Western Climate Initiative
The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) is a regional collaboration of seven U.S. states and four Canadian provinces working together to establish a regional, economy-wide approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This comprehensive initiative includes a cap-and-trade program along with other complementary policies, to support meeting regional reduction goals for greenhouse gas emissions (15 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020). Since 2008, Ross & Associates has supported the WCI Partners, under contract to the Western Governors’ Association (the overall Program Manager for the WCI).
As part of this support, Ross & Associates conducted a website redesign for WCI in 2009. Ross & Associates worked with WCI staff and stakeholders to identify the key requirements of the new website, including features and content to be migrated from the previous website as well as new features and content to be developed. Using the information gathered during this process, Ross & Associates created a detailed site architecture for the new website (http://www.westernclimateinitiative.org), and implemented the technical infrastructure to support the new website using the Joomla content management system. Ross & Associates also implemented the graphical elements and layout for the new site, migrated content from the previous website, and developed additional content as needed. In light of the goal to accommodate site administration by multiple staff, Ross & Associates developed full documentation describing the use and administration of the WCI website, and conducted trainings via webinars as needed. Ross & Associates continues to provide ongoing site updates and maintenance.