C3 Launches Free Solar Climate Justice Scorecard
Charlottesville, Virginia – Friday, January 27, 2023
Today C3 releases a free tool for localities, advocates, and policy-makers across the Commonwealth to score proposed solar energy projects in their communities. Until now, there has not been a standardized method for assessing the overall climate justice aspects of non-residential solar projects. This open-source tool aims to provide a tangible and holistic framework to enable better-informed decision-making, engagement, and accountability as solar projects advance through the permitting process.
Rapidly deploying clean energy across Virginia, and across the country, will be an important part of addressing the climate crisis. With the Solar Climate Justice Scorecard, we want to ensure that new clean energy investments reflect the values of the climate justice movement as well as indirect health benefits that are often left out of the evaluation process.
C3’s Solar Climate Justice Scorecard assesses projects in four key climate justice areas: (i) Procedural Justice, (ii) Distributional Justice, (iii) Restorative Justice, and (iv) Other Socio-Economic and Environmental Factors. The tool includes over twenty questions to score on either on- or off-site potential solar projects, and it provides instructions for how to source data and calculate answers to the questions.
“We hope that this scorecard gives climate advocates a tool to independently assess solar projects and more effectively champion local projects,” said C3’s Director of Climate Policy Caetano de Campos Lopes. “In Virginia, most solar siting decisions are left to localities, which have different mechanisms for approval. This tool brings consistency to that process and helps build support for solar projects.”
Katie Ebinger, C3’s Policy Analyst who co-developed the tool said, “We are excited to get this Beta version of the solar energy assessment tool into the hands of advocates and decision-makers. We invite other organizations to collaborate with us – the more projects that use the tool’s scoring, the more robust the tool will become over time.”
C3 used the tool to assess a 138 MW proposed solar farm in Woodridge, Virginia. Based on the results from this analysis, C3 is confident in the benefits of the project and subsequently will organize community support to speak at upcoming public hearings in support of the project. C3 encourages other communities around Virginia to use the tool similarly.
C3 welcomes feedback on the tool and collaborative partnerships with other advocacy-based nonprofits in order to continuously improve the tool for future iterations. You can read the report here detailing the tool on our website.
About Community Climate Collaborative
The Community Climate Collaborative aims to bring communities together to lead on climate by working closely with schools, businesses, citizens, and local governments to implement carbon emissions reductions, develop climate action plans, and enact equitable policies that accelerate climate action. Visit theclimatecollaborative.org.
PRESS CONTACT:
Teri Strother, Director of Communications, 434-466-5157 or email teri@theclimatecollaborative.org.