Between hurricanes in Manhattan, severe droughts in California, and changing growing seasons in the MidWest, it is clear that drastic changes are occurring in our atmosphere. These tangible consequences of Climate Change must be met with tangible changes in our energy use and carbon emissions. Across the state of Michigan, the Steering Committee has been working with municipalities to do exactly that. The Steering Committee, which includes EcoWorks and the Regional Energy Office as well as several other non-profits from all over Michigan, is heading the Community Energy Management Pilot that is designed to facilitate energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in municipalities. In order to do so effectively the Steering Committee is also in charge of writing up a comprehensive document, called Best Practices, outlining how to effectively do the work they do.
One of the biggest challenges of writing an umbrella document like Best Practices is also the Steering Committee’s unique opportunity to create something that is set apart from other similar documents. The Steering Committee works with communities ranging from Dearborn, with a population of 100,000 people with a full-time Sustainability Director and budget to match, to Ishpeming and Manistee, towns of 6,000 people with significantly less staff capacity and fewer resources to devote to sustainability initiatives. In order to write the most effective, comprehensive document possible, the full range of communities must be considered and accounted for appropriately. At this point in the project’s progress we have a general outline of the the process as we know it at EcoWorks and the Regional Energy Office. I look forward to getting feedback from our smaller community partners to further examine and outline the differences in this process among communities.
