Office of the Climate Change Advisor

Performance Scorecard
Starting this year, each national forest and grassland will be tracking progress using a new 10-point scorecard. The Forest Service's research branch along with regional and national programs will provide support for this agency-wide effort.

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National Roadmap
The Roadmap will help to guide the Forest Service as it works to ensure that national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change.

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Performance Scorecard for Implementing the Forest Service Climate Change Strategy

Starting this year, each National Forests and Grassland will use a new 10-point scorecard to report accomplishments and plans for improvement toward a yes answer to ten questions in four dimensions – organizational capacity, engagement, adaptation, and mitigation. By 2015, each is expected to answer yes to at least seven of the scorecard questions, with at least one yes in each dimension. The goal is to create a balanced approach to climate change that includes managing forests and grasslands to adapt to changing conditions, mitigating climate change, building partnerships across boundaries, and preparing our employees to understand and apply emerging science.

Each national forest and grassland is expected to do seven of the following by 2015:

Employee Education

Are all employees provided with training on the basics of climate change, impacts on forests and grasslands, and the Forest Service response? Are resource specialists made aware of the potential contribution of their own work to climate change response?

Designated Climate Change Coordinators

Is at least one employee assigned to coordinate climate change activities and be a resource for climate change questions and issues? Is this employee provided with the training, time, and resources to make his/her assignment successful?

Program Guidance

Does the Unit have written guidance for progressively integrating climate change considerations and activities into Unit-level operations?

Science and Management Partnerships

Does the Unit actively engage with scientists and scientific organizations to improve its ability to respond to climate change?

Other Partnerships

Have climate change related considerations and activities been incorporated into existing or new partnerships (other than science partnerships)?

Assessing Vulnerability

Has the Unit engaged in developing relevant information about the vulnerability of key resources, such as human communities and ecosystem elements, to the impacts of climate change?

Adaptation Actions

Does the Unit conduct management actions that reduce the vulnerability of resources and places to climate change?

Monitoring

Is monitoring being conducted to track climate change impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation activities?

Carbon Assessment and Stewardship

Does the Unit have a baseline assessment of carbon stocks and an assessment of the influence of disturbance and management activities on these stocks? Is the Unit integrating carbon stewardship with the management of other benefits being provided by the Unit?

Sustainable Operations

Is progress being made toward achieving sustainable operations requirements to reduce the environmental footprint of the Agency?

Download the Performance Scorecard:

Sccorecard. PDF, 32 K, 32 pp

Guidance Document. Doc, 152 K, 45 pp

Scorecard Summary Postcard. PDF, 2.8 MB, 2 p

We encourage you to download a copy of the National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change as well as information about the Agency’s scorecard process.