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Within the sustainable consumption community we have been talking for a long time about the need for system change. And there has been no shortage of ideas on that front: from reducing consumption by way of shorter working hours, to reducing competitive consumption by way of less inequality, to controlling advertising, to supporting stronger communities and local economies, to retrofitting suburbs, to replacing GDP as a measure of societal progress, and even to questioning capitalism. 

But politically it is impossible to sell the idea of systemic change to citizens who believe in American exceptionalism, an ideology in which they have been inculcated from birth.  American exceptionalism holds that the U.S. is the best country on earth, that we do everything better and have nothing to learn from other countries; and that individualistic US citizens know best how to spend their money for the benefit of their families and immediate communities, and that contributing taxes toward societal institutions and collective action is highly suspect. This ideology has become especially strong ever since President Reagan convinced Americans forty years ago that the government cannot solve our collective problems because “the government is the problem”.

In a recent article in the Atlantic entitled “The Coronavirus Called the America’s Bluff” a historian and Pulitzer laureate Anne Applebaum deconstructs this myth (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-showed-america-wasnt-task/608023/). Covid-19 virus – she writes – reveals the fundamental dysfunction of the US as a society. This dysfunction goes way beyond the current Trump administration, which visibly failed to respond in a timely manner (largely because the personality cult in the president’s inner circles and the fact that the President cares about the stock market, not about public health). “American bureaucracies, and the antiquated, hidebound, unloved federal government of which they are part, are no longer up to the job of coping with the kinds of challenges that face us in the 21st century.”

Global pandemics, cyberwarfare, and climate change are threats that require flexible and highly motivated and educated professional bureaucracies, a national health-care system that covers the entire population and is immune to political winds; and public schools that produce thoughtful and engaged citizenry. The country also needs institutional structures which protect citizens from chronic economic insecurity whereby even middle class families are one paycheck or one major illness away from homelessness. It shows the critical need for paid sick leave, unemployment benefits for hourly workers, and other social protections. It glaringly reveals the vulnerability of the economy that depends so heavily on household consumption, including the GHG-intensive air travel.

In relation to American exceptionalism, the coronavirus starkly shows that society-wide existential threats require a collective response, strong and trustworthy public institutions, and a strong tax base, including fair contributions from top earners and corporations. Individuals cannot develop their own private response to a pandemic, just as they cannot have their own private little levies against rising sea levels, or private little protections from the effects of unraveling economy.

There is a chance in this election year that the Covid-19 crisis will lead our citizenry to see the glaring dysfunction of the US institutions. When that happens, a decisive crack will be inflicted in the wall of denial built around the mirage of American exceptionalism.

In his “interstitial” theory of social change celebrated American sociologist Eric Olin Wright, who died in 2019, envisions new modes of social organization appearing in the fractures of the dominant system, eventually leading to radical social change (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Olin_Wright). I hope that the Covid-19 pandemic will prove his theory right.

 

This blog is a part of the Frontier Series, a collaboration between SCORAI and the Hot or Cool Institute that brings you lessons learned, personal experiences and insights from the cutting edge of climate and sustainability research and practice.

I live in Newton, Massachusetts. With a population of 90,000, the city is located on the northeast coast of the U.S., a few miles west of Boston. Over the past three years I have been deeply immersed in pushing the city toward reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Newton’s carbon footprint is high, proportional to our average income, and the building stock is the primary source of emissions. While politically liberal and progressive, our city had taken few steps to reduce its carbon footprint until three years ago.

Approximately a third of the U.S. population lives in midsize cities and towns like Newton, with populations ranging between 25,000 and 250,000, and there are many lessons to be learned from the challenges and successes we have had.

Setting the scene

So far, we have achieved several key successes in Newton: In 2019, the City approved the Newton Climate Action Plan which includes an ambitious policy agenda, measurable goals such as the commitment to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and specific metrics for tracking progress.  The City has also adopted an electricity aggregation contract with 80% renewable electricity. We have also worked with the business community to help them realize that change is under way and are setting key implementation projects and policy processes in motion.

To explain our progress, I first introduce the principal actors in this drama: the Energy Commission, which I chair; the local environmental grassroots organizations (Green Newton, Mothers Out Front, and 350Mass.org); the City Council and the Sustainability Team in City Hall. The Energy Commission, established in 1979, is an independent body of nine highly achieving professionals appointed for renewable three-year terms, with no compensation and minimal administrative support. We function as a team of colleagues, set our own agenda, come up with policy proposals for the City, perform technical analysis, implement specific projects, and advocate; all as volunteers.

The City Council and the Sustainability Team are actors two and three. These are political bodies with ears to the ground, generally risk averse, and have a strong preference for actions that have already been tested elsewhere. The environmental organizations are the fourth actor. In principle, they are natural allies of the Energy Commission, but our respective agendas, priorities and modus operandi often diverge. Members of the Energy Commission are policy wonks who follow the data and analysis, wherever these may lead it, including generally unpopular regulations and financial incentives; the grassroots community gravitates toward campaigns, protests, and voluntary actions by citizens.

Lessons learned

Through trial and error, we have collectively learned some important lessons for getting things done. First, political goals can be successfully pursued by playing the legislative and executive branches off one another. For example the Energy Commission forced the City’s hand to develop a strong and specific Climate Action Plan by producing its own plan and garnering support from the City Council. Another lesson is that an independent and seemingly powerless body such as Energy Commission can instigate action by producing a technically defensible stance that cannot be ignored. This was the tactic with the climate plan. More recently, we developed a website and a service system called Energy Coach, which connects homeowners with volunteer experts who can answer a wide range of questions related to home retrofits, solar installations, and electrification of heating. The city liked it so much that they took over the maintenance of the service and appointed a person as Energy Coach.

We also proposed major new legislation, modeled on one just adopted by Boston, to require all large commercial buildings to report their energy intensity ratings and to meet specified GHG emission standards. It is a radical step toward reducing emissions from commercial buildings, unloved by buildings owners, and requiring significant government resources to implement. This time, we started with the Mayor as the more likely agent to be persuaded and to persuade the City Council. The Mayor is proceeding with it.

We have also learned that citizen pressure can produce results. The municipality treats the grassroots community and Energy Commission as outsiders while we would prefer to work collaboratively with the city. It is a perennial, unresolvable tension, but it can be attenuated. Under pressure from the grassroots community and the Energy Commission, the city formed an Implementation Working Group that includes city representatives alongside engaged activists and citizens. The Working Group meets regularly to discuss the details of various implementation projects.

We also learned about the power of local coalitions. It was due to pressure from the coalition of Energy Commission and grassroots organizations both environmental and social, that the Mayor adopted the electricity aggregation program with 80% renewables; and that the City council approved a large buildings project, deeply resented by many conservative groups, that will become a truly sustainable village in Newton: high density, walkable, with Passive House building construction.

We also discovered that there is a strong multiplier effect for actions taken by municipalities because they keenly observe and learn from each other. This presents a great potential for large-scale change: not only do municipalities model their actions on each other, but also through a positive feedback loop, the originator of so-diffused innovation is emboldened to take the next and more radical step. In 2019, Newton adopted 64% renewable electricity in the aggregation contract after its neighbor and rival went for about 40%, the highest in the state at the time. The figure below shows that subsequently several municipalities adopted increasingly higher renewable contracts, and in 2021 Newton, by now hailed as a leader, went up to 80%.

What’s next?

And what of sustainable lifestyles? Newton is simply not ready for a consumption-based inventory, much less an explicit action agenda. My public presentations on the need to reduce house sizes (the average newly built house in the well-to-do and politically liberal Newton is close to 5000 square feet, or 480 square meters) have been met with reproaches about individual freedoms, government overreach, or even accusations of socialist ideology. At this stage, we are trying to make homeowners aware, in a personal way, of the connection between their daily lives and GHG emissions. To that end, the Energy Commission is developing a legislative proposal to require all homeowners to obtain an energy intensity score for their homes, which will be publicly posted. The Commission has developed an easy-to-use computer application that will calculate the score from certain simple data inputs.

This legislative proposal will be very hard to push through. Even the environmentalists in Newton balk at the idea of a mandate and public disclosure of information they consider to be private. It will be an uphill battle – but push we must.

Originally Published in partnership with the Hot or Cool Institute: https://hotorcool.org/hc-posts/lessons-from-the-ground-where-activism-technical-analysis-and-city-action-intersect/