised draft to more than 30 stakeholders for review before the council presentation.

Staffing and next steps: Norvell said she will seek approval from the city committee that authorizes new positions to post the grant‑funded jobs and that, if approved, the hires will be entirely grant funded. She asked for board support at the late‑February council meeting and said the Collaborative will meet again on Feb. 18 at 1:30 p.m., with a possible time change for future meetings under consideration.

Formal actions on the meeting agenda were limited to routine board business: the minutes from the December 2024 meeting were moved, seconded and approved at the start of the session, and the meeting concluded with a motion and second to adjourn.

The Collaborative made clear which items were discussion, which are staff actions to pursue (grant administration, procurement, hiring and stakeholder outreach), and which require external approval (city committee approval for new positions, IURC/FERC decisions on utility plans and city council consideration of the CAP).