Here’s some hopeful news: King County rolled out its 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan (SCAP) in August. This ambitious and extensive (329 pages) document sets out a broad range of urgent work to be completed, acknowledging the inevitability of some amount of climate change but identifying ways to work for a sustainable future for all of us. To be clear, the plan’s goals and performance measures apply countywide: reaching them requires countywide participation. We are interconnected, all of us.

SCAP Section I concentrates on six specific areas: 1) greenhouse gas emissions—targeting reductions of 50% by 2025 and 80% by 2050; 2) transportation and land use; 3) building and facilities energy—reducing energy use 25% and fossil fuel use 20% by 2030; 4) green building; 5) consumption of goods and materials; and 6) forests and agriculture. This week we’ll look at specific aspects of item 5.

To address countywide consumption of goods and materials, the Strategic Climate Action Plan calls for a circular economy, discussed in our post 016. The specific goal: “Achieve a circular economy, whereby waste is minimized through prevention, reuse, and recycling, and materials stay in use longer through improved product design and shared responsibilities for end-of-use material management” [emphasis added to highlight the points where we can play a role].

SCAP writers identify food waste as a significant contributor to climate change. They estimate King County food waste from all sources at 136,000 tons in 2019 (a 20% reduction from 2015). They also note that when food is wasted, all the energy and water used to produce, package and transport it is also wasted. The net result? Only personal transportation accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the total attributable to food waste. Thus, plan writers see food waste as a key target and the SCAP pledges increased education, outreach, and other efforts across the county to reduce it.

Specific SCAP goals include zero edible food waste by 2030, to be achieved through food waste reduction strategies such as:

Increased food donation—individual donations and collaborations with local food banks
More mindful food shopping and meal planning
Increased composting efforts—both at-home and municipal

So how might we react to King County’s Strategic Climate Action Plan? We could choose to be skeptical, observing that the County will fall short of 2020 goals stated in its 2015 plan…. We could note that achieving the goals in this plan will require buy-in from businesses and private individuals—players beyond the County’s direct control….

Or we could choose to be positive, noting that the consequences of failure are more clearly recognized today, that the tools required for success are continually improving, that perhaps we are in a moment when our need to cooperate and collaborate to get something important done is appreciated—and that we all can play a role. Who can know, until we try, if SCAP will work?

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
— Jeremiah 29:11

Let’s choose to be hopeful and get to work.