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Learn about how Cambridge is planning to achieve net zero emissions from buildings, transportation and waste in the plans below. The City last completed a community-wide Greenhouse Gas Inventory in 2019.

It takes a lot to move a community from fossil fuels to renewable energy in a single generation.  Our plans are below.  More on specific initiatives are in Fossil-Fuel Free Cambridge

• Cambridge's Net Zero Action Plan: The City's roadmap for achieving carbon neutrality in buildings and securing 100% renewable energy.
  
  
• The Net Zero Transportation Plan will help people get around the city without using a gas-powered vehicle.
  
  
• The Zero Waste Master Plan will help Cambridge divert reusable, recyclable, and compostable materials to decrease our waste stream by 80% by 2050.

Climate change is quickly and dramatically altering what we can expect from our weather. Cambridge’s November 2015 Climate Change Vulnerability Assessments Part 1 and Part 2 detailed the risks the City faces from climate impacts, and laid the groundwork for its strategies to prepare. Those strategies focus on keeping people and places safe during and after extreme weather such as coastal storms, heavy rainfall, heatwaves, and drought. 

• Resilient Cambridge: The City's plans to make Cambridge more resilient and prepared for climate change, while improving the quality of life and enhancing the city. 
  
  
• Urban Forest Master Plan: Cambridge's initiative to evaluate, maintain and expand the urban forest canopy while being more resilient to climate change, and reducing the urban heat island effect.
  
  
• Resilient Cambridge Story Maps: Learn more about our risks and strategies around heat and flooding
  
  
• Cambridge Flood Viewer:  Interactive map showing risk of rainfall and coastal flooding by address.
  
  

• Cambridge’s Building Energy Use Disclosure Ordinance Amendments (BEUDO) passed in June 2023. These amendments set a rigorous set of steps and deadlines for reaching carbon neutrality by 2035 for non-residential buildings 100,000 square feet or larger and by 2050 for non-residential buildings over 25,000 square feet or larger.
  
  
• Under the Fossil Fuel Free Ordinance adopted by the City Council in August 2023, new buildings and major retrofits are required to eliminate the use of oil, gas, propane, or other fossil fuels. Labs and certain medical facilities are exempt. Major renovations, generally defined as renovations to 50% or more of a building’s area, may not install new fossil fuel-using equipment.
  
  
• Cambridge’s Specialized Stretch Energy Code requires new construction to meet high performance standards, prepare buildings for all-electric heating and cooling, and make parking ready for electric vehicle chargers.
  
  
• On February 27, 2023, the Cambridge City Council adopted new climate resilience zoning requirements to address the long-term impacts of increased flooding and heat from climate change. They are based on the City’s climate projections over the next 50 years and will be updated from time to time.
  
  
• Under Cambridge’s Green Roofs Requirement, most new buildings or structures over 25,000 square feet must have a green roof and/or solar energy system.