DALTON, Mass. — The Green Committee overwhelmingly recommended having Blue Strike Environmental as the town's consultant for its Climate Action Plan during its meeting on Monday. 

 

The town issued a request for proposals on March 27 and received two responses: one from Blue Strike Environmental, a Monterey, Calif., company, and the other from Capsus, an international firm based in Mexico. 

 

The committee wants to develop a climate action plan to achieve net zero by 2050 by seeking strategies to decrease the town's dependence on fossil fuels for homes, businesses, municipal facilities, and vehicles. 

 

The plan should be detailed enough, so the town knows what it needs to do and the timing to complete each subproject on time, the request for proposals said. 

 

During the meeting, committee members numerically rated the consulting firms based on the following categories: relevant experience, staffing plan and methodology, ability to complete projects on time, and proposed plan evaluation. Bluestrike's rating was four times higher across all criteria. 

 

Now that the committee has rated the second part of the bidding process, the bidders will submit the estimated cost of the project. 

 

The contract will be awarded to the firm offering the most "advantageous proposal" that takes into consideration all evaluation criteria and price. 

 

The local companies notified of the RFP by committee members were too busy to take on the project, according to the committee.

 

Capsus focuses on developing infrastructure projects that comply with Mexican environmental regulations and collaborates with local governments and international institutions to implement public policies. 

 

It has worked on projects worldwide, including in Palestine, Tunisia, India, Indonesia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Mongolia as well as in California.

 

It has projects in 21 countries, clients on four continents, and has worked in more than 300 cities. 

 

"It almost seemed like Capsus was a 'mistake' because their climate base is the World Bank," Green Committee member David Wasielewski said. 

 

Blue Strikes' client base is mostly in Los Alamos, N.M., Mountain View, Calif., and Davis, N.C. It has offices in Massachusetts, Texas and Ohio. 

 

One of the positive aspects about Blue Stike that committee members emphasized is that it has 18 total employees, four of whom are in the Boston office, Green Committee member Tom Irwin said. 

 

The fact that Blue Strike has an office in Boston means that it "can effectively have boots on the ground in Dalton from that company," Irwin said in a follow-up, adding the company knows New England and know how it works and operates. "There are subtleties for every region." 

 

According to Blue Strikes' website, it offers a three-stage approach to climate action planning, beginning with identifying and understanding the gaps in an organization's sustainability framework. It then works to address these gaps by quantifying the costs and results of specific sustainability strategies. 

 

Blue Strike works with the organization, in this case, the town, to prepare a budget and action plan for implementing these sustainability strategies. 

 

One of the things that the Green Committee is interested in doing is surveys, and although Capsus mentioned surveys, it was just in passing and not as detailed as Blue Strike, committee member Todd Logan said 

 

Blue Strikes' module approach "kind of tired me out a bit," Logan said. Some modules are optional, and it will be interesting to see how this would affect pricing.

 

The town has $60,000 to spend on developing a Climate Action Plan, so if the estimate comes out significantly below, the committee will want to discuss incorporating the add-ons to spend all that money committee member Antonio Pagliarulo said. 

 

One of the things that concerned Irwin about Capsus was that it was not able to organize its proposal effectively. 

 

"So that's very concerning, which is why I gave them a one on their written product. I probably should have given them at zero, but it scared me as to what their final reports was going to look like if that's what they came up with proposals," Irwin said during the meeting. 

 

If he could work as the leader of the team and tell them what to do individually, he would pick Capsus because it is "hungry" and capable. Blue Strikes proposal was organized and addressed the committee concerns more directly and in a way that felt like they could count on the final documents, Irwin said after the meeting.

 

In other news: 

 

The Green Committee voted to write a monthly report to update the Select Board on the status of its current projects.