2024 Sustainable States Network Annual Meeting Recap
Ava Thompson, Program Associate, Sustainable States Network
Building capacity, making connections, and forming collaborations are the three benefits for members of the Sustainable States Network (SSN): a network of 20 national, state, or municipal region local government technical assistance programs supporting 3,500 municipalities in 17 states. One of the biggest ways we make connections is through our yearly annual meetings. This year, we held our ninth in-person annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts, with over 45 attendees—the largest attendance in our 9-year history.
Learn about the network through this recap of what we learned, shared, and experienced together at our 2024 annual event.
Member Updates
At every annual meeting, members share program updates, good news, and challenges from the past year. Over the years, we’ve learned that this is a great way to kick off conversations and establish relationships among attendees.
Three highlights that members shared from the past year:
The Florida Green Buildings Coalition amassed over 4,048 project certifications project certifications, which is the most certifications they’ve ever had in one year.
Sustainable Pennsylvania launched Carbon Reduction Spring, a six-month competition for businesses, organizations, and municipalities to lower carbon emissions and earn recognition for their achievements. Competing organizations took actions to earn points for demonstrating a commitment to efforts like clean energy adoption and incentives that promote the use of multimodal transit options, such as biking, walking, and public transit.
Sustainable Maryland has continued to grow in staff size, making them able to host more engagement events such as a feedback roundtable series for their municipalities, and climate planning webinars.
Connecting Local Governments to Federal and State Funding Opportunities
For the past year, SSN members have made it a priority to support the local governments they work with in securing federal and state clean energy project funding. Because of federal funding programs like the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) and IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), local governments and communities—now more than ever—can realize their climate action goals. Several SSN member programs are helping communities by providing easy-to-use platforms for engagement so that more municipalities will be able to access and understand federal funding resources. Here is an example:
Power a Clean Future Ohio’s Infrastructure Grant Assistance Program (IGAP) provides a hub for Ohio communities seeking federal funding opportunities. Opportunities are sorted into categories like clean transportation and climate and sustainability. They also have educational notes from relevant webinars hosted by the White House and federal agencies.
Navigating Equity in 2024 and Beyond
Equity remains at the center of SSN member programs. SSN members have been committed to equity work since the network’s inception in 2015. Since then, we have curated equity toolkits and resources from coaches and partners to help our programs make good on their equity commitments. In our 2023 Annual Survey, 90 percent of participants said they are working to or have incorporated equity into their programs.
At every annual meeting, we give programs a chance to share their equity work. Here is an example of how one of our programs incorporates equity:
Sustainable CT staff shared their Equity Toolkit, which outlines strategies for inclusive community engagement and stakeholder outreach. Applying the Equity Toolkit to a sustainability project is an action that municipalities need to take to advance in their certification process.
Conclusion
The SSN Annual Meeting is always the highlight of the year for members. It’s an invaluable time for sharing success and hardships, as well as opportunities for growth, with peers. We are proud of all our programs have accomplished this year, and we look forward to future annual meetings.