Amrita Acharya
Welcome to climate change at home, a podcast series produced by the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Greenfield Recorder and Athol Daily News. I am your host, Amrita Acharya. And on this podcast we will look at the impacts of climate change and those active in the fight against it in the Pioneer Valley. Climate change at home is sponsored by Whalen insurance, providing protection to Pioneer Valley families and businesses since 1961. Today, I'm speaking with Ashley Muspratt, the president of the Center of EcoTechnology, a nonprofit that offers practical solutions for households and businesses tackling climate change. With offices across the state, including in Northampton, Ashley and her team at CET are committed to helping communities research and implement technologies that have the least disruptive impact on the earth. We chatted in December to discuss the CET's mission, and how they help people find greener and cost effective technological replacements for existing infrastructure.

Ashley Muspratt
Hi, my name is Ashley Muspratt. I'm the president of the Center for EcoTechnology or si t. We are an environmental nonprofit with offices in Northampton and a brick and mortar reclaimed building materials store in Springfield.

Amrita Acharya
Great, yeah, thanks so much. And can you tell me a bit about the history of the organization? You said that you were the president? What are some of the initiatives that you've been able to work on?

Ashley Muspratt
Sure. So we're we're a 45 year old nonprofit, we were founded in the 70s, in the Berkshires. And over the last decades, we've been expanding our sphere of influence and the kinds of work that we do. So today, we are nearly 100 people strong, and we serve every pocket of Massachusetts and about a dozen other states. And our our real goal is to make sustainability easier for businesses and institutions. So we're a boots on the ground organization that's helping to translate, you know, policy and, you know, incentives and programs into real, tangible implementation. So we're contracted by utilities, state and federal agencies to work with residents or with businesses to help them strengthen their waste management programs and their building energy system. So helping with energy efficiency, and these days, we have a real focus on electrification and kind of whole building decarbonisation.

Amrita Acharya
Cool. Yeah, that sounds like that's a wide variety of issues that you cover. I'm curious to know, if there's a particular project within Franklin and Hampshire counties that you've been able to work on recently, that's been really important. And perhaps, what are some of those impacts that you've been able to see very tangibly from it?

Ashley Muspratt
Sure. So one program that I'm really excited about, because I think there's a lot of need for it today is our heat pump consultation services. So we are contracted by the Massachusetts municipal wholesale electric company to provide residential energy services to the public utilities and their network, some of which are in kind of western and central mass are kind of all over the state. And what we're doing through that program is providing kind of like coaching and hand holding services for households that want to convert from fossil fuel heating systems to heat pumps. So we'll have an initial consultation with them, kind of meet the customer where they are, do they need to be convinced that he pumps work in a cold climate? Or did they already know kind of exactly what they they want to do, then we'll go in and conduct a heat load, kind of measure the heat load of the home and give that report to the customer to share with contractors so that they get a system that's properly sized for the home. And then we'll review up to three contractor quotes to make sure that the system is optimally designed and configured. And we have just said that there's enormous demand for a program like this because, you know, contractors, it's a big switch to go from installing boilers and furnaces to heat pumps. So, you know, contractors are still learning the art of designing these systems. And, you know, the most, you know, people homeowners don't know the ins and outs of the technology. So we're kind of an unbiased third party that can just you know, provide assistance both to contractors and homeowners and getting a design that's gonna save them money and make their home really comfortable.

Amrita Acharya
Yeah, something else has to jump in. For our listeners who don't really know what exactly a heat pump is. Why is that an optimal option as opposed to the other fossil fuel options?

Ashley Muspratt
Sure, yeah, Heat pumps are a form of electric heating. But they're incredibly efficient. Because unlike a boiler or furnace, that's that's actually generating heat, what a heat pump does is move heat. And so it's taking heat in the in, in when it's in heating mode, it's actually pulling heat from the outside air. And that's possible even in really, really cold temperatures. And pressing it and pushing it into your home. It's just like a, you know, a refrigerator. We all already have heat pumps, in our homes and refrigerators and heat pump technology can basically move three to four times the amount of heat that it takes to in let me let me back up in energy equivalents. For every one unit of energy used to move heat, three to five units of energy are actually moving into their home. So they're hyper efficient. And that's compared to like a bornus, or boiler, furnace or boiler that has, you know, at best 90 95% efficiency.

Amrita Acharya
Wow, that's, that's like three to five times the actual energy that it takes. Is that right? Exactly.

Ashley Muspratt
Yep. That is a lot. And of course, you know, what, what we need to do as a society are two things in parallel, right, we're need to electrify our systems. And at the same time, we need to be greening our grid. So it's true that today, we still have a lot of fossil fuel that's used to generate our electricity, but over time, that the grid will be will be supplied with more and more renewable energy. So ultimately, a heat pump system can be a fully renewable system. And of course, you have the option of putting solar on your home if you have a fear in a location and have a home that's conducive to that.

Amrita Acharya
Yeah, I'm going a bit back to the history. So you said the CET has existed for 45 years. I'm curious to know, what's been sort of maybe general impact, how many households, have you been able to help? Do you have any some like, have any of those numbers at all?

Ashley Muspratt
Sure, I would say on average, we serve 40 to 50,000 people in businesses per year. And that's through a combination of like direct one on one services in people's homes and businesses and also through kind of events that we do where we are kind of educating larger groups of people on both energy and waste management solutions.

Amrita Acharya
Wow, that's a lot of people. And it sounds like it's grown across the whole state and through Connecticut. So that's, that's, that's great. I'm looking into the future, what use assumed to be some of the things that CET will start to tackle and that what sort of rate will it kind of maybe be ramping up to to? How can of impending climate change issues have have become? Sure?

Ashley Muspratt
That's a great question. You know, throughout our history, we have kind of been an organization that's been a first mover in the space, right, we've really tried to be an innovator, we help to develop the kind of energy audit in Massachusetts, we established some of the first curbside recycling and composting programs before, you know, that was more mainstream. And so that's a that's a tradition that we hold dearly. And that I think, is going to be so critical over the next couple of decades, right? Like we, at long last have state and federal policies and targets for climate change mitigation. But I mean, to hit those goals, we're talking about economy wide disruption and rebuilding on a scale and a timeline. That's completely unprecedented, right? There's no playbook for how we're actually going to achieve these goals. And so I think what the what the world needs and a niche that CET and hopefully other organizations will fill is kind of being the on the grant organization that helps write that playbook and helps kind of invent the future figuring out what are the service models? What are the financial mechanisms, what's the programming that we really need to accelerate uptake because we know business as usual, isn't going to do it. It's just going to take an enormous amount of creativity and that's what we're really focused on now is always looking for opportunities. To innovate around financing mechanisms and programming to help people adopt solutions faster.

Amrita Acharya
Yeah, absolutely speaking a bit more about, I guess, creativity and kind of going outside of, you know, normal box of thinking. What are the ways that cet has maybe leveraged local community organizations or local communities in general in order to achieve some of its goals?

Ashley Muspratt
Yeah, well, sort of piggybacking on your last question to answer that one program that we're in the process of developing and launching is an innovative financing mechanism called tariffs on bill financing. And this is in partnership with a public utility. In Eastern Massachusetts, it's the Ipswich Electric Light Department. And we've been working with them over the last couple of years, or years to first conduct a feasibility study of this mechanism, and now launch it. And in short, what's really neat about this financing scheme is that, whereas traditional on bill financing, for electric energy efficiency upgrades is a loan to a customer, the mechanism we're exploring and that Ipswich is planning to implement is one where the utility would invest in these measures. And then they would get their payback through a tariff that's tied to the meter. And the fact that it's tied to the meter is really, really important. And it's a key distinction from on bill financing, because, again, on bill financing is a loan, right? It's in the person's name, that person has to go through a credit check, they have to have an appetite for debt, they have to believe there'll be in their house long enough to pay for it. And they have to own the property, right? Well, with tariff diambil, financing and tying the payback to the meter. Now, there is no person tied to it, right. So it opens it up to renters, to low income homeowners, and to anyone who doesn't want to spend their disposable income on a heat pump retrofit. Right. And so Ipswich will go in and and say, Hey, we want to invest in state of the art technology and improvements to your home, it's going to make your home more more comfortable, it's going to increase the value, it's going to save you money. And you'll just pay a fixed tariff for the period of time it takes to recover our costs. And here's the key, the utility will guarantee that that payment over the course of a year is less than or equal to what the home occupant was previously paying. So you're guaranteeing that people are saving money or being kept Hall. Nothing like this has ever been implemented in Massachusetts or anywhere in the Northeast. And it hasn't ret yet been used to really accelerate home electrification. So we're we're very excited to demonstrate this in Ipswich and then hopefully scale it across the public utilities and Massachusetts ventually, maybe to the IOUs and to public utilities elsewhere in the region.

Amrita Acharya
That's such an exciting project, are other towns or cities starting to see Ipswich as like an example that they want to follow.

Ashley Muspratt
Yeah, Ipswich has really been kind of out ahead of a lot of the other utilities in this group and kind of leading the way in terms of bending their residential energy programs toward decarbonisation. So you know, away from just the traditional fixation on energy conservation, and expanding the focus to include electrification and like a whole home, decarbonisation approach. So, they've been a lot of fun to work with. And now we have a lot of other utilities who, who are excited about this as well and are eager to participate once we get the program off the ground.

Amrita Acharya
That's awesome. Um, we spoke about local communities. And I'm also curious to know what are ways that communities can get involved with CET? Are there projects that they can help with or maybe even just donations like, what does that look like?

Ashley Muspratt
We will always accept donations, there's a Donate button on our website. But you know, that's a that's a great question. Because I've been thinking a lot about all of the ways in which CTE can support the The you know, implementation of climate action plans that so many cities and towns have are in the process of developing, again, because we provide such a comprehensive set of services and support across all energy and also waste support. So I think there's opportunity for us to engage with communities to help them kind of implement some of the specific targets in their climate action plans, whether it's, you know, setting up, you know, strengthening waste management systems in their, like municipal buildings, setting up food waste diversion programs in their schools, helping to electrify municipal buildings. These are all ways that we can support. I haven't had a chance to talk much about our story yet. So I would love to plug that. Oh, yeah. So we see itI owns and operates the largest reclaimed building materials store in New England. It's called Eco building bargains, and it's right on Warwick Street in Springfield. And it's a really cool example of the circular economy and practice, right. So we partner with contractors, homeowners, architects to source reclaimed building materials, kitchen cabinets, sinks, toilets, light fixtures, we also work directly with retailers. So we'll get brand new products sometime if they're kind of you know, retiring a model. And we have all of this available for sale in our store at deeply discounted prices. And we're serving kind of the local community. And, you know, we're a great place to shop for people that are on a tight budget. But you know, we also have a lot of time materials and just kind of DIY errs coming in looking for unique material. So it's a really fun place to shop. It's kind of a Home Depot of used building materials. So I would encourage everyone to come check us out.

Amrita Acharya
That's awesome. And if you're not a supplier, but you have like, maybe say you're moving out of your house or something, is that exactly, yes.

Ashley Muspratt
So right on our website, eco building bargains.org. There is a form for you inquiring about donating materials, we provide free pickup in a several 100 mile radius. We make pickups all across Massachusetts, Connecticut, much of New York, New Hampshire. So yeah, it's all free. And of course the for the homeowner the donations are tax deductible, and it saves on disposal fees that they would otherwise have if they're kind of demoing.

Amrita Acharya
If you're interested in learning more, you can visit center for eco technology.org where you'll find more information about the organization's projects and ways to get involved on this season of climate change at home. I'm speaking to individuals from the mountain Grace conservation land trust, and Community Action Pioneer Valley among many others. Lastly, I'd like to thank our sponsor Whalen Insurance, a local business operated exclusively by solar power. Whalen Insurance has seven EV charging stations at its King Street office in Northampton free for public use. I'm Amrita Acharya, your host and I thank you so much for tuning in.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai