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Three Climate Action Grant recipients report local impacts from lighting, composting and refrigeration projects
Summary
Iowa City Climate Action Grant recipients — a downtown food business, Oak Knoll senior living, and Our Redeemer church — presented updates showing early results: streetscape plantings and a refrigeration unit for a small business, a compost diversion program at Oak Knoll, and a LED retrofit that reduced electricity use at Our Redeemer.
Plated Table representative Kim, Oak Knoll project lead Bruce, and Pastor Brent Hartwig of Our Redeemer reported results from projects funded by the City of Iowa City's Climate Action Grant program at the commission meeting.
Kim said the grant paid for plantings that changed the appearance of a commercial frontage, and that the city installed standard bike racks so the grantee did not have to contract for them. The grantee also received a refrigeration unit that Kim said reduced volatility for the small business’s supply chain and enabled more local sourcing. "The experience of working with the city staff involved in this program was really good … very generous, and very accessible," Kim said.
Oak Knoll’s Bruce described a compost and waste-separation program for two campus locations that has already reached high utilization in kitchens. Bruce said staff aim to divert roughly 40,000 (unit not specified in the transcript) of kitchen waste annually once resident participation ramps up. He identified operational challenges with private haulers and is coordinating with Johnson County and Green RU to improve pickups.
Pastor Brent Hartwig and Dave (board chair of properties) described a facility-wide lighting conversion at Our Redeemer. The project replaced about 400 light bulbs and converted nearly the entire facility to LED lighting, with recycled metal fixtures and appropriate disposal of fluorescent bulbs. Dave said the retrofit is projected to reduce annual electricity use by about 10 percent.
Staff framed the presentations as part of an effort to reduce reporting burdens on smaller grantees by inviting them to present in person instead of filing midyear narrative reports. Staff said they visited grantee sites to help prepare slides and encouraged the commission to ask questions directly of grantees.
The commission asked follow-up questions about greenhouse gas benchmarking and whether small grantees could participate in the city’s benchmarking work (EPA Portfolio Manager). Staff said benchmarking is generally required for larger grantees, but Plated Table could participate and staff will share information with the grantee. Our Redeemer agreed to host an AmeriCorps outreach table at its annual pancake breakfast (first Saturday in March) to share energy-efficiency information with community attendees.
Next steps: staff will continue to present small cohorts of grantees at upcoming January and February meetings and share further benchmarking details with commissioners and grantees.
