To mitigate the disastrous effects of climate change and create safe and healthy schools that reflect the community’s values, Somerville must do all it can to reduce carbon emissions from its largest municipal source: school buildings. We applaud the city’s work to update the Climate Forward plan, Somerville’s plan to reduce carbon emissions in the city, and the aim for Somerville to be carbon net-negative by 2050. To be a serious plan that can achieve this goal, though, the Climate Forward update must have a bold, detailed and clear timeline for the decarbonization of municipal buildings, especially school buildings. We implore you to listen to community feedback and include these strategies.
According to Somerville’s 2016 and 2020 Greenhouse Gas Inventory reports, more than 60 percent of citywide carbon emissions come from buildings, and 78 percent of municipal carbon emissions come from energy use in municipal buildings, two-thirds of which come from schools. With aging buildings and outdated heating and cooling systems, Somerville needs to demonstrate leadership and commit to decarbonizing and comprehensively retrofitting its school buildings to reduce carbon emissions and create healthy indoor environments for students and educators. In addition to retrofitting existing buildings, the city must commit to the highest of environmental standards (such as PassiveHouse and LEED Platinum certification) for new school buildings and low embodied carbon materials to ensure replacements for the Winter Hill and Brown schools are carbon free. This can be accomplished without delays in construction and with significant savings for the city through noncompetitive federal and state incentives and reduced operating costs.
Schools are Somerville’s largest public consumers of energy and after teacher salaries, school building energy costs are the school district’s next highest expenditure. Transitioning the buildings away from expensive, polluting fossil fuels will have a major positive impact on our climate goals, student health and the city’s operating budget. Decarbonization of existing buildings and a highly efficient new school building would free up much of this spending to go toward additional local union jobs and educational programs for youth.
Additionally, students spend the majority of their childhood inside school buildings, and educational outcomes have been proven to dramatically increase in buildings due to improved student health from healthy ventilation and indoor air quality. As anyone who was in the Winter Hill school knows, exposed pipes and crumbling ceilings don’t create healthy, lifelong learners. On top of these benefits, the work of decarbonization provides an excellent opportunity to create union careers with good pay and working conditions for residents in the energy-saving, climate-forward economy of the future.
We call on the city to commit to the highest environmental standards for new buildings and produce a clear timeline and binding commitment for comprehensive retrofits of all schools to be implemented within the next 10 years. That includes creating airtight envelopes, electrifying mechanical systems, installing energy recovery ventilators to provide filtered fresh air and installing more solar arrays. Public commitments to these goals must be included in the Climate Forward plan, followed by the significant funding and transparent reporting necessary to realize these commitments.
Somerville must show leadership in the climate crisis by reducing emissions by all means available and protecting the future of our youth. The children of Somerville deserve ambitious action. Please do not let them down.
Somerville Carbon Free and Healthy Schools Coalition; Green New Deal for Somerville Public Schools; 350 Mass – Cambridge/Somerville Node; Somerville Mothers Out Front; the Somerville Educators Union; and 49 individual signers
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