For Immediate Release: November 4, 2022

New Program Brings Together Residents and Businesses to Help Make Lancaster Carbon Neutral

Contact: Leilani Richardson, Community Climate Fund Director, leilani@regenall.org

Lancaster, Pa. – After a decade of global warming trends, the world experienced the second warmest year on record in 2019. Humans everywhere are experiencing the impact of climate change. Yet, governments aren’t addressing the threat fast enough. Individual citizens and businesses ready to make a change need an avenue for actionable, measurable impact.

Through their Community Climate Fund (CCF), RegenAll is launching an innovative pathway for Lancaster County to achieve carbon neutrality and slow the impacts of climate change on communities. Individuals, businesses, and municipalities can offset their carbon emissions by contributing to the CCF. A volunteer committee oversees the distribution of funds from the CCF. Initial projects will support heat pump installation and energy efficiency upgrades for lower-income households.

RegenAll, a Lancaster-based nonprofit, works with households, businesses, and municipalities throughout Lancaster County to conduct greenhouse gas inventories and develop climate action plans. Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Lancaster County through climate action plans that influence behavior and through local projects financed by their Community Climate Fund.

“Our goal, here in Lancaster, is carbon neutrality by 2040,” said RegenAll founder Eric Sauder. “We’re meeting households where they are by offering an easy-to-use online calculator that lets you calculate your carbon emissions, then offset them by supporting local projects through the Community Climate Fund.”

Individual households have already begun using RegenAll’s simple online carbon calculator. After establishing their carbon footprint, residents can offset their emissions through a one-time or monthly contribution to the CCF. As a long term investment households and businesses can create a climate action plan, also found on the RegenAll website, to reduce their carbon emissions. Through engaging with RegenAll Lancaster residents can easily move toward carbon neutral while simultaneously investing in their local community. RegenAll is currently pricing carbon offsets at $75 per metric ton of carbon dioxide.

Businesses and municipalities are working directly with RegenAll to conduct comprehensive and technical audits of their carbon emissions. In order to achieve their emission reduction goals they can follow through to the next step and create an action plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through on-site mitigation, contributing to the CCF for carbon credits, or a combination.

Obtaining carbon credits is when buyers–households, for-profit businesses, health care or educational institutions, and even governments–compensate for their carbon emissions by financing a reduction at another location. As examples, carbon offset funds from the purchase of carbon credits are used to replace fossil-fuel heating systems with heat pumps powered by renewable electricity, support farmers in transitions to regenerative farming practices, and build solar or wind energy projects. Unfortunately, on a global scale, carbon credit funded projects lack the visibility and accountability of the final-end carbon reduction project.

“In principle, carbon trading is an elegant system where those generating climate pollution help fund the reduction of global carbon emissions. In practice, though, the environmental impact of the global carbon trading market is much spottier,” explains RegenAll Community Climate Fund Director Leilani Richardson

RegenAll’s community-based model is an on the ground antidote to the concerns of global carbon credits. By localizing offset credits through the Community Climate Fund, RegenAll will invest funds into local projects in Lancaster County, where buyers can watch the project unfold in real-time and sit face-to-face with a project manager and neighbor to verify the outcomes. Richardson joined RegenAll as Fund Director in late October and will work to help households and businesses purchase carbon offsets while also working with partner organizations to implement carbon-cutting projects.

“By localizing the carbon offset model, we plan to cut project verification costs, establish confidence and equity in climate solutions, and galvanize public support for climate action,” continued Richardson.

The Community Climate Fund is a creative approach to kick-starting climate action projects at the local level. Through the CCF, RegenAll provides a tangible outlet for Lancaster to fund and engage in carbon-offset projects. Residents can learn more and complete their household carbon footprint audit and obtain carbon credits through the RegenAll website, www.regenall.com/carbon/

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RegenAll is a Lancaster-based nonprofit working towards carbon neutrality in every community. It unites households, businesses, farmland, and communities to identify and implement local climate solutions for a more resilient future. www.regenall.org