How to Write an RFP for a Climate Action Plan

From spring 2019 to winter 2020, six volunteer workgroups in Montgomery County, Maryland produced 894 recommendations for the county’s climate plan. The plan released in June 2021 carries 84 actions, and the county’s fiscal 2025 annual report says 80 of them have started. That ratio is the real job. A climate action plan is a filter, and your RFP decides whether the filter runs on evidence or on enthusiasm.

A climate action plan (CAP) sets a jurisdiction’s emissions targets and the measures, owners, costs and metrics that reach them, often with an adaptation chapter. You need one when a grant, a state law or a council goal calls for it. The RFP succeeds when it pays for measures the jurisdiction has the authority and the money to carry out.

What this work should deliver

The outcome is an adopted plan that staff can run. It holds a baseline inventory and forecast, targets, a short list of quantified measures, an adaptation chapter tied to the hazard mitigation plan, and an implementation table that says who acts, under what authority, at what cost and with which money. Everything else in the document is context. For the method itself, see our guide on how to create a climate action plan.

Settle four boundaries before you write a single task:

• Community, operations or both. Albany’s 2024 RFP asked for a two-part plan, one for the community and one for city operations, because the levers and the data differ.
• Inventory in or out. Robbinsdale, Minnesota’s 2026 RFP tells bidders the inventory data already exists through the Regional Indicators Initiative, and Albany handed its consultant finished inventories. Don’t pay twice for data you own.
• Mitigation only, or adaptation too. If adaptation is in, list the existing plans the consultant must build on.
• Legal standing. In California, decide whether the plan must qualify for CEQA streamlining. In Washington, decide whether it doubles as the climate element your growth management plan now needs.

Who this is for. City and county sustainability or planning staff, tribal environmental departments and regional councils writing a first plan or a mid-cycle update, including the municipal climate officers who will own it. It is the wrong template for a corporate net-zero strategy, a stand-alone hazard mitigation plan or an inventory on its own, which our community GHG inventory RFP guide covers.

Rules and standards to cite

No federal law requires a local climate action plan. The work is governed by the accounting protocol, any state law that gives the plan legal effect and the rules attached to the money. Track them through the local climate policy hub, and cite these:

• Inventory protocol. The Global Protocol for Community-Scale Greenhouse Gas Inventories (GPC) is now version 1.1, aligned with the IPCC’s 2019 refinement. Its BASIC level covers stationary energy, transportation and waste; BASIC+ adds industrial processes, agriculture and land use, and transboundary transport. The American alternative is ICLEI’s U.S. Community Protocol, which since October 2023 comes in Dash, Standard and Plus tiers. Name one.
• EPA’s plan elements. EPA’s 2023 planning-grant guidance is still the most useful public checklist for a CAP, with or without the grant: inventory, business-as-usual and plan-implemented projections, targets, quantified measures, benefits, a low-income and disadvantaged communities analysis, a review of authority to implement, other funding and workforce needs. EPA moved the deadline for the program’s second-stage plans to June 1, 2026 for states and metro areas without a later date, and Public Law 119-21 rescinded the unobligated balances in July 2025, so no new rounds are coming.
• California. CEQA Guidelines section 15183.5(b) lists six elements for a plan that later projects can rely on, ending with adoption “in a public process following environmental review.” State General Plan Guidelines explain that a project consistent with such a plan may be presumed less than significant for greenhouse gases. That is worth a lot to a growing city, and it needs its own environmental document.
• Washington. RCW 36.70A.070 requires a climate change and resiliency element. Under RCW 36.70A.095, the emissions subelement binds planning counties that meet population and density tests, plus their cities over 6,000 people. It must reduce emissions from transportation and land use and per capita vehicle miles traveled, prioritizing overburdened communities.
• Hazard mitigation. A local mitigation plan must be revised and resubmitted within five years to keep grant eligibility. Tie the adaptation chapter to that cycle.
• Procurement. With federal grant money, 2 CFR 200.319 bars firms that drafted the scope from competing and names “unnecessary experience” as a restriction on competition. 2 CFR 200.320 requires published evaluation factors and a price factor.

Sample scope of work

Seven tasks cover most plans. Cut any task that your data or existing plans already answer.

Task 1. Document review and data gaps. Start from what the jurisdiction already has.

The Consultant shall review the plans, inventories and policies listed in Attachment A, identify which findings remain current, and deliver a data gap memo within 30 days of notice to proceed. The Consultant shall not rebuild analyses the memo finds current.

Task 2. Inventory and forecast. Specify the protocol, the year and two scenarios.

The Consultant shall prepare or update a community-wide greenhouse gas inventory under the GPC at the BASIC level for calendar year [year], and a separate government operations inventory. The Consultant shall project emissions to 2030 and 2050 under a business-as-usual scenario and a plan-implemented scenario, documenting every data source and emission factor in an unlocked workbook.

Task 3. Targets.

The Consultant shall recommend near-term and long-term targets, show their relationship to [state] targets, and state the reduction each target requires against the business-as-usual forecast.

Task 4. Measures and quantification. This is where the budget should go.

For each candidate measure, the Consultant shall estimate emissions reductions with stated assumptions, capital and operating cost, co-benefits, the lead entity, the legal authority required and available funding. The Consultant shall flag measures that depend on authority the [City/County] does not hold, and shall show that the retained measures close the gap to each target without double counting.

The authority column is not paperwork. During fiscal 2025, Montgomery County worked with the Maryland General Assembly to pass House Bill 49, which formally authorizes the county’s building energy performance standards and strengthens its enforcement, according to the county’s annual report. A plan that assumes authority it lacks will miss its targets on schedule.

Task 5. Vulnerability and adaptation. Build on the vulnerability assessment you have.

The Consultant shall assess the current hazard mitigation plan and any vulnerability assessments, update their findings where hazards or data have changed, and propose adaptation actions that can be carried into the next mitigation plan update.

Albany’s RFP used this approach, asking the consultant to test the relevance of a 2013 adaptation plan and two county plans before writing anything new. Our guide to climate risk assessment covers the method.

Task 6. Engagement. Tie each round to a decision, following a written stakeholder engagement plan.

The Consultant shall convene an advisory group [three to four] times and support [three] public engagement activities, each designed to inform a named decision: priorities, measure selection and draft review. The Consultant shall provide materials in [languages], report back to participants on how their input changed the plan, and document all engagement in an appendix.

Task 7. Implementation, monitoring and adoption.

The Consultant shall deliver an implementation matrix with owners, first-two-year actions, cost ranges and metrics; a monitoring framework with annual reporting; and adoption support including [number] council presentations. [California: The Consultant shall prepare the environmental document needed for the plan to meet CEQA Guidelines section 15183.5(b).]

San Bruno, California’s 2023 RFP shows the California version, asking for a draft CAP and a CEQA document “for adoption of the CAP and for future streamlining.”

Deliverables to require

• Data gap memo and final work plan with a schedule tied to adoption dates.
• Inventory report plus the unlocked workbook with every activity datum, factor and source.
• Forecast and targets memo with both scenarios.
• Measure screening workbook: every candidate measure with reduction, cost, authority, lead, funding source and the screening decision.
• Engagement plan, materials in the required languages and an engagement summary with the report-back.
• Draft and final plan, plus a plain-language summary of four pages or fewer.
• Implementation matrix and monitoring framework, with indicator definitions and a named data owner for each.
• Adoption presentations and, where required, the CEQA document.
• All native files, with the right to reuse models and templates.

How to evaluate proposals

Robbinsdale’s 2026 RFP is a good public model. It scores out of 100 points, gives 25 to an approach built for the city and 15 to cost, and caps proposals at 15 pages, which rewards focus.

If federal grant money pays, publish every factor with its weight and score price; 2 CFR 200.320(b)(2) reserves price-blind qualifications-based selection for architectural and engineering work. Some states add their own method. Hingham, Massachusetts opened price proposals only after the non-price evaluation was complete, under M.G.L. chapter 30B, section 6.

Strip requirements that do no work. Albany’s RFP required five years of plan development experience, asked for evidence of trained “crewmembers” and required “ample equipment” on the job site, language borrowed from construction contracts. Interview two or three firms, and require the named project manager to attend.

Timeline

In the published RFPs we reviewed, consultant work ran eight to fourteen months for a first plan. The phase durations below are suggested allocations within that range.

Work back from the hard date. Robbinsdale’s plan must be finished by June 30, 2027 under its state grant, and the Tulalip Tribes’ plan feeds a March 15, 2027 submission to EPA. Leave at least two council cycles between the final draft and the deadline.

Put the legislative calendar in the schedule too. Hingham required the plan’s contours by September 30, 2022, early enough to tell whether any measure needed a Town Meeting vote and to prepare it for the spring 2023 meeting. Measures that need an ordinance, a bylaw or a budget line should surface in month four, not in the final draft.

Give bidders time to respond. Fresno’s first request for qualifications was open 14 days, drew two responses and was reissued because the statement of work needed clarification; the reissue drew one.

Budget and cost drivers

Published figures span an order of magnitude:

• Robbinsdale, Minnesota (2026): $49,000 for a first community and operations plan. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s local climate action grants cap awards at $50,000, and inventory data came with the grant.
• Hingham, Massachusetts (2022): $80,000 for a town plan, paid under an agreement with the town’s municipal lighting plant, with the inventory built from existing tools.
• Tulalip Tribes (2026): up to $85,000 in EPA planning grant funds for consultant support on the tribe’s plan.
• Fresno, California (2025): up to $450,000 for a general plan program environmental impact report and a greenhouse gas reduction plan with updated measures and vehicle travel analysis.

What moves cost:

• Whether the inventory is supplied or built, and at which protocol level.
• The number of engagement rounds and languages, and whether the consultant staffs events.
• The depth of measure quantification and cost estimating.
• Legal standing, such as a CEQA document or a Washington climate element.
• The number of jurisdictions in a regional plan, since each adds meetings and data requests.
• Adoption support across councils, commissions and boards.

If the budget is fixed by a grant, publish it. Robbinsdale and Hingham did, and bidders then compete on approach instead of guessing at scope. Our resilience funding hub tracks which programs still pay for plans.

Red flags in proposals

• Rebuilds an inventory the RFP says exists, or names no protocol and inventory year.
• Reports measure reductions without a business-as-usual forecast or stated assumptions, or counts cleaner grid power in both the electricity and vehicle measures.
• Presents measures that need state legislation or utility regulator action as local actions, with no authority column.
• Counts engagement in meetings held instead of decisions informed, with no report-back and no translation budget.
• Names senior staff who carry no hours.
• Offers a measure list that matches the firm’s other plans nearly word for word.
• Closes the gap to target with purchased carbon offsets or renewable energy certificates without saying so.

How we’d approach it

We’d spend less of the budget on the document and more on the measure screen and the implementation table. In our work with the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County on the Annapolis Maritime Resilience Initiative, 18 months of engagement with bilingual materials produced 38 sites of concern named by residents, and those sites became the foundation for the technical work that advanced 10 priority sites to preliminary concept design. Engagement that asks people to name places and trade-offs gives a plan inputs it can test. We later built Resilient & Ready with the Resilience Authority through Council Fire Labs to rank projects and match them to funding, and a plan’s measures deserve the same ranking, whoever does the work.