Comprehensive K-12 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan

Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) is soliciting proposals from interested, qualified vendors to furnish TUSD with consultant services to produce TUSD’s first-ever comprehensive, K-12 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, hereafter referred to as the “Action Plan”. The principal goal of the Action Plan is to create a roadmap TUSD will use to incrementally work toward a climate neutrality goal date of 2040 and TUSD’s Strategic Plan. Historically, the creation of an Action Plan for other school district K-12 school campuses has tended to foster a stronger culture of sustainability, environmental, and social justice literacy and we anticipate seeing the same benefits at TUSD. The Action Plan will also aid in baselining and benchmarking TUSD across common sustainability metrics, developing realistic and implementable goals across those metrics, and producing a clear roadmap that effectively guides formal policymaking, administrative planning, and project decisions. One of the central intentions of this inaugural Action Plan is that it is a dynamic, living document that serves as a point of reference and a source of direction and empowerment for the district. TUSD expects that both the action planning process and the completed Action Plan itself will foster cross-campus engagement and buy-in, via broad stakeholder participation and a framework for continuous touchpoints and dialogue. TUSD envisions a process that includes a holistic review of our carbon mitigation actions to date and the development of a SWOT/gap or related analysis, with recommendations to close any identified gaps. In addition, we seek vendor support in generating ambitious goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART), and setting explicit priorities. A successful Action Plan will look beyond net-zero carbon emissions to consider a range of organizational, social, and economic opportunities for the district, including but not limited to those within procurement, academics, and campus life. Moreover, the Action Plan will necessarily incorporate key performance indicators, financial cost-benefit analyses with an exploration of potential campus and external funding sources, and identification of lead/accountable parties for all proposed initiatives.