Bend Community Climate Action Plan

Highlighted CCAP Projects

Achieve a 100% renewable electricity supply

The City actively supported the passage of House Bill 2021 in the Oregon State Legislature during the 2021 legislative session. This bill brought huge benefits to the City's climate action program by creating a 100% renewable electricity standard for investor-owned utilities by 2040 and requiring utilities to offer a community green tariff, which will allow our community to voluntarily opt-in to a 100% renewable electricity supply in advance of the 2040 utility deadline. The bill also included important energy justice and equity parameters which will improve community engagement in energy planning statewide.

The City will automatically benefit from the new 2040 renewable standard, which will put us on a significantly better track to achieve our climate action goals. The City is also actively working to help advance the development of the community green tariff program statewide and is continuing to evaluate whether Bend should use this tool locally as well.

Regional Resource Recovery Alternatives Analysis

The City of Bend conducted an analysis of regional resource recovery options, focused largely on the potential to extract energy from hauled wastes, such as fats, oils, and grease (FOG), septic waste, and brewery waste. A stakeholder committee was convened to begin collaboration on a project that would be beneficial for other cities and partners in the region as well. The study found three potential alternatives to be feasibly and economically attractive, including two alternatives at the Bend Water Reclamation Facility and one alternative at the County-owned Knott Landfill. These projects will be looked into further through the Water Reclamation facility master planning process (beginning later in 2023) and follow up feasibility studies.

Natural Gas Offset Program

Due in part to City of Bend and Cascade Natural Gas collaboration on the development of the Bend CCAP, Cascade Natural Gas is actively working to launch a natural gas offset program that would allow residential and commercial customers to voluntarily purchase gas offsets on their bill. Cascade Natural Gas reports that they expect this program to become publicly available to their customers later in 2024

City-installed Solar Projects

The City has 4 major solar arrays installed on its current facilities, with additional projects on the way. The existing projects include:

• 129 KW ground-mount system at the Outback Water Filtration Facility in 2020
• 110 KW roof-mount system at the Outback Water Filtration Facility in 2020
• 78.2 KW ground-mount system at the Awbrey Butte Utility Site, installed in 2022

The City is committed to building a roughly 600 KW solar system at the Juniper Ridge Public Works Campus, which will commence construction in mid-2024. Solar will also be prioritized for any additional new City-owned buildings.

Home Energy Score

A Home Energy Score Program, requiring a Home Energy Score for any home being sold in Bend, was adopted in December 2022 and went into effect on July 1, 2023. A Home Energy Score provides an energy efficiency rating for a home, similar to a miles per gallon rating for vehicle or nutrition facts on a food product. It uses a standardized tool to assess a home structure, heating and cooling systems, and other energy-related features to produce an efficiency score.

The Environment and Climate Committee prioritized the development of a Home Energy Score Program for the FY21-23 biennium, and a working group helped develop the policy and conduct community engagement between December 2021 and December 2022.

As of July 1, 2023, all homes listed publicly for sale in Bend must include a Home Energy Score report. This will allow homebuyers to compare the efficiency of homes as they are considering their purchase, and have information about cost-effective upgrades once they purchase a home.

To date, over 1,200 homes have received Home Energy Scores. As additional scores get added to the overall dataset, the City will be able to identify common energy efficiency upgrades needed across Bend, where there are higher concentrations of inefficient homes, and other factors that will allow the City to tailor energy efficiency programs to be the most effective

Statewide Advocacy

The City actively supports various energy efficiency and building code legislation that is proposed through the legislative process each year. Recently, the City Council actively supported a bill that would enable local governments to adopt the Reach Code as the minimum building code locally. The “Reach Code Bill” ultimately failed in the legislature but the City continues to track and be involved in similar and related policy discussions at the state level.

Encourage Smaller Housing Development

The City has been working to promote the development of a variety of housing types, including encouraging and enabling smaller and denser dwelling types, which helps achieve the City's housing and climate goals simultaneously.

 On October 21, 2020, the City adopted an ordinance creating a thorough housing code update that enabled micro-unit developments and small lot developments, which helps to achieve this.  Some of the housing code updates made included allowing:

• Micro-units, defined as a one-room living space designed to include seating, a bed, bathroom, storage and a food preparation area, in several different zoning areas (medium density residential zone and higher densities)
• Permitting small dwelling unit developments, including single family detached units, ADU’s and duplexes in standard and medium density residential zones on lot sizes as small as 1,500 square feet in RS, RM and RM-10 districts
• Zero lot line developments, which allow single-family detached dwelling units, duplexes and accessory dwelling units to be constructed with a zero side setback while maintain a 10 foot setback on the other side

The code changes also included changes to permit duplexes in more zoning areas in order to implement housing legislation passed in the 2019 Oregon legislative session (HB 2001). More recently, the City launched a free pre-approved accessory dwelling unit (ADU) plan for public use to encourage the development of ADU's.

Bend Electric Vehicles Readiness Plan

In 2022, the City created its first Electric Vehicle (EV) Readiness Plan. The goal of the Bend EV Readiness Plan was to provide clear and comprehensive direction toward widespread electrified transportation in Bend. It has a focus on ensuring access to charging infrastructure centers equity and that the benefits of electric transportation will be realized by Bend's underserved and vulnerable communities.

The Plan includes a needs assessment to determine how much additional charging infrastructure is needed to encourage and support a dramatic increase in electric vehicles. It also includes strategies that the City is committed to taking to promote EV adoption and expand charging infrastructure. The strategies include outreach and education, policies and code amendments that help enable EV adoption, and a plan to deploy public EV charging infrastructure for community members and visitors to use

City Fleet Conversion to Electric and Alternative Fuels

The City has been making significant progress in its transition to alternative fuel vehicles. In 2018, when the City had recently adopted climate goals and was working to develop the first Community Climate Action Plan, the City had 0 hybrid or fully electric vehicles. Today, the City has 6 fully electric vehicles and 31 hybrid vehicles in its fleet, which is 16% of its total fleet for light and medium duty vehicles. The City has an additional 20 electric vehicles planned through FY28.

The City has also begun purchasing renewable diesel, R99, and biodiesel to replace conventional diesel once it became available at the City's fuel vendor in July 2023. R99 has 2/3 less greenhouse gas emissions than biodiesel and currently costs roughly the same. This allows the City to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our fleet, including vehicles for which there are not sufficient electric options for and for other vehicles who have not reached replacement age. The Utilities, Streets and Fire Departments are the City's biggest users of diesel fuel. As of Spring 2024, the Utilities Department used R99 for 64% of is diesel fuel needs and the Streets Department used it for 7.5% of its fuel needs.

Expansion of Curbside Compost

In 2018, the franchise waste haulers in Bend (Republic Services, then Bend Garbage, and Cascade Disposal) expanded the curbside compost collection significantly by allowing all food waste to be disposed in the organics bin collected from residences. Prior to this, only vegetative food waste was allowed to be composted with the curbside collection. This change not only allows for more food to be composted, but also helps to minimize confusion about what is compostable and what is not. Both waste haulers advertise the food scraps collection program on their website and occasionally through mailers. Food waste is a significant contributor to methane production inside of landfills and diverting this food through the organics collection program can make a significant impact in food waste recovery.

Community Innovation Fund

In 2023, The City supported an expansion of a local program called the Community Innovation Fund which helps empower and build capacity among the community to develop creative waste reduction solutions for their own homes and businesses. The Community Innovation Fund provides small grants (up to $5,000) for projects that implement waste reduction, reuse, recycle and compost projects throughout Deschutes County. The City provided approximately $42,000 in funding for both project and administrative support. The City's funds prioritize projects that reduce food waste and promote multifamily recycling, as these are high priorities for the Community Climate Action Plan. The Community Innovation Fund is part of the Rethink Waste Project, a program of the Environmental Center.

Recycling Modernization Act

The Oregon legislature passed the Recycling Modernization Act (RMA) during the 2021 legislative session. This Act is intended to be a recycling system-wide update that will make recycling easier for the public to use, expand access to recycling services, upgrade the facilities that sort recyclables, and create environmental benefits while reducing social and environmental harms. It creates a new funding stream for local governments that is paid for by producers and manufacturers of packaged items, paper products, and food serviceware.

The Recycling Modernization Act creates several new requirements for cities, including improving waste prevention and waste reduction outreach and education and also expanding recycling infrastructure. The requirements of the RMA greatly align with the City's CCAP and strategies, and implementation of the RMA will help the City to achieve its climate goals. While most of the RMA requirements go into effect in mid-2025, the City of Bend is currently working to update its programs to be in compliance, which is accelerating the relevant CCAP strategy implementation.