In case you missed it, collaboration is in vogue these days, despite, or perhaps because of, partisan divides.
Collaboration among public institutions is essential when change is required. Especially when the institutions are mutually dependent. For example, if counties and cities encourage the adoption of new technologies that use or produce energy locally, planning and delivery of energy utility services is affected. If energy utilities offer programs that engage their customers in changing the energy infrastructure inside buildings or vehicles, local governments must account for these changes in their code enforcement, project permitting, and non-energy infrastructure planning and maintenance activities.
What’s seems to move the local carbon footprint needle best and fastest is the cumulative effect of a lot of individual decisions US families and businesses are mostly free to make. At a minimum they require good credit and modest, prudent initiative. Local governments and energy utilities can make such decisions easier or harder. Easier if they collaborate. Much harder if they don’t. What would local energy collaboration look like if it became the norm across the US? To read more, click here.