Morning Breakouts
- Making Decarbonization Accessible for Everyone: Navigating Resources for Local Building Electrification
- How to Build a Community Coaching Program
- Building Partnerships for a Resilient Community
- Engaging Youth Voices: Youth perspectives on climate education and action
- From the Ground Up: Real-World Lessons for Going Geothermal
- Getting the Word Out: Best Practices for Climate Communications
- Morning Plenary -Debrief & discuss
Afternoon Breakouts
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- What Does Electrification Look Like in My Community?
- Power Mapping : A strategy tool to understand power — and how to influence it
- Using Psychology to build better climate messages
- Municipal Sustainability Roundtable: Supporting municipal staff & learning from each other (municipal staff only, please)
- Art That Fuels Change: Storytelling in the Climate Movement
- Rights of Nature: A Complimentary Means for Addressing Climate Change by Recognizing Rights of Wetlands
- Bridging the Gap: Energy Affordability for Moderate Income Residents
Morning Sessions
Making Decarbonization Accessible for Everyone - Navigating Resources for Local Building Electrification
This breakout will help break down the ever-changing landscape of resources to support local building electrification efforts, with an emphasis on enabling access for vulnerable populations. Attendees will leave with a practical understanding of the different ways that MA residents can navigate the latest tools, incentives, and financing options available to support equitable building electrification initiatives. Representatives from the Sponsors of Mass Save will discuss the Decarbonization Consultations and Statewide Solution Center to help residents locate incentives and understand decarbonization technologies. Nectar will share lessons learned about customer engagement and program selection for affordable energy retrofit financing for low- and moderate-income homeowners through the Energy Saver Home Loan Program and other resources. All-In Energy will explain progress making energy efficiency more accessible in targeted LIDAC communities through the MA Home Modernization Navigator. The Boston Climate Action Network will illustrate how focusing on affordability can serve as an entry point to decarbonization resources–just don’t call it that! The panel will be facilitated by the Building Electrification Accelerator’s Program Director, Seth Federspiel.
How to Build a Community Coaching Program
Is your community ready to build its own coaching program? While individual coaches offer homeowners valued, trusted support to take impactful steps in decarbonizing their homes, community programs can greatly multiply their impact. By providing a local support network for coaches - building coach camaraderie and mentoring opportunities - and providing residents with town-specific resources on installers, incentives, best practices and building stock, a community coaching program accelerates progress toward meeting your town's emissions targets. Community-based coaching programs can also build mutually beneficial relationships with the local business community - providing architects, contractors, mechanical engineers, real estate developers etc… with a trusted source of information for their customers about rebates, cost comparisons, best practices, and technological advances.
This session will interest community leaders who are starting energy coaching programs, and motivated individual coaches looking to build a local team. Our panel of four program developers represents a mix of regional planning commissions, and programs run by municipalities, municipal light plants, and non-profits. We’ll learn how they set up their programs, how they recruit coaches and clients, how they track results, and how the new HeatSmart Alliance Coaching Handbook can be used to establish a foundation for any coaching program.
Identifying and Combating Misinformation
Empower yourself to take control of the news and information you encounter. Join us for a workshop and Q&A session on identifying and combating misinformation and disinformation in the age of social media, AI, and 24-hour news cycles. Practical strategies for identifying AI, analyzing information, fact-checking, and improving your media literacy will be shared along with how to talk to people who share misinformation or have fallen into a misinformation rabbit hole.
Building Partnerships for a Resilient Community
Extreme weather, insurance rates, electricity bills and other climate-driven concerns are tangible and visible effects of climate change. They can offer a starting point for conversations and action in local communities. Hear from the grassroots, municipal, and regional planning perspectives on climate resilience efforts and how strong municipal and community/grassroots partnerships can create and leverage opportunities for local impact in both climate mitigation and adaptation. Come away inspired to strengthen these connections and build more resilient communities together.
Engaging Youth Voices: Youth perspectives on climate education and action
Youth have more power than they are often given credit for. Join this session to hear stories of empowerment and possibility from a panel of youth leaders and YA author/environmental journalist who champions their efforts, learning about ways to enact change and educate their schools and communities on urgent climate change issues. They will share their experiences about what initially drew them to this work, projects past and future, and ongoing challenges. How can climate action happen in surprising places that seem distant from traditional “environmental” work? How might adults encourage their efforts and give them the organizing tools to succeed? This breakout session is an opportunity to listen to and amplify the voices of our youth, discover what motivates their action, and find out how best to support their work.
From the Ground Up: Real-World Lessons for Going Geothermal
As municipalities work to meet ambitious climate and clean energy goals, geothermal heating and cooling is emerging as a proven, scalable solution for reducing building emissions while delivering long-term cost stability. This breakout session is designed for municipal staff, climate leaders, and community decision-makers seeking a clear, practical understanding of what it takes to implement geothermal projects in real-world settings.
The session will begin with an accessible overview of ground-source heat pump technology and its role in decarbonizing buildings. It will then examine two Massachusetts case studies that illustrate different pathways: the Wellesley Village Church geothermal retrofit, highlighting lessons learned when transitioning an existing building to clean thermal energy, and the Easton Police, Fire and Public Works Complex project that demonstrates how integrating geothermal early can support performance, resilience, and long-term savings.
Through these examples, participants will explore project planning considerations, stakeholder coordination, and factors that influence feasibility and outcomes. The session will conclude with a facilitated Q&A, inviting participants to connect the lessons from these projects to their own municipal buildings, campuses, and community projects.
Getting the Word Out: Best Practices for Climate Communications
Strong communication is essential for growing local climate action. Learn best practices for social media and newsletters that help communities increase participation, promote programs, and share success stories. This session will highlight practical tools, real examples from local groups, and strategies for creating content that motivates residents to take action.
Morning Plenary: Debrief & discuss
The topics covered in the plenary session are challenging. Engage in a conversation with our speaker, Rev. Mariama White-Hammond to further reflect.
Afternoon Sessions
What Does Electrification Look Like in My Community?
Massachusetts has ambitious climate goals and achieving them will require additional buildout of clean energy infrastructure. This session will explore what’s needed to support both transmission and distribution system level clean energy projects, including solar and battery energy storage. Each municipality has a role to play in the clean energy transition. Learn what your community can do to adopt zoning and permitting practices that enable electrification and promote decarbonization. Speakers will include Renew NE, Solect Energy, and the Town of Tewksbury.
Power Mapping : A strategy tool to understand power — and how to influence it
As community climate leaders we work with many stakeholders, each with their own level of influence over decisions — some will be allies, others will be in opposition to your goals, and more will fall in between. Power mapping is an exercise to help you identify who holds power and figure out what will move them to the action you want. In this participatory session, we’ll learn about the power map, practice making our own in groups, and show how to use them to develop effective community organizing strategies. Expect to leave with a new strategy tool for your team’s next campaign.
Using Psychology to build better climate messages
How can we motivate people in our communities to adopt climate and energy solutions—such as heat pumps, home energy audits, and EVs—even when they are costly or opposed by key stakeholders? Research in psychology shows that both what we say and who delivers the message shape how people respond. In this interactive break-out session, participants will be introduced to a toolbox of psychologically informed communication strategies for promoting climate solutions.
The session will begin with a brief overview of evidence-based approaches to climate communication, highlighting effective messengers and message frames when solutions involve personal costs or uncertainty. Participants will then work in small groups to apply this toolbox and craft their own communication strategies and messages around a real challenge they want to address, such as communicating about home energy upgrades or other community-based initiatives. The session will conclude with getting feedback on their message, with tips to strengthen it. Participants will leave with a set of communication frames they can readily apply based on their needs, as well as hands-on experience adapting these frames to real-world communication contexts.
Municipal Sustainability Roundtable: Supporting municipal staff & learning from each other (Municipal staff only, please)
Join other municipal sustainability professionals for a roundtable discussion. Come with two best practice suggestions and two questions for your peers. Also - is there a municipal program you admire? We'd love to know about it!
Art That Fuels Change: Storytelling in the Climate Movement
Storytelling shapes how we understand the world—and how we imagine changing it. In this interactive breakout session, panelists explore the possibilities, and the limitations, of using fiction and nonfiction narrative to move people from awareness to action.
Moderated by Bentley University English and Media Studies Professor Val Wang, who teaches creative writing focused on climate fiction, and her current students Miranda Braganini and Alyssa Dube, the session bridges theory and practice. Together, the panel, which includes authors Meera Subramanian and Tom Toro, will discuss how creative storytelling—including climate fiction, cartoons, and youth-centered storytelling—can help people process climate emotions, envision more just futures, and take meaningful action in their communities.
Rights of Nature: A Complimentary Means for Addressing Climate Change by Recognizing Rights of Wetlands
Earth’s Climate System is maintained by multiple ecosystems. Wetlands cover just 13% of the Earth's land area, but hold 30% of the planet’s soil carbon. Along with forests and oceans they play an important role in managing atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane. Recognizing the Rights of Wetlands and other ecosystems is adding an additional means for managing these gases and protecting existing ecosystem carbon banks.
Bridging the Gap: Energy Affordability for Moderate Income Residents
Learn how to better serve two populations that consistently underutilize Mass Save programs: moderate-income residents and renters. Quiana Lee-Gaines, Supervisor of Energy Efficiency at Eversource (one of the Sponsors of Mass Save), joins Community First Partnership Energy Advocates Sherdyl Fernandez-Aubert (Berkshire Regional Planning Commission) and Maria Holguin (City of Boston). Together they will help attendees understand what programs they and their neighbors may qualify for and share best-practice outreach strategies and tools to promote these programs in their communities. The panel will be moderated by Riddhima Dave, Program Coordinator at All in Energy.