Sustainability Plan | Hailey Sustainability Action Plan

Hailey Sustainability Action Plan

Welcome - we're so glad you're here!

The City of Hailey is working with our community to create a Sustainability Action Plan (SAP). The SAP will help Hailey continue to build on the great sustainability actions our community has already made, while moving forward with deeper community involvement, shared regional strategies, and greater organization and transparency.

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Understanding Sustainability and Resilience

Sustainability is about using resources wisely to ensure that future generations can enjoy the same quality of life we do today. It focuses on practical actions like reducing waste, saving money through energy efficiency, and protecting the land, air, and water we all depend on. It's not just about taking care of our environment—it's also about making smart choices for long-term economic and community benefits.

Resilience, in the context of a changing climate, refers to the ability of communities and ecosystems to prepare for, adapt to, recover from, and thrive despite the impacts of things like drought, wildfire, flooding, or heat waves. It involves actions like strengthening infrastructure, protecting natural resources, and planning for extreme weather events to reduce risks and ensure long-term sustainability. Resilience helps ensure that we can maintain a good quality of life, protect our environment, and support economic stability even as the climate changes.

What is the Hailey Sustainability Action Plan?

At its heart, the Hailey Sustainability Action Plan is an invitation—a call to every resident, business, and organization in our community to come together and imagine a future where Hailey thrives in closer harmony with our environment.

This isn’t just a plan; it’s an opportunity. An opportunity to rethink how we live, work, and grow. To take part in a participatory process that elevates your voice, your ideas, and your vision for a healthier, more resilient Hailey. Together, we’ll craft creative strategies that balance the unique needs of the Hailey community and our cherished local ecosystems, fostering a vibrant future for generations to come.

The Hailey Sustainability Action Plan embraces living differently. It asks us to explore new ways of building, consuming, and connecting. It inspires us to embrace both innovation and time-tested solutions to reduce our environmental impact, protect our natural resources, and strengthen our local economy.

The Sustainability Action Plan is not a mandate - the City of Hailey will not force you to buy an electric vehicle, install solar panels on your roof, or completely stop watering your lawn. This plan seeks to foster stewardship of our resources, shared learning, and a mutual respect for individual actions that support a more sustainable Hailey. There is no such thing as perfection in sustainable living, but we all can start somewhere and continue to strive for improvement.

Thank you for joining us on this journey - we're excited to move forward, together.

Why create a Sustainability Action Plan?

"A sum that is greater than its parts"

A Sustainability Action Plan (SAP) is a strategic document that empowers City government and the community to reduce environmental harm and increase our preparedness and resilience against future climate threats like drought, extreme heat, flooding, or less winter snowpack.
A SAP creates integration across different City operations (planning and zoning and transportation) and local livelihoods (the increase in electric vehicle ownership, and ensuring we have enough local workforce trained to fix and maintain these vehicles).
By connecting goals and viewing sustainability through multiple perspectives (environmental, economic, social/cultural, community health), we reduce the redundancy of our actions and programs, increase efficiency in making on-the-ground change, and amplify the end result/impact for people and communities.

Local Impact

The City of Hailey supports the work of Blaine County, regional and state partners, and the national and global network of local governments seeking to reduce their environmental harm and create healthier, more resilient communities for their people.
The City of Hailey supports the Blaine County Climate Action Plan, and wants to ensure there is a strategic plan for achieving these goals, while also being relevant to the context of Hailey, supported by Hailey community members, and scaled to the capacity of Hailey government operations.
The SAP invites participation by the community – many folks in Hailey support sustainability actions, but are unsure of where to begin or how they can participate. The SAP gives our community a launching point for taking action on their own terms, but also in ways that support the broader goals within Hailey’s vision for a more sustainable future.

Better Governance

The SAP will allow both Hailey government and our community members to prioritize actions and track progress over time, actively strengthening our accountability and good governance.
The SAP can offer our community measurable strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Reduction of emissions is the cornerstone of Hailey and Blaine County’s 2020 Clean Energy Resolution. Now, with both the County Climate Action Plan and the Hailey SAP, we will have measurable strategies and actions that will help reach these commitments on renewed timelines.
The SAP will be a valuable tool for securing grant funding. It demonstrates organization, foresight, and community buy-in. Grants are critical sources of funding for new sustainability projects, filling in funding gaps and maintaining a balanced city budget over time. The more grant funding that can be secured by the City of Hailey, the less our government needs to rely on increased tax burden and bonds to fund public improvements over time.

The Process

Research other peer community’s plans, and establish the kind of plan we believe will best serve Hailey (a plan that includes both government and community level actions)
Apply the Blaine County CAP goals and objectives, integrating these actions into the creation of a new Sustainability Section of the Comprehensive Plan
Gather background data on Hailey’s past and modeled future climate trends to better understand risk and vulnerabilities that may be driven by climate change in the future. This understanding will help to create the most proactive, impactful goals and outcomes in the future.
Create the topic areas for the SAP
- Energy
- Built Environment
- Waste and Circularity
- Transportation
- Land and Water
- Nature-based Solutions

Create Ad Hoc Citizen’s Advisory Committee
Work with the Advisory Committee to draft goals and objectives for each topic area of the SAP, which are integrated with the broader applicable goals of the Blaine County CAP.
Provide draft sections to stakeholders, Council, Hailey City Staff, technical experts for review and feedback
Edit goals and objectives and have Advisory Committee and public review and provide feedback on prioritization, timing, etc.
Final review and editing process
Adoption by Council
Get to work!

Ad Hoc Citizen's Advisory Committee

Hailey Staff believe strongly in an SAP that is highly informed and accessible to our community. The creation of an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee will help ensure that goals and strategies are aligned with the vision of our community and supported by them. This will lead to deeper ownership, understanding, and outcome impact from the SAP. Advisory Committees also allow for more nuanced conversations and an understanding of how sustainability relates to the daily life of broad cross section of Hailey community members. City Staff are also expecting to learn quite a lot from this process, especially in regards to governance and community outreach.

Hailey Staff seek to assemble an Ad Hoc Advisory Committee that is not only made up of technical experts in certain areas of sustainability, but also other community members who have a passion for improving life in Hailey through the lens of sustainability, and who bring a different perspective and unique background. For example, someone who works in HVAC and is excited about providing energy efficient solutions for their customers. As a business owner or employee in this sector, this potential Committee Member would help Staff understand the on-the-ground realities, challenges, and/or unintended consequences of pursuing certain energy efficiency-related goals or programs, before these goals were potentially adopted by the City of Hailey.

The Ad Hoc Advisory Committee will participate in an extended series of meetings, with ideally 2 meetings per topic area of the plan. Committee Members will provide feedback on SAP goals, strategies, and realistic targets for timelines and milestones. They will also provide a valuable perspective from outside of City Hall, educating City Staff on where engagement may be lacking or where community support for certain types of projects or programs might be highest.

Committee Meetings are held both in-person and virtually and are open to the public. Meeting schedules and agendas can be found at https://haileycityhall.org/public-meetings/.