Under the Policy Umbrella of EPA’s 2035 GI Strategic Agenda

Jan 22, 2025 | Policy & Advocacy, Programs

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its 2035 Green Infrastructure Strategic Agenda, which it describes as “a roadmap to equitably scale up green infrastructure and nature-based solutions across the nation.” (p. 1). The publication provides that “[s]ince the publication of the last Green Infrastructure Strategic Agenda in 2013, momentum for green infrastructure continues to build within EPA and across the federal agencies, states, municipalities, academia, private, and nonprofit sectors.” (p. 2). It goes on to outline four priorities, highlighted in the graphic below.

Source: EPA 2035 GI Strategic Agenda

In the paragraphs that follow, I’ll briefly review each of them. I’ll also highlight how the agenda provides an almost perfect umbrella for the current work and future plans of the Exchange.

Priority 1: Develop Resources for Equitable Outcomes and Support Engagement Strategies

In introducing this topic, EPA notes that:

Historic underinvestment in infrastructure often overburdens communities with environmental hazards and has led to a lack of capacity to obtain and manage funding for green infrastructure. Green infrastructure can offer many benefits for these communities beyond stormwater management, including access to green space, heat mitigation, and local jobs. (p. 6).

Among the objectives here are:

  • Increasing access to technical assistance and funding for underinvested communities. The Exchange is planning a new Catalyst Program this year to help up to nine underinvested communities annually scale up their GSI programs through a combination of site visits, mentoring, and peer learning.
  • Developing equity-focused guidance and resources that promote GI. The Exchange recently developed a course, GSI and Equity, and completed the Center Community chapter in its new Framework of GSI Practice.
  • Advancing equitable access to GI workforce opportunities. Among the top ranking areas where respondents to the Exchange’s recent Educational Resources and Needs (ERN) Survey indicated they had limited knowledge and wanted to learn more was “building the GSI workforce.”  The Exchange will be developing course modules to address this need

Also included in the discussion of this priority is a statement central to the mission and work of the Exchange, which is that “equity is an overarching priority that informs all other goals.” (p. 6).

Priority 2: Support Clean Water Regulatory Programs by Using Green Infrastructure

In introducing this priority, EPA highlights something we know well here at the Exchange, noting that:

Many permitting and enforcement professionals and members of regulated communities may be unfamiliar with green infrastructure’s potential to protect and improve the quality of surface waters and groundwater.  Because of this, green infrastructure may be overlooked as a viable solution to meet permit requirements or address enforcement actions. (p. 7)

Among the objectives here are facilitating peer exchanges, trainings and case studies for permitting and enforcement professionals to build capacity on asset management and designing and effectively maintaining green infrastructure. All these areas ranked highly as topics about which respondents wanted to learn more in our recent ERN survey. The Exchange will be developing programming to address them, accordingly.

Priority 3: Demonstrate How the Multiple Benefits of Green Infrastructure Enhance Communities and Watersheds

In introducing this priority, EPA speaks to another reality facing so many of our members: They need help making the evidentiary case for GSI to be able to scale their programs. Among the objectives here are distributing information on the benefits of green infrastructure more broadly, making the information more accessible, and providing user-friendly tools and methods to assess and quantify GI’s benefits. The Exchange recently collaborated with the Nature Conservancy and One Water Econ to develop GSI Impact Hub, an interactive platform with a suite of resources and tools to help quantify and communicate GSI’s co-benefits and assist in siting and planning projects to achieve the greatest impact. We plan to develop a short course on using the platform to make it accessible to a broader range of practitioners this year.

Priority 4: Connect Communities to Federal Funding Technical Assistance, and Sustainable Financing Opportunities

This priority recognizes that the volume and variety of federal assistance opportunities can be overwhelming to GSI practitioners.  Among the objectives here are efforts to help communities access available opportunities and to educate them on sustainable funding models.

We appreciate the work of EPA in developing these priorities and the opportunity afforded to us to influence their development. We look forward to advancing the Agenda through the aforementioned programs and those that we may develop in the future.

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