Chinese Progressive Association members show their signs at the October 6th Energy Efficiency Advisory Council (EEAC) meeting.
The Massachusetts Green Communities Act, passed over a year ago, demands a 10% to 25% reduction in greenhouse gases by the year 2020. But today, energy consumption is rising in Massachusetts, and utility company reduction programs have long saved less than 1% of the state’s electrical use per year.
Massachusetts’ energy reduction goals looked impossible. This October, the state found a solution from an unexpected source: working class communities and unions.
The Green Justice Coalition, a group of community organizations, labor unions, and environmental organizations, designed a plan that seeks to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create solid construction jobs in the state’s highest unemployment communities, and provide up-front financing so working class families can save money and do deep retrofits on their homes.
On October 27th, the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council (EEAC) voted to adopt the Green Justice Coalition plan.
125 members of the Green Justice Coalition's base organizations held up signs asking the EEAC to adopt Green Justice demands.
An Economic and Environmental Justice Crisis
Until now, the state’s utilities have marketed energy services to individual consumers. Small contractors work customer by customer; there are no efficiencies of scale. The Green Justice Coalition got out of this box with a concept called “bundling”. Community based organizations will go door to door in neighborhoods they know, and mobilize residents. Once they assemble hundreds of homes in one retrofit contract, high road and union contractors can successfully bid on the work. They can hire community residents with good pay and benefits, thorough on-the-job training, and proper job classification.
“Bundling” is a business solution because it sets up contracts that union contractors can win. It is also a power solution because it unites the interests of community organizations and unions.
The Green Justice Solution
Victory! Green Justice activists congratulate EEAC council members for adopting the Coalition's demands.
The state’s utility companies have written the Green Justice formula into their three-year plans, which they will start implementing in two months. On October 27th, the state earmarked $1.4 billion in ratepayer fees and other funds to pay for the plan, which includes community organizing work. The Green Justice Coalition is now negotiating pilot projects with the state’s two largest utility companies, NSTAR and National Grid. Lessons learned from the initial pilots will be plowed into more new pilots.
The Green Justice agreement is a triple win. It sets high standards for the new, rapidly expanding residential energy efficiency industry. It brings jobs and services to the working class neighborhoods that need them most. Finally, the Green Justice Solution will cut greenhouse gas emissions and help the state meet its climate goals, especially in marginalized communities with the draftiest, oldest, and least energy efficient homes.
Green Justice Coalition members clap for EEAC members as they leave the hearing.
A Testament to Base Building
Without grassroots power, the green economy would pass us by. Energy efficiency programs would reach few people in our communities. Those they did reach couldn’t afford the up-front costs, and they certainly wouldn’t get hired to do the retrofit work. The new green economy would be Business As Usual.
The Green Justice Coalition changed this story by mobilizing coalition members’ base for EEAC hearings, surveying lower income neighborhoods, and gathering thousands of cards supporting our key demands. We visited all the EEAC members and got the most sympathetic to carry our demands into backroom negotiations. We met with utility executives and showed them how we could multiply their efficiency work.
Now we’re going to implement our pilots and make sure they expand to the entire state.
