What’s a MERP?

The Municipal Emissions Reduction Playbook (MERP) is a toolkit that will make addressing climate change in an uncertain future as easy as possible for local governments.  and .  It is a compliment to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CCAP), coordinated by the South Central Regional Council of Governments (SCRCOG) and Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG), and funded by the EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG).

Where are the best strategies for my community?

MERPs provide local governments the ability to align resources towards focused strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve quality of life for all residents. .  They do so by answering  the following:

• Which sectors contribute the  most to regional GHG emissions?

• Which strategies will provide the greatest benefits?

• How do local conditions determine relevant strategies?  

Recommended strategies will be limited to those that local governments have the authority to implement.  

All strategies should be considered for incorporation into the state mandated Plan of Conservation and Development.

Planning for an uncertain future

The Impact 2050 website contains tools to help you update your MERPs over time and meaningfully engage with your community members and stakeholders. We recognize that evolving local, regional, and global forces bring new opportunities and challenges.  The MERP has identified three potential future scenarios as starting points to think about how the future might require revised strategies.

Next steps to implementation

Strategies are little more than ideas unless they can be executed.  To assist with implementation, MERPs identify potential Federal and State funding agencies, and in select situations, specific grants..  Where applicable, MERPs also identify potential partnerships that could facilitate implementation.