Membership – CNCA

Fostering a “Next Wave” of Carbon Neutral City Leaders

To accelerate deep carbon reduction activity in a wider set of cities, CNCA fosters sharing between CNCA members and other leading cities around the world. CNCA sponsors a number of activities that open up opportunities for non-members to participate, including:

Inviting other cities to participate in Innovation Fund projects;
Requiring Innovation Fund projects to be scalable and replicable by other cities;
Welcoming use of the Deep Carbon Reduction Planning Framework and “80×50” Plan Outline by all cities;
Inviting other cities to participate in CNCA lesson-sharing webinars;
Holding “Getting to Carbon Neutrality” workshops for other cities; and
Publicly posting key products and learnings from Innovation Fund projects.

CNCA Membership Criteria

To be considered for membership, cities must fulfill the following membership criteria:

City Council has formally adopted community-wide carbon neutrality goal across all sectors (electricity, thermal, transportation, waste).
City has developed, or is currently developing, community-wide carbon neutrality implementation plan.
City has dedicated budget and staff allocated to implementing its carbon neutrality implementation plan.
City is committed to active participation in the Alliance (interested in learning from other cities, committed to sharing with other cities, and committed to advancing urban carbon neutrality goals globally).

Process for Interested Cities

Make sure you meet the CNCA Membership Criteria.
Find an existing CNCA member city to nominate you.
Complete the CNCA New Member Questionnaire.
Once your questionnaire is finalized, we will schedule your City’s nomination for one of the CNCA’s monthly Steering Committee calls. On the call, your nominating City will make its pitch for your membership, and a representative from the nominated City will be invited to be on that part of the call to add and/or address any questions from the Committee. After the pitch and Q&A, the nominated City is asked to drop off the call for the Committee to deliberate and decide whether to extend a membership invitation.

Selecting New CNCA Members

Existing members select potential members for nomination based on the characteristics they feel would add significant value to the Alliance and based on how well they meet the CNCA Membership Criteria.
Per CNCA Selection Criteria direction, priority is given to cities in global regions currently underrepresented and larger cities to maintain the Alliance’s city size balance.
Members wishing to nominate a new city will propose the City and present the City’s completed New Member Questionnaire to the Selection Committee for the Committee’s approval.

For more information about CNCA membership, please email contact@carbonneutralcities.org.