Congratulations to the Wylie Independent School District for completing their second Cool Choices sustainability engagement program! Wylie ISD is a public school district northeast of Dallas that serves more than 15,800 students from Wylie, Texas and neighboring communities. Nearly 275 staff across 23 schools and administrative buildings participated in the month-long Cool Choices program in October. This program follows their first program last April.
Read moreAchieving aggressive sustainability goals requires more than a strategy; sustainability leaders need to facilitate a culture change so that sustainable practices are part of a new normal.
Kohler Power Systems —Kohler’s division that manufactures generators and related products—will implement a unique Cool Choices program this fall.
Some ideas are so good that they merit replication.
Last year Cool Choices did a community-scale sustainability program in Waukesha County, in partnership with the county’s workforce development team and local chambers of commerce. Sustainability leaders in the Fox Valley heard about the program and reached out to ask if we could replicate the program in their region.
Communities across the U.S. and around the world are making big commitments to clean energy and environmental sustainability more broadly. According to a 2018 report from the CDP, more than 100 cities get most of their electricity from renewable energy sources—up from just 42 in 2015. Plus, a growing number of communities ranging from London, England to Norman, Oklahoma and Eau Claire, Wisconsin are making commitments to clean energy and carbon neutrality.
Globally we’re in the midst of an exciting transition to electric vehicles and there are signs of the change everywhere you look with cities, states and utilities all helping to promote this transition.
Advocating for sustainability is difficult work. Sometimes it feels a little hopeless—we see the headlines about shrinking glaciers and rising temperatures alongside stories about short-sighted politicians. Or our efforts to implement a new sustainability practice lack traction and we feel that nobody else cares about these issues. Frustrated and discouraged, we might start to ask ourselves if our efforts are in vain, if it’s even possible to make change happen.
Are folks inside your organization aware of your sustainability efforts?
“Do as I say, not as I do?”
When Cool Choices implements a sustainability engagement program, we inspire participants to adopt new practices at work and home, we get people talking about sustainability, and we show people how their actions matter. In addition, we provide our partners—the corporate sustainability director or the community green team—with data and insights that can help these leaders build on the momentum we’ve created together during the program.