The answer – as set forth in a crowded Brattleboro conference room last week – is that they all are part of an effort to transform the Windham region and neighboring counties in New Hampshire and Massachusetts into a mecca for “green” economic activity.
Spurred by the closure of Vermont Yankee, a large group of public officials, business leaders, educators and experts has spent more than a year looking for ways to make the tristate area a “recognized national leader in creating resilient, sustainable buildings and communities.”
At last week’s event, they presented a list of projects – and a financial plan for implementing them – that some say could eventually create hundreds of jobs and spur hundreds of millions of dollars of investment.
But much work remains.
“Really, we’re just starting,” said Alex Wilson, a Brattleboro-based green building pioneer who is chairing the effort. “We’ve put the pieces in place. We now need to do the hard work to actually realize success.”
Local officials had done some advance economic recovery planning, in particular via the Windham region’s comprehensive economic development strategy. And they already had been looking at the possibility of enhancing the area’s extensive “green building” expertise.
That latter idea has taken off in the last year or so. Funded in part by the federal government, what was initially called a “green building cluster study” now has been dubbed the “Ecovation Hub.”
Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. has been at the forefront of that effort. But the hub now has a diverse list of leaders including representatives from the education, construction, software, engineering, real estate and banking sectors.
Several representatives from BuildingGreen Inc., the Brattleboro organization Wilson founded in 1985, also are involved.
The Ecovation project has picked up speed and participants as it has progressed. Wilson is a well-known leader on issues like energy conservation, renewables and green construction, but he’s been seeing a lot of new faces recently.
“It’s been really exciting to see people and businesses come out of the woodwork that I had no idea existed,” Wilson said.
Officials also are emphasizing that the effort stretches beyond Windham County to include southwestern New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts.
“When we started, ‘regionally’ meant Windham County. It meant 27 towns. That felt big,” said state Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, who works for Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. “Now, we’re talking about four counties and three states. So the challenge is continuing to grow that cohesion.”
Some basic ideas include offering expertise and encouragement to property owners who want to undertake an energy retrofit project.
“You might want to start a retrofit project in your own home, but you don’t know where to start. … There’s so many steps to go through, and there’s no one there to kind of lead you through the entire process,” said Candace Pearson, a research assistant at BuildingGreen.
Similarly, Ecovation participants are envisioning a resilient design adviser project. That would be, Pearson said, “a software program that will help people evaluate the risk that a property may face in a natural disaster” and recommend improvements.
The Ecovation effort extends into green building products and product development. Among the ideas listed were hemp building materials, wool insulation and cross-laminated timber, which Pearson described as “an exciting new wood product that allows you to replace concrete and steel” in some building projects.
Officials also discussed a green rural development project, envisioned as a prototype of an “ultra green” residential area in Vermont or New Hampshire that combines environmentally friendly construction with shared agricultural, transportation and recreational facilities, to name a few.
“This is the kind of thing where we could use our expertise in the region and show what a completely new kind of residential development could look like,” Pearson said. “We envision something like this not only just bringing great new homes to the area but also something that could attract tourists.”
An Ecovation project that’s already under development involves “education and training consortia.” One part of that project would see educational institutions – in this case, SIT Graduate Institute and Antioch University New England, which is based in Keene, New Hampshire – offer a combined green economy curriculum.
There also are plans to expand Antioch’s Center for Climate Preparedness and Community Resilience.
Additionally, Ecovation Hub advocates are looking at a number of regenerative agriculture and “agroforestry” projects like medicinal herbs; hazelnuts and chestnuts; mushrooms; and the integration of agriculture and solar arrays.
These and other possible projects that were discussed Wednesday are supposed to be supported by an ambitious concept labeled ecoF.I.R.E. The latter half of that name refers to finance, insurance and real estate – representative of the services that would be offered in a sort of one-stop shop for green building projects.
Brattleboro Savings & Loan President Dan Yates is one of the leaders of that initiative, though he stressed that his bank is not taking ownership of ecoF.I.R.E. Rather, he sees his contribution to the Ecovation project as a way to “effect change in a positive way for our climate.”
Within six years, ecoF.I.R.E. “will do at least $160 million worth of financing,” predicted Frank Knott, of Vital Economy Alliance, a Baltimore consultant hired to push along the Ecovation Hub effort.
“This will be one of the most innovative finance companies in the country,” Knott said. “It’s intended to cause this region to be known as the place to come for the kind of financing and the kind of creative products and services and education that you want.”
Getting ecoF.I.R.E. off the ground is considered a key part of moving the Ecovation project forward. Supporters also outlined their plans last week for budgeting, fundraising and putting a leadership team in place.
Throughout the discussion of the project’s progress and its future, connectedness was a common theme.
“What we had before … was a bunch of individual assets and a bunch of individual towns and a bunch of individual counties, most of which weren’t connected to each other and didn’t know who each other were,” Knott said. “We now have a hub that’s organizing all these so they can leverage each other’s assets.”