Telling the Story About the Climate & Equity Benefits of Energy Efficiency & Clean Transportation

Host: Southwest Energy Efficiency Project
Openings: 1
Project Focus: Affordable Housing, Transportation / Mobility, Public Health, Climate Adaptation, Climate Mitigation, Disaster Response / Emergency Management, Urban Planning, Energy Efficiency
Skills Needed: Research, Stakeholder Engagement, Self-Motivated

Service Needs & Plans

Founded in 2001, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) is a nonprofit organization that works to ensure a healthy, equitable and low carbon future by advancing energy efficiency, electrification, and clean transportation solutions in the southwest states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. These goals are achieved through advocacy, research and education. SWEEP works closely with state and local elected officials, conservation community partners, public utility commissions, state and federal agencies, utilities, clean energy businesses, and national laboratories.

Historically, SWEEP has been known in the energy efficiency world for its technical and policy expertise on energy efficiency, clean transportation and electrification — and not for its communications prowess or the widespread visibility of its work. The result is a lost opportunity to tell the story about the importance of the work to curb energy waste and reduce carbon emissions, and the many benefits it provides to air quality, climate health, economic savings, and equity. While this is an important growth area for the organization, current SWEEP staff don’t have the time to take this on; there’s a capacity gap — both to produce the content and to create new organizational practices around amplifying this content more broadly to key stakeholders and the public.

Specifically, SWEEP needs additional capacity to research and communicate about examples and case studies of on-the-ground climate solutions, including where and how climate projects have successfully elevated equity, as well as the benefits these projects create, from public health and climate emission reductions to job creation and consumer savings. Expanding organizational capacity to “tell the story” would benefit all of SWEEP’s climate-related policy work — on energy efficiency, building electrification, clean transportation, and industrial efficiency — by fostering a broader base of public understanding and support for these important climate solutions. This in turn will enable SWEEP to accelerate the adoption of these policies and programs at the state and local level, furthering climate resilience in communities across the state and region.

Project Description

The overarching goals of the project are:

  1. Elevate specific examples of where individuals, businesses and local communities have implemented energy efficiency, building electrification and clean transportation projects
  2. Increase public appreciation of the economic, environmental and equity benefits of energy efficiency and clean transportation work

In general, SWEEP would like to expand capacity in several project categories:

  • Identifying and producing case studies, fact sheets and videos on successful climate-related projects within Colorado, e.g., all-electric homes, low-income weatherization projects, green building code adoption, etc.
  • Interviewing practitioners on barriers and obstacles to implementation of climate solutions
  • Researching and highlighting best practices regarding improving energy efficiency in low-income, BIPOC and underserved communities to use in informing SWEEP’s policy and program work.

The role of the Fellow would be to work in partnership with SWEEP’s Program Directors (Buildings, Transportation, Industrial and Utilities) to conduct requested research, write up case studies, and implement communication strategies in the form of social media, fact sheets, blogs, website content, etc. SWEEP has a number of projects a Fellow could serve on; actual projects can be tailored to meet the specific interests and skills of the Fellow. These include:

  1. Assist SWEEP’s work to accelerate all-electric home construction by interviewing Colorado home builders to collect case studies of new homes being built all-electric, and to identify the obstacles that are preventing more builders from installing more heat pump water heaters in new homes. This information would help inform SWEEP’s policy efforts on building electrification, including our collaborative project, www.LoveElectric.org, to educate builders and homeowners on the benefits of all-electric home construction. Written and videotaped success stories could be added directly to websites, and marketed via social media, fact sheets and blogs.
  2. Help SWEEP incorporate equity more explicitly into our policy and program work by researching and compiling best practices from states and cities around the country where program design and/or funding was successful in directing benefits to low-income or underserved households and communities; and then work with SWEEP’s Program Directors to identify the best opportunities for incorporating these practices into our work in Colorado. The Fellow would produce a white paper on general design principles that are key to furthering equity and assess potential policy campaigns to determine which would be most impactful and feasible in addressing climate justice goals.
  3. Assist with SWEEP’s campaign to help state and local governments effectively spend the federal funds provided through the bipartisan infrastructure law on climate projects and programs. Specifically, the Fellow could work with our Federal Funding Implementation Coordinators to collect and write-up success stories of where local communities have won grants of key climate projects or used increased formula funding on projects that further climate goals. These vignettes would be distributed via social media, fact sheets and blogs to inspire other local governments to adopt similar initiatives.
  4. Help SWEEP’s Program Directors identify and prioritize local communities in Colorado that are ripe to target for climate policy work such as energy code updates, EV infrastructure projects, etc. Specifically, the Fellow would produce a spreadsheet of how different communities meet key criteria through Internet research and contacting local governments. This would inform where SWEEP would target local climate policy campaigns in the state.
Desired Skills

The ideal Fellow will have the following traits and skills:

  • Solid research and writing skills
  • Passion for (and ideally some understanding of) energy efficiency, clean transportation, climate and climate justice issues
  • Commitment to equity and inclusivity
  • Ability to collaborate and work well with others
  • Track record of being self-sufficient and taking initiative
  • Attention to detail and follow-through
  • Experience developing communication materials, including graphics and social media messaging, is a plus.
Organization & Community Highlights

SWEEP operates as a collaborative team, where staff members are supported and respected for their contributions. As an organization, we tend to be decentralized and non-hierarchical. While SWEEP has staff spread across five states and most work remotely, we have a core group of staff in Colorado, specifically in Boulder (where our office is) and in Denver (where we rent space in a nonprofit hub downtown). A Colorado Fellow could have a hybrid experience of serving remotely and periodically serving from one of our offices, in the rhythm and schedule that fits the Fellow’s preferences and needs, and achieves the project goals. Other SWEEP staff would look for opportunities to include the Fellow in both in-person and virtual events that would contribute to the Fellow’s learning and networking goals.

SWEEP has adopted organizational goals around equity, diversity and inclusion and is committed to incorporating equity as a lens through which we look when developing our policy and program positions. While we are largely still a white organization, we are actively trying to recruit more diversity to our board and staff and in the last year have established a Board Executive Committee where two of three board members are people of color. We recognize this will be an ongoing journey and that we have much more work to do — and would welcome a Fellow with passion for helping us accelerate this important work.

Colorado is an exciting state to do climate and climate justice work in given that the current leadership in the state legislature and Governor’s office are committed to achieving the state’s ambitious climate emissions reduction targets and doing so in an equitable way that addresses historic disparities. Consequently, Colorado has been a climate leader in the Rocky Mountain/middle-US region and has adopted nation-leading policies on an array of climate topics, from methane reduction to greenhouse gas emissions reduction in transportation planning to building decarbonization. The legislature has also adopted recent legislation to require state agencies to include equity and outreach to disproportionately impacted populations in their rulemakings and project implementation. Consequently, it’s a good place to do professional work on climate resilience.

Additionally, the Denver metropolitan area is an exciting place to live and work. Denver is a large city with progressive climate policies and a vibrant culture, while nearby communities like Boulder offer world class scenery and outdoor recreation opportunities.

Remote or On-Site Placement

Most SWEEP staff work remotely some or all of the time. Ideally, a Fellow would also serve remotely, with regular in-person visits to one of the SWEEP offices in Boulder or Denver, with flexibility based on the Fellow’s preferences, ability and desire to work independently and the demands of a particular project activity.

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