Vermont Environmental Consortium

March 20, 2007
Local Green Groups Transforming Vermont
by
Daniel Hecht

It’s hard to provide a physical description of Cheryl King Fisher, because these days she’s visible only as a blur. Like others working in environment-related fields nowadays, she’s racing to keep up with new opportunities and demands for her services.

A longtime Montpelier resident, she directs the New England Grassroots Environment Fund (NEGEF), which helps citizens engage in environmental action.

She’s busy because people increasingly yearn to act on behalf of their values and hopes. We want to live in a healthy environment; we also want jobs, food, warmth, light, and some certainty that our communities will endure as we love them. And we’re getting nervous.

Fortunately, one of the major social developments of the last decade has been the worldwide proliferation of groups like NEGEF. They’ve been creating community networks, new economic models, step-by-step agendas, municipal greening initiatives, and sustainable job programs.

If you’re ready to work for measurable, material results, you can now find allies in towns throughout the state. Whatever issues motivate you, many organizations are available to help you join your neighbors in constructive action.

NEGEF is a great starting place. Based in Montpelier but working throughout the region, it helps citizens start initiatives for sustainable communities by coordinating trainings, organizing local committees, and facilitating development of step-by-step greening agendas. NEGEF also provides small grants to fund community projects.

As an information clearinghouse, NEGEF is terrific; I owe much of the following to Cheryl King Fisher. More info: www.grassrootsfund.org.

Another fine group is Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, which also works to help form local action teams. Since the examples of other communities can illustrate what’s succeeded and what hasn’t, VECAN works to network towns with others that are already on the greening path. They also publish a useful handbook, the Town Energy and Climate Action Guide. Info at www.vnrc.org.
The basic principle of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund is that sustainability requires a viable economy. VSJF initiates and helps fund market-driven, business-based approaches to economic, social, and environmental challenges.

One of their methods is to build markets for green products and services, often before there are providers of them. That pre-established demand attracts entrepreneurs, and, presto!, a new industry is born. The astonishing growth in biodiesel production in Vermont – quadrupling in 2006 -- is due largely to the fabulous VSJF and the industries it has nurtured.

VSJF offers grants, technical assistance, and links to help start and grow sustainable enterprises. Visit www.vsjf.org.

If you own a business of any kind and want to save money as you’re saving the environment, contact the Vermont Business Environmental Partnership. VBEP will show you how reducing energy consumption and embracing other environmentally-friendly practices can improve your bottom line. Its step-by-step greening program comes with technical assistance and certification to businesses that achieve specific goals. Check out www.vtsbdc.org.
If you’re ready to build green or renovate your home or business facility, get in touch with the rip-roaring, fast-growing Vermont Green Building Network. A statewide association of architects, builders, and technology contractors, VGBN offers topical workshops, conferences, trainings, and referrals: www.vgbn.org.
Sustainability doesn’t happen overnight, because it takes time to replace energy- and resource-squandering infrastructure. To get your town on the path to a viable future, you might look to an exceptional for-profit company, Yellow Wood Associates. Their Green Community Technologies (GCT) is a municipal assessment and planning program that inventories all of a town’s holdings – the furnace in town hall, say, or sidewalks or street lights – and identifies ways to cut energy use, reduce environmental impacts, and conserve natural resources. There’s more info at www.yellowwood.org.
The 10% Challenge provides a three-step program that encourages households and businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among the tools they offer is neat online emissions calculator, which allows you to determine your present energy use and emissions output -- and chart your progress toward reducing them. You can see it at www.10percentchallenge.org.
If your project is ready for professional advice and assistance, I humbly offer Vermont Environmental Consortium as your best resource.

VEC is a statewide network of environmental professionals; it exists to help green enterprises achieve their goals, to implement special projects, and to connect people with expert resources in every environmental discipline. Through our database, you can locate any and all of Vermont’s green products and services; stop by www.VECgreenvalley.org.

There are scores of other worthy organizations, but these should get you started. We Vermonters are fortunate to have retained a strong sense of participatory community life; by locally implementing new ideas for environmental preservation and green economics, our state is defining solutions that, perhaps, the rest of the country can benefit from. We can all take part in this rather grand experiment.

###

Daniel Hecht is a novelist and executive director of Vermont Environmental Consortium. For more information on any Green Grapevine topic, write to vec@norwich.edu.

<< Back