2025 Mass Save Climate Leader
About the City of Framingham
The City of Framingham is located about 20 miles west of Boston, Massachusetts. Incorporated in 1700, Framingham celebrates its 325th year in 2025. The city now has a population of over 71,000 and continues to serve as a manufacturing and retail hub for the surrounding area.
Why They Are a 2025 Climate Leader
The City of Framingham continues to demonstrate sustainability leadership in the Massachusetts MetroWest region. In 2022, the Framingham City Council issued a Climate Emergency Declaration to set a goal for the City to achieve an equitable transition to net zero emissions by 2050.
In working toward this mission, Framingham has been recognized as a 2025 Climate Leader for their commitment to decarbonization and continued investment in energy efficient technologies such as LED lighting and controls, refrigeration, HVAC, water heating, and appliance upgrades, leading to a lifetime emissions reduction of over 800 metric tons of CO2. Even before they had become one of the Commonwealth’s Green Communities in 2014, Framingham began to utilize air-source heat pumps to provide clean and efficient heating and cooling for municipal facilities.
Today, two of Framingham’s municipal facilities – the Farley Building and Fire Station #5 – are participating in the Eversource Geothermal Pilot Project, benefitting from clean heating and cooling provided by ground-source heat pumps while also providing significant borefield capacity to support the operation of Eversource’s networked system and its approximately 33 additional buildings. In alignment with their goals to accelerate the transition to net zero emissions, Framingham is continuing to partner with HEET and Eversource on the U.S. Department of Energy’s District-Scale Geothermal Energy Pilots Program to expand this system, bringing clean heating and cooling to even more community members.
As they work to electrify and decarbonize their municipal building portfolio, Framingham has also maintained a strong focus on empowering its community members to make meaningful improvements across homes and businesses. Alongside the Town of Natick, Framingham participates in the Community First Partnership offered by the Sponsors of Mass Save to provide cost-saving energy efficiency solutions to residents and small businesses. Between 2022 and 2024, Framingham’s collaboration in the Community First Partnership Program has supported over 631 energy assessments, 264 HVAC upgrades, and 223 weatherization projects for residents in addition to their active participation in the Eversource Main Streets events to support local small businesses. These initiatives represent a core component of Framingham’s efforts to advance climate equity, which also include prioritization of multilingual communications, improving utility bill literacy, and reducing energy burden for low-income families.
