Karim Beers (left), former coordinator of Get Your GreenBack Tompkins and current director of Southern Tier’s Regional Clean Energy Hub; New York State Sen. Lea Webb (center); and New York State Assemblyperson Anna Kelles stand side by side during the Just Transition! A Summer Celebration on July 8 at Stewart Park. Webb is presenting the proclamation of recognition and appreciation for Get Your GreenBack staff that Beers is holding. Photo by Aaron Fernando.
On Saturday, July 8, over 150 clean energy leaders, educators and community partners gathered at Stewart Park for Just Transition! A Summer Celebration — an event commemorating the ending of Get Your GreenBack Tompkins (GYGB) and celebrating the launch of the Regional Clean Energy Hub, known as Smart Energy Choices in the Southern Tier.
Just Transition! recognized the community members and local partners who have helped bring about the success of GYGB and highlighted what the campaign accomplished, what staff learned, and what leaders hope for in the future. After the main program, attendees spoke with dozens of local energy leaders from various organizations.
GYGB was launched over 10 years ago, with the history of its formation dating back to 2008, according to Peter Bardaglio, head of the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative (TCCPI).
In 2008, the Tompkins County Legislature adopted an emissions reduction target of 80% by 2050. This led to a discussion among TCCPI Steering Committee members regarding how to help Tompkins County meet that goal.
“We wanted to do something that would get behind that and get real work done towards reducing that carbon footprint of ours,” Bardaglio said at the event.
The solution the group came up with, Bardaglio said, was Get Your GreenBack Tompkins — a countywide energy conservation campaign.
By 2011, GYGB was named and formed, thanks to broad grassroots engagement, outreach to communities of color and rural communities, and a practical focus on saving energy and money at the same time.
As the campaign further came together over the coming year, leaders were chosen for GYGB’s Steering Committee, including Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Michael Koplinka-Loehr as chair and Sarah Reistetter as campaign leader.
TCCPI pledged a $20,000 donation to fund GYGB, with further support from Building Bridges and the Park Foundation.
In 2012, GYGB officially launched to the public, naming Karim Beers as its full-time coordinator. From there, the work began.
As Beers explained at the event, it took some time to understand just how much would need to be done to achieve the goals GYGB set for itself.
“I think when Get Your Greenback began in 2011, many people had the idea that helping thousands upon thousands of people take energy- [and] money-saving steps was going to be relatively simple,” he said. “After all, getting an energy audit, improving the energy efficiency of your home is a no-brainer.”
Beers said that initially, he and others thought their work would simply be a matter of disseminating information, as shown through one of its earliest efforts of distributing thousands of bags with information about energy savings to households throughout the county.
“Here's the first lesson I’ll share, which may seem obvious in retrospect: walking and biking, shopping reuse, upgrading to a heat pump, growing our own food — all these steps that save energy and money, each one of them has a set of particular obstacles and benefits from a particular approach or solution,” Beers said. “Information was rarely enough.”
This realization prompted new, creative ideas to emerge among GYGB leadership about how to approach each “step” with the appropriate strategy. This broke down the campaign into four distinct areas: food, waste reduction, transportation and energy.
Throughout its over-10-year run, GYGB worked with community partners to implement a variety of energy- and environmentally focused work and projects to tackle these four areas, including the launch of the ReUse Trail and Streets Alive! and development of the Energy Navigators volunteer program.
GYGB came to a close in 2023, but Smart Energy Choices has continued much of the energy-related work it started. As Beers explained, GYGB focused significantly on individual efforts to make collective change, and Smart Energy Choices takes the natural next step toward collaboration and cooperation to achieve even bigger change.
“Individual steps can be a good starting point,” he said. “The next step, though, is to invite people to go beyond household-level actions. With the Hub, we plan on asking those we help with home energy projects to think about what ways they can help their families, neighbors, friends, co-workers and community make changes as well. Fortunately, individual and social change are mutually reinforcing.”
Leigh Miller, Smart Energy Choices’ community energy advisor for Tompkins County, speaks about the Clean Energy Regional Hub program during the Just Transition! A Summer Celebration event July 8 at Stewart Park. Photo by Aaron Fernando.
The Regional Clean Energy Hub program — made up of 12 statewide Hubs — launched in 2022. The program, supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), provides education and expertise to help localities achieve their clean energy goals.
Smart Energy Choices serves all residents, small businesses, affordable property and nonprofits in the Southern Tier region, with a focus on underserved or otherwise limited opportunity communities. The Hub aims to help residents and business owners be more comfortable in their homes and businesses and save money on their energy bills, as explained by Tompkins County Community Energy Advisor (CEA) Leigh Miller.
Miller said that Smart Energy Choices acts as a bridge between NYSERDA, its programs and local communities.
“NYSERDA has funding programs to help New Yorkers, especially lower-income New Yorkers, afford energy upgrades, and the Hubs help inform communities about those programs,” she said at the event. “We also help NYSERDA learn about the counties that we serve and their needs to inform their programs.”
Most of the Hubs’ work consists of energy education and advising. CEAs like Miller provide energy education through various means, such as giving presentations or doing similar outreach at various county locations and then following up with the people they meet there to provide individualized advice.
“A quick story to illustrate that: last week, I was contacted by a lower-income mobile homeowner who was confused about this energy bill and concerned that he might be paying too much for it,” Miller said. “And since he didn't use the computer much, he came in person at our office, we looked over an energy bill to help him understand it, suggested some changes to his energy supply that can help bring that cost down, and then we also got him connected with some programs to get an energy audit, insulation and possibly heat pumps.”
Just like GYGB was established to help Tompkins County reach its energy-reduction goals, the Hubs were created to help the state reach its energy-reduction goals. New York State has ambitious climate goals under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act including 100% zero emission electricity by 2040 and 85% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Advisors like Miller work to help individuals upgrade their homes, with those small changes ultimately adding up to reduce emissions which has a substantial statewide benefit for communities, Miller said.
Learn more about GYGB at getyourgreenbacktompkins.org and Smart Energy Choices at its About Us page.