Each year Network Action Teams are selected by EAN Network members through a competitive process at the EAN Annual Summit. The projects are chosen based on their potential to help Vermont rapidly, cost-effectively, and equitably reduce fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution. Each project is guided by an action team comprised of a wide variety of Energy Action Network members and public sector partners working together to make progress on developing concepts and making progress toward their implementation.
Network Action Teams
Climate Workforce
This Network Action Team which started in October 2021, is addressing the challenge that to achieve Vermont’s required greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, we need to train thousands of Vermonters with the skills to electrify our transportation sector, install clean energy solutions, weatherize homes, build net zero commercial buildings and sustainably manage our working lands, forests and waterways. It recently has formed three working groups: one to focus on workforce in the weatherization sector specifically, one to discuss communications and outreach, and one to the data and analytics of the climate workforce of the state.
Clean Heat Working Group
This Network Action Team started in October of 2020 to explore options that would require fossil fuel corporations and utilities that sell heating fuels in Vermont to reduce their climate pollution over time, in line with Global Warming Solutions Act requirements. They developed a whitepaper and a legal memo detailing how a Clean Heat Standard could work for the state of Vermont. These materials were used in crafting Clean Heat Standard legislation.
Weatherization at Scale
Goal: By 2030, weatherize every home of low-to-moderate income Vermonters who make less than 120% of average median income – including renters. This Network Action Team started in October of 2020, and is very active, with a number of different work-groups.
Tenant Weatherization Protection
Goal: A new Network Action team starting in late fall 2022 will investigate policies that will give tenants more power to ensure they have more comfortable, more affordable, and more efficient rental housing, and incentivize landlords to utilize weatherization programs available.
Networked Geothermal Systems
Goal: A new Network Action team starting in late fall 2022 will build a coalition to co-create a strategy for networked geothermal in Vermont, prioritizing affordable housing and low- to middle-income communities.
Transportation Cap & Invest
Goal: A new Network Action team starting in late fall 2022 will identify what it would take to spur the adoption of a program in Vermont that can reduce emissions at the rate needed to meet our legal requirements under the Global Warming Solutions Act AND to create a dedicated funding stream for transportation equity.
Switch and Save
This Network Action Team aims to help avoid locking Vermonters into fossil-fuel-based heating systems by proactively supporting lower-income Vermonters with installation of efficient, electric alternatives. This would build on existing utility and Efficiency Vermont heat pump water heater incentives to provide income-qualified Vermonters new, energy efficient heat pump water heaters at low or no cost (including electrical work).
Future of Rural Transit
Goal: Prepare Vermont to have the most efficient, equitable, and cost-effective rural transportation system in the US by combining public, Medicaid, and school transportation into a single electrified public transportation system. This Network Action Team started in October of 2020 and is now studying feasibility in two communities.
Teams that have “Graduated”
VT Clean Transportation Equity
Goal: Advance a collaborative process to identify the highest impact investment opportunities, in terms of cost-effective and equitable greenhouse gas reduction strategies and actions, for clean transportation revenue in Vermont. This Network Action Team, started in October 2021, and is worked with community organizations to run focus groups to learn more about the clean transportation needs in different communities.
Replace Your Ride
Goal: Help low-income Vermonters switch to clean transportation options affordably, while also accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. This Network Action Team started in October of 2020 and helped create a pilot program for the state of Vermont that will start in the fall of 2022.
Vermont Energy Future Initiative
The Vermont Energy Future Initiative was a diverse, multi-sectoral group of leaders convened by the Energy Action Network beginning July 2018. The shared goal of all Initiative members was to develop ideas and advance actions that could make significant progress towards meeting Vermont’s 2025 total energy and emissions reduction commitments while creating a more just, thriving, and sustainable future for Vermonters. It was this concept that molded into future Network Action Teams.
Small grants were also awarded to support Fare-Free Transit and Renew Vermont: Building a Movement for a Just and Equitable Future as a result of their pitches at the 2020 EAN Summit.
Although EAN Network Members may support specific policy actions, EAN staff support the work of the action teams through our role as a neutral convener and refrain from advocating for specific policies.
