RGGI Your Climate Solution Ideas

Every three years, the State of New Jersey drafts a plan to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to fight climate change. Getting the public’s feedback on the latest plan is critical to the process. To improve the scale and quality of public input, stakeholder agencies worked with the Office of Innovation to employ an innovative survey method to engage thousands of New Jerseyans and gather valuable insights that will help shape future climate change solutions.

Challenge

Through RGGI, New Jersey generates more than $100 million annually in funds that are earmarked for greenhouse gas reduction programs. As a new strategic funding plan is developed, it will outline how this money will be allocated — and public input is always part of the action. Previously, the State gathered public input through in-person workshops and comments submitted via email. Given the limitations of in-person events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a change in engagement methods was needed. The State required a new approach to gathering feedback and ideas from a significant number of constituents, especially those in under-resourced communities, who are often disproportionately impacted by carbon emissions.

Innovation In Action

To address this challenge, the Office of Innovation worked with project stakeholders to deploy All Our Ideas — a free, open-source survey platform developed by a Princeton University research group. This user-friendly platform prompts users to prioritize one of two preset choices — once a selection is made, a new random pair of choices is presented. As users repeat this process, the preset options are effectively ranked in order of prioritization. Users can also submit their own ideas to be added to the preset options.Significant engagement was achieved through a robust and collaborative engagement campaign involving easily shareable content amplified by partners via email and social media. A specific emphasis was placed on working with community-based organizations to target populations in under-resourced communities.

Impact + Metrics

By the end of the four-week voting period, 6,370 New Jerseyans engaged with the campaign, made selections 24,414 times and submitted 163 ideas.
The results of the engagement can be organized into five categories: buildings, energy grid, transportation, carbon sequestration and organic waste.

Status

While the outreach for this phase of the RGGI strategic funding plan development has concluded, the insights informed the funding priorities of the final 2023-2025 plan.

Resources and Additional Reading

Partners

NJ State Department of Environmental Protection
NJ Economic Development Authority
NJ Board of Public Utilities

Last updated on 12/19/23