This week’s Energy Rant is brought to you by guest writer Jessica Wagner, Director of Marketing at Michaels.
The topic of a recent meeting brought to mind a key tenet of so many things in work and life: consistency. I currently serve as the co-chair of my city’s Sustainability Committee. I’ve served on the committee since it was formed in 2021, and I’ve been the co-chair for the past two years. I applied for a spot on this committee to better understand how local government works and to bring my years of marketing and energy-efficiency experience to the community I call home.
The focus of our monthly committee meeting revolved around the city budget. This past April, the city’s referendum failed, leaving it in the unfortunate position of figuring out which services and staff to cut. The first draft of the budget completely cut the sustainability function (2 FTE). Needless to say, that wasn’t well received by the committee. We’re now tasked with developing recommendations for the City Council to consider when the mayor presents his official budget in October.
Interestingly enough, the committee Chair kicked off the meeting with a presentation about the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) and its impact on our climate – locally and globally. Like many things related to our climate, it’s not great news. Last year, the world’s coral reefs hit a tipping point of no return. If we do nothing, AMOC will hit its point of no return ahead of schedule than scientists predicted. This will decimate food supply worldwide, currently cool places will be hot, more flooding and droughts (which one depends on where you are), and all the things we’ve been hearing for years that will happen if we don’t take climate change seriously. I think the main message the Chair was trying to convey was that this isn’t the time to cut anything related to sustainability.
So, the overall goal of the meeting was to figure out what we want to recommend to the City Council. We did some surveys prior to help level-set where folks were with their priorities. Staff also put together a presentation on the milestones we’ve achieved over the year, energy savings and solar production from projects implemented since 2023, community programming, and much more. The energy savings alone on those projects total nearly $350,000. That doesn’t even count all the incentives, grants, and tax credits the City earned that lowered the project costs.
By all measures, the City’s sustainability efforts have been super successful. Then, the budget gets tightened and sustainability is the first thing cut. You may be thinking, if it was so successful, why did city staff draft a budget cutting the roles? There isn’t one thing to point to, as much as it’d make our lives a lot easier if it was simply one thing.
I live in one of the fastest-growing cities in Wisconsin near Madison. We’ve heard comments that Sun Prairie is really leading the charge in the county in advancing sustainability initiatives. The city earned a SolSmart Platinum designation, adopted a Climate Action Plan this year, developed a resolution (that passed) to electrify 50% of the light duty fleet by 2035, hosted a Sustainability Fair, and achieved 100% renewable electricity for city municipal operations, to name a few. So, yeah, when the city proposed cutting the sustainability staff, we were a bit taken aback and disheartened.
One of the things staff cited as part of their decision-making process was a community survey done in late 2025. The survey gathered residents’ opinions of what city services should be cut or prioritized if the referendum fails. Sustainability was in the top 5 on the community’s list. Only 22% of residents 25-34 years old put sustainability on chopping block compared to the 45% of residents age 55-64. Seems those who will have to live here longer are more concerned about sustainability than those about to retire and move to Florida.
How I interpret this is twofold: one, we don’t do a good enough job talking about the benefits that our sustainability efforts have on the city to its residents. And two, we absolutely need to educate our city’s older generation on what sustainability is, not the sound bites they might hear on tv, because guess what age group makes up the City Council? I get it, sustainability is a very broad term; you could stop 50 people on the street to ask what they think it is and get 50 different answers. Maybe we’re just too humble and don’t brag enough about our success. I’ll also admit that before I was appointed to the Sustainability Committee, I really didn’t know a whole lot about the stuff our city did. Sure, I’d see Facebook posts or banners in town about the upcoming Corn festival or events the Chamber is hosting. I had no idea there was an email newsletter, webpages for all this stuff, opting in to texts for city updates and alerts, and so many other things. Guessing I’m not alone in that either. As a marketing professional, this type of thing haunts me. People who claim to want information via email but never open the email, want information on their social channel of choice but don’t follow the account, the list goes on. Communications is hard, no matter what industry or type of entity you are.
But alas, what can we do about this? Consistency.
Consistency in our outreach efforts. Consistency in our communications. Consistency in our advocacy. Consistency in our efforts to make Sun Prairie a better place for all.
Consistency is hard, especially with so many things competing for our time and attention. Ask anyone around you if they kept their New Year’s resolution and why not. I bet the answer is something along the lines of consistency: it was hard, it just didn’t feel like it was working, no one noticed/cared, the novelty wore off, I got bored, work got busy, etc. Consistency sucks and is hard.
Consistency is even harder when it’s a concept that means something different to everyone. It can feel downright like banging your head against a wall at times, but when we’ve come this far, now isn’t the time to cut staff, education, or reaching for our climate goals because some people don’t understand what sustainability is and does for them.
But in the wise words of Dory (does she have a last name??) – we need to just keep swimming, just keep swimming.
