Decentralized and Mutually Supportive City Networks to Further Public Engagement

This presentation will present an innovative model for how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can form a decentralized network to support multiple cities’ engagement with the public around climate action. Such a network has been shown to be capable of supporting cities’ individual engagement aims while simultaneously facilitating a consistent exchange of information around these activities so that each city benefits from and builds on one another’s engagement tools, resources, and findings. This model’s development is rooted in the experiences of the American Council for an Energy-Efficiency Economy’s (ACEEE’s) Energy Equity for Renters Initiative. Since 2022, ACEEE has provided 15 urban communities across the United States with technical assistance to reduce the carbon footprint of local rental homes while also preserving or expanding housing affordability. In nearly all cases, teams of city governments and community partners have engaged with rental property owners and residents as part of their efforts. In addition to providing a platform for open discussion between these teams, ACEEE has worked to facilitate targeted and well-timed exchanges of information so that cities get the most relevant and helpful information and tools for their near-term work

This initiative’s work has revealed that an NGO-led network can support each participating community in taking its own unique approach to public engagement while facilitating an exchange of information and tools from these processes across the network to save other member communities time and resources in pursuing their own public engagement. This approach and the public engagement work that has resulted from it has been shown to generate meaningful policy and program outcomes. This presentation will share the lessons that ACEEE has learned from its work and offer actions that other NGOs and cities can take to replicate such an approach.