2015 Grants

by | Dec 9, 2014 | New Grant Awards

Impact Circle 4 Awards Two Grants – June, 2015

FOCUS: Building Puget Sound’s Resilience in the Face of Climate Change

Puget Soundkeeper Alliance (Soundkeeper): Water Quality Monitoring Project

The mission of the Soundkeeper is to protect and preserve Puget Sound by monitoring, cleaning up and preventing pollutants from entering its waters. Soundkeeper actively monitors Puget Sound’s water quality by boat, enforces the Clean Water Act, engages with stakeholders and regulators and implements solution-oriented partnerships with Puget Sound residents and the business community. The Clean Water Act allows citizens to step in when regulatory agencies like the state department of Ecology are unable to fulfill their legal obligations to protect the Sound. Soundkeeper is only one of two organizations that has field monitoring capability. The other organization is ReSources’ North South Baykeeper program.

This grant supports Soundkeeper’s presence on the ground from six hours/week to 46 hours/week. It will enable Soundkeeper to expand its patrol range and hlep the Legal Committee and Staff Attorney prepare and prioritize enforcement.

ReSources: Tenmile Creek Watershed and Fecal Coliform Project

ReSources Clean Water team has been conducting work in the Tenmile Creek watershed of Whatcom County’s Water Resources Inventory Area 1. The project’s aim is to reduce the amount of fecal coliform loading in the watershed, which drains to Portage Bay – a traditional shellfishing area for the Lummi Nation that is periodically closed due to high fecal coliform levels. The heart of this project focuses on engaging watershed residents in reducing contamination by engaging them in collecting water samples, reviewing data from those samples, and then working together to eliminate the causes of high fecal coliform.

This grant supports this work and will enable ReSources to expand this model to adjacent watersheds.

Impact Circle 3 Grants – May, 2015

Emerald Cities-Seattle: RENEW project – Retrofits for Energy Efficiency Works

The RENEW program will educate affordable housing building owners (non-profit organizations) about efficiency opportunities, setting the stage for engagement in efficiency projects.  Program partner, O’Brien & Company will act as Green Building Advisor supporting assessments, project development, and monitoring and verification. As the program financing coach, Emerald Cities Seattle will bring new finance options to building owners and assist with selection and attainment of financing for projects. The program will address the entire portfolio of each building owner and bundle projects in lots of 4-6 in order to gain efficiencies.

This grant will start the full pilot phase of five buildings followed by a scale-up of ten buildings.  The overall plan is to complete 15 projects using the Development Fund to share the cost of initial development work with the building owner.  As the program grows over the next 24 months, the RENEW fund will eventually support 20 projects per year.

International Living Future Institute (ILFI): Increase Net Zero Energy Buildings in Puget Sound Project

ILFI will reach out to the Puget Sound region, educate the community about zero energy solutions, identify buildings that claim or are planning to achieve net zero energy and provide the technical assistance and resources to guide them through the Net Zero Energy certification process. ILFI hopes to certify 10 new buildings by the end of this grant period.

To earn Net Zero Energy certification, a project must meet the requirements of five Living Building Challenge imperatives, including:

  • Limits to Growth (curbing the building’s contribution to the effects of sprawled development, which undermines the positive impact of achieving net zero energy building operation
  • Net Zero Energy
  • Beauty + Spirit and Inspiration + Education, underscoring the notion that renewable energy systems can be incorporated into a building in ways that are attractive and inspiring

The grant will support these actions of ILFI:

  • Provide technical assistance to project teams of buildings that fall short of expectations, assisting them to successfully complete certification requirements
  • Work with project teams on new buildings to ensure that net zero energy requirements are successfully implemented
  • Deliver ongoing, targeted net zero energy education programs to building owners, design professionals and community leaders
  • Document case studies online and in publications

Nisqually Land Trust: Carbon Sequestration on Private Forest Land Project

The Nisqually Land Trust is developing a forest carbon offset project under the California Air Resources Board Offset Protocol for U.S. Forests as a means to pay for acquisition, restoration, and long-term stewardship of land that was owned by an industrial timber manager. The Nisqually Land Trust has partnered with the Washington Environmental Council to promote forest conservation and forest carbon offset projects to high-profile companies in the Puget Sound region.

The grant award will help fund the completion of the carbon offset project through verification and registration of credits and the production of a lessons learned document. The development phase of the project (forest inventory, modeling carbon stocks under baseline, project management, project documentation, third-party verification, registry and regulatory review) will last through the third quarter of 2015.  Marketing credits to local companies will be ongoing but for the first large transaction should be completed by the end of 2015. The development of the “lessons learned” document will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2016.

You can read more about the process of modeling carbon stock process on the NLT website.

Impact Circle 2 Grants – March, 2015