EXECUTIVE ORDER (EO) 14008 TACKLING THE CLIMATE CRISIS AT HOME AND ABROAD (February 2021)
EO 14008 establishes climate considerations as an essential element of U.S. foreign policy and national security. The order directs each federal agency to develop a plan to increase the resilience of its facilities and operations to the impacts of climate change. EO 14008 provides a framework for agencies and federal locations to prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change. DOE Site Sustainability Plan (SSP) Guidance will follow the progression of the order; However, the DOE VARP (vulnerability assessment and resilience plans) process will operate on an independent timeline and will include more robust assessment and planning tools that enable sites to identify, prepare for, and meet the challenges posed by climate change. The VARP implementation will build upon other existing DOE risk assessments initiatives and requires compliance with an annual status and activity update. For a comprehensive description and timeline for implementation see the DOE Vulnerability Assessment and Resilience Planning Guidance see the document provided on this Sustainable ORNL webpage.
To meet the requirements of EO 14008 and to simplify the VARP process, DOE has provided guidance to consolidate previous climate change vulnerability screening and assessment steps and incorporates planning steps for resilience solutions that will be tracked in the DOE Sustainability Dashboard.
Sustainable ORNL is engaged in the support of applicable departments as we work to guide ORNL with the development of a site-specific plan that will comply with DOE VARP requirements. We are working with FEMP (Federal Energy Management Program) and the Office of Science to implement the use of the FEMP Technical Resilience Navigator (TRN) tool to analyze existing plans and initiatives to develop a set of enhanced sustainability and resilience solutions and a Roadmap to Action for ORNL project implementation.