The Town of Highland may take initiative to identify and curb its greenhouse gas emissions as early as next spring through a plan offered through Northwest Indiana’s central planning outfit.
The Indiana University Resilience Cohort program is a two-year program that would provide the town an intern who would collect and analyze energy data primarily from NIPSCO for 10 weeks between April and September 2021, Environmental Resilience Institute Implementation Manager Andrea Webster told the council during its Monday night session.
Once the data is collected, the intern, who’d be working with a town employee, would present the data to the town and administrators would then craft an action plan to reduce greenhouse gases, Webster said.
The process would help the town save money, Webster said, but any savings would be realized as more of a long-term investment. A more immediate result would come from presenting the results to the community for its input in creating the plan.
“We definitely see an improved sense of community through this project,” said Erin Lasher, the program’s Planning for Action Coordinator and a senior at IU.
