Climate Leader Designation

Climate Leader Designation Overview

Sustainable CT is excited to offer a Climate Leader Designation, celebrating municipalities that are reducing harmful greenhouse gas emissions and preparing their communities for the impacts of climate change, while saving money, improving public health, and building community. Find more information about this designation and supports available to assist your city or town. The Climate Leader Designation is optional for Bronze and Silver certified communities and required for Gold certification.

The pathway to become a Climate Leader is straightforward:

Any town certified, or that successfully applies for (re)certification, is eligible to apply for the designation.

Sustainable CT has identified a suite of actions that will help communities control and reduce their emissions and prepare for the impacts of climate change.

If you are pursuing the Climate Leader Designation as an addition to your Bronze of Silver certification, you can build on your current certification – that means if you are currently certified and it is not your expiration year, you may use points already earned, and complete new Climate Leader actions as needed.

If you are pursuing the Climate Leader Designation as a part of your Gold certification application OR if you are recertifying in the year that you are also seeking the Climate Leader Designation, you may not include points earned in a prior certification cycle.

A city or town can complete any of these high-impact actions and achieve a total of at least 150 points to become a Climate Leader.

Ready to apply? You can do so through your municipal dashboard. Let us know how we can help you by contacting us at [email protected].

No-Cost Assistance Opportunities

Sustainable CT offers a variety of no-cost assistance programs intended to help communities complete actions, and we have several that line up with the actions included on the Climate Leader Designation page. Some of these resources include:

Work with a Sustainable CT Equity Coach

Host a Community Resilience Building Workshop

Energize CT Assistance for Strategic Energy Management (SEM)

Host a Financing Workshop for Homeowners

Community Match Fund Support

Sustainable CT's Community Match Fund is an innovative program that provides fast, flexible funding and support for engaging your community on wide-ranging sustainability projects. Eligible projects receive dollar-for-dollar matching funds from Sustainable CT.

Anyone in a Sustainable CT registered municipality can participate in this program to implement highly visible projects to improve their communities. Municipalities, nonprofits, community groups, schools, libraries, and individual residents can all propose projects and double their impact with our match funding.

Climate Leader Prize

Municipalities earning the Climate Leader Designation will be awarded a monetary prize that can be used on select projects to advance greenhouse gas reductions in a community. The Climate Leader Prize will be offered in 2025, 2026, and 2027. A generous donor has provided $100,000 annually to be split evenly amongst Climate Leader Designees.

Climate Leader Prize winners will have 12-months to identify an eligible project(s).

Eligible projects include:

Tree planting program

Cool roof installation on a municipal or Board of Education building

Complete streets infrastructure build-out

Purchase an electric vehicle or electric bus for municipal use

EV charger purchase and/or installation

Energy benchmarking or energy planning

Energy efficiency projects in municipal or BOE buildings

Renewable energy or battery storage system installation in municipal/BOE buildings or properties

Municipal or BOE energy audit and/or implementation of municipal or BOE building energy audit recommendations

Community energy campaign

Other (must include a climate mitigation benefit)