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Our History

Reinvesting our Savings

Cooperative Energy Futures grew out of an initiative at Macalester College called the Clean Energy Revolving Fund started by students in spring 2006. The team creating CERF wanted to build a financial mechanism to use the savings that efficiency provides to finance student-driven projects that save energy and money. They built a model on campus that empowered students to envision ways to make their community better and actually implement them. The revolving fund, since grown to over $100,000, is still largely student run, though with strong collaboration from campus administration, faculty and staff, has acted as a role model for dozens of other colleges across the country.

But it's just the beginning.

Continuing the Momentum

In February 2007, our team at Macalester partnered with students at the University of Minnesota to host a citizens’ conference inviting people from all walks of life to a three-day conference to envision and plan a people-based vision for a sustainable Minnesota. Out of the event came our first community partnerships and the idea to take the model of efficiency as an opportunity for community entrepreneurship to a broader level. Throughout 2007, we researched the contracting industry, discussed energy policy with state legislators, taught ourselves the basics of energy auditing and home energy systems, and built dozens of new partnerships with non-profit staff, small businesses owners and community leaders. Our efforts rapidly intersected with state and national policy around energy efficiency, the affordable housing and foreclosure crisis, and the rising movement among youth and community members for green jobs, energy independence, and a visionary post-carbon society. Even as we build new approaches like innovative financing, cooperative culture, and local community organizing into the efficiency picture, we find ourselves replicating the cutting-edge research being done by pioneering thinkers across the country.

Cooperative Energy Futures Begins

In January 2008, we formed a Steering Committee composed of students and local efficiency leaders and named the rising initiative Cooperative Energy Futures. We worked with students in the Summer of Solutions program to run a pilot project in St. Paul’s Merriam Park neighborhood, where we successfully coordinated the insulation of a group of homes and negotiated a group discount for all participants. Read more about the Merriam Park project. Our work provides a concept that we think has the potential to catch on in communities nation-wide.