Local Solutions Conferences
Local action on climate change has always been important, and perhaps never more so than in the current period while we have drastically reduced support from our federal and state governments. This September, two conferences sought to help attendees by providing a forum for them to share and network with others also promoting local action. Although both conferences included “Local Solutions” in their titles, they were organized independently of each other and offered different perspectives.
Members of Sustainable Hanover attended both conferences. The first Local Solutions conference was held at the Irving Institute on the Dartmouth campus on September 18 - 19. Sponsored by Dartmouth, Antioch University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this conference is presented every other year with the goal of building climate resilience in the rural Northeast. The second Local Solutions conference was held on September 25 in Manchester. It is sponsored annually by Clean Energy NH as a forum for local energy committees and energy professionals, who convened from all over New Hampshire.
Given the different perspectives – one on resilience and the other on energy, the programmatic content was quite different; there was no overlap in terms of content. However, looking past content to the underlying strategies advocated by presenters, some common themes emerged. One was the importance of collaboration. As Dartmouth coordinator Christa Daniels expressed, “we need to avoid working in silos.”
At Sustainable Hanover, we well appreciate the value of pooling resources from multiple communities to accomplish more than any one group can manage. Our list of collaborations has grown in recent time. This fall we partnered with volunteer groups in various combinations from Lebanon, Lyme, Norwich, Plainfield, and Thetford on a wide spectrum of projects from window insert builds to a Sun Day rally to a State Climate Action Plan hearing. In January our Styrofoam collection will be co-sponsored with Norwich. Our ongoing collaboration with Dartmouth College expanded this year to include engaging on energy topics with student teams from three engineering classes.
Two other strategies noted at both conferences involved multi-solving and co-benefits. Multi-solving is about using a single investment of time or money to solve more than one problem at a time. When resources are scarce, consciously looking beyond one single issue to get “more bang for the bucks” makes a lot of sense. A related strategy is to foster co-benefits, which are the potential positive effects of a policy, project or action beyond its primary objective.
Sustainable Hanover members report being recharged by these two outstanding opportunities to interact and learn with others seeking solutions to common problems at the community level. The prevailing mood at both was positive and empowering. We still wish for more resources, but with collaboration, multi-solving and co-benefits we can still expect to get a lot done!