Beverly, Salem Team Up To Attack Climate Change, Show Resiliency

BEVERLY, MA — Neighboring cities are embracing a common cause for the benefit of the entire North Shore.

Beverly and Salem recently launches the Resilient Together collaboration project to collectively target the long-term impacts on climate change on the coastline of each city and their respective public health infrastructure.

"Planning is best done regionally because it spills over," Beverly Assistant Planning Director Emily Hutchings told Patch. "It's not something where you can have a plan for just a little community. Working with another community is what it's made for.

"We'll work on projects that impact both Beverly and Salem. We'll be able to communicate with more people and share different projects with different impacts. Beverly and Salem do have some differences. It's nice to acknowledge that when you are working together."

Esmeraldo Bisono, Salem's Sustainability and Resiliency Coordinator, and Hutchings are at the forefront of coordinating the project aimed at improving resiliency in the cities in seven areas — energy, buildings and development, natural resources, public health and safety, solid waste, mobility and infrastructure.

The hope is for both cities to beat the state's commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

"It's an opportunity for us to put our heads together, and bring people together for both communities, and do something that is going to be a living plan and have a lasting impact," Hutchings said. "It's a long-range plan. It looks out 30 years into the future. Our ultimate goal is to become carbon-neutral by 2050. We will have small goals along the way. You can't have a big goal without having little goals.

"We'll have some goals we can accomplish within a few years. Is it possible to have our municipal buildings by carbon-neutral by 2030 than 2050?"

Hutchings said the goal is a "community-driven plan" that kicks off with a brief survey the cities are hoping residents and business owners will participate in here where they will share perceptions, concerns and priorities about the environment and community resiliency.

"Truly learning what matters to our residents and other stakeholders in terms of climate change will result in a more robust and effective final plan," Beverly Mayor Mike Cahill said, "and we encourage everyone to share their input on how we can take action to become more resilient communities."

Hutchings said community resilience goes beyond climate change to planning ways the cities can respond together in case of another pandemic down the line.

"We're looking to a future, and the impacts we're making now, and thinking how can we make our impact positive," she said.