{"id":19607,"date":"2025-11-29T11:41:05","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T16:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/?p=19607"},"modified":"2025-11-29T11:41:05","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T16:41:05","slug":"needham-certified-as-massachusetts-climate-leader-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/2025\/11\/needham-certified-as-massachusetts-climate-leader-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Needham Certified as Massachusetts Climate Leader Community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ydp874447feyiv5038802072msonormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: 'Helvetica',sans-serif; color: #26282a;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-19609 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community-560x420.jpg 560w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Needham-certified-climate-leader-community.jpg 604w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/span>The Town of Needham has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/news\/healey-driscoll-administration-certifies-nine-new-climate-leader-communities?trk=feed_main-feed-card_feed-article-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">certified<\/a> by the state Department of Energy Resources as a Climate Leader Community.\u00a0 As a Climate Leader Community, the Town is now eligible to apply for grants of up to $1,150,000 each for projects that reduce municipal building emissions and for technical support for these projects. There are now 28 Climate Leader Communities in Massachusetts.\u00a0 To become a Climate Leader Community, municipalities must meet certification requirements that include a local committee to advise and help coordinate local energy activities in the municipality; a commitment to transition away from on-site fossil fuel use in municipal buildings and fleets by 2050; a zero-emission-vehicle first policy; and adoption of the Specialized Energy Code.\u00a0 You can learn more about the Climate Leader Communities program <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mass.gov\/info-details\/climate-leader-communities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>. Questions about the certification can be sent to the Town Sustainability Manager, Gabby Queenan, at <a href=\"mailto:gqueenan@needhamma.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gqueenan@needhamma.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Green Needham appreciates the role that Gabby Queenan, the Town Sustainability Manager, took in the Town\u2019s efforts to meet the certification requirements. Local organizations, especially Green Needham and the League of Women Voters\/Needham, played an important part in supporting and promoting the polices that put Needham in a leadership position.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Town of Needham has been certified by the state Department of Energy Resources as a Climate Leader Community.\u00a0 As a Climate Leader Community, the Town is now eligible to apply for grants of up to $1,150,000 each for projects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":19609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[10],"class_list":["post-19607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-municipal","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19607"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19620,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19607\/revisions\/19620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenneedham.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}