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Local Climate Action Program

Five Milestones

The DEP Energy Programs Office offered the first Local Climate Action Program (LCAP) July 2019 – June 2020, helping 20 municipalities across Pennsylvania that wanted to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Having state and local governments lead by example on climate action in practices and assets is one of the 19 strategies recommended in the Pennsylvania Climate Action Plan.

The Energy Programs Office plans to offer LCAP in 2020-2021 for 20 more local governments.  See below for how the program works and two options for participating: as part of the group or on your own via subscription. If your community is interested in participating, please contact Heidi Kunka at hkunka@pa.gov or 717-214-4243.

LCAP is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s State Energy Program (SEP).

How the Local Climate Action Program Works

Local governments are matched with college students across the state and trained by a DEP contractor, ICLEI USA, to develop GHG inventories and climate action plans.  Via a series of live training webinars and one-on-one technical assistance, ICLEI guides the student/local government teams in creating GHG inventories and climate action plans. 

Teams are provided access to ICLEI’s ClearPath inventory tool to create local GHG inventories in the fall. They undertake the climate action planning process in the spring. This includes community engagement via in-person workshops, virtual meetings, or online surveys.

Recognizing that local governments engage in climate action under varying time frames and thus may not be able to participate in the new cohort or would like to work at their own pace, DEP, via SEP funding, will also provide access to the ICLEI technical staff and ClearPath inventory tool via a special subscription. Utilizing the following LCAP resources, those communities can develop GHG inventories and climate action plans at their own pace.  Please note that there are two restrictions on the subscription: communities with a population of 500,000 or more are ineligible, as are communities that have had an active ICLEI membership since June 1, 2017. 

LCAP Resources

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Information on Fall Cohort – Greenhouse Gas Inventory

Data request templates – These templates should be completed by your municipality to request necessary data for your greenhouse gas inventory. The data requests are explained in webinars 2-4 below. Please be aware that your utilities may take a considerable amount of time to respond to these data requests.

  • Solid waste data request template
  • Wastewater and water treatment data request template
  • Electricity and natural gas data request template
  • Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) data request template

    • Master Data Workbook – This workbook should be used for data collection as you go through the inventory process. It is also a great tool to keep track of data sources to ensure future inventories follow the same process and use the same data sources.

    Webinar recordings – Watch each of the following training webinars to go step-by-step through the greenhouse gas inventory process.

    QAQC checklist - With this spreadsheet, you can cross check your data with what was entered into ClearPath to assure the data was entered correctly.


    First LCAP Participants, July 2019 - June 2020

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    Local Governments
    • ​Etna, Forest Hills, Millvale, Munhall, Sharpsburg, and West Homestead Boroughs and Elizabeth Township in Allegheny County
    • City of Reading in Berks County 
    • Bellefonte Borough and Centre Region Council of Governments in Centre County 
    • Caln Township in Chester County 
    • Chester County 
    • Carlisle Borough in Cumberland County 
    • Derry Township in Dauphin County 
    • Erie County 
    • Indiana Borough in Indiana County 
    • Jermyn Borough in Lackawanna County 
    • Armstrong Township in Lycoming County 
    • Narberth Borough in Montgomery County 
    • City of York in York County
    Colleges and Universities
    • Allegheny College
    • Dickinson College
    • Drexel University
    • Lebanon Valley College
    • Millersville University
    • Muhlenberg College
    • Penn State University
    • Shippensburg University
    • Susquehanna University
    • Temple University
    • University of Pittsburgh
    • Wilkes University