On November 14th, ILSR and the Sustainable Economies Law Center hosted a webinar, Entity Structure for Community Composters: Co-ops, Nonprofits, For-profits, Oh My! View the recording here! Cartoonist/attorney Janelle Orsi explained considerations related to cooperative, nonprofit, for-profit, and hybrid models, with the help of cake … Read More
Earlier this summer, ILSR Energy Democracy Research Associate Marie Donahue participated in an online video series entitled Solutionary Perspectives, produced by the Backbone Campaign’s Solutionary Rails project. The recent episode “Clean Energy, Community Economy, and Energy Democracy” released last week focuses on the topic of community solar, highlighting on-the-ground examples from Maryland and key resources from ILSR.… Read More
As part of our Community Compost Law & Policy Project, ILSR hosted a webinar with The Sustainable Economies Law Center to provide community composters with an opportunity to share, discuss, and strategize around legal and policy issues confronting community composting. The webinar provided a short overview of the legal and policy trends we see impacting each stage of the composting process, including 1) organic waste generation, 2) hauling, 3) composting, and 4) distribution of compost. These issues include zoning, franchise agreements, insurance, permitting, and more.… Read More
Bokashi is a Japanese term meaning “fermented organic matter.” Bokashi fermentation utilizes a variety of by-products – such as leaves, sawdust, husks, bran, other grains – inoculated with beneficial microbes to ferment kitchen waste. It is an anaerobic (without oxygen) process, akin to pickling. Often mistakenly considered a form of composting, it results in a very different product. However, as a pre-processing step to composting, it has several benefits including ability to handle meat and dairy, repelling rats, speeding up the composting process, and cutting frequency of food scrap collection.
Join this webinar.… Read More
ILSR’s Director of Energy Democracy, John Farrell, provided a presentation to a forum of Decorah Power, the local advocacy organization favoring city utility ownership to discuss several advantages from local ownership. First, there’s an abundant local wind and solar energy resource. Second, Decorah isn’t alone, and over 2,000 other cities chart their own course with municipal ownership. Finally, getting power locally returns more dollars to the local economy.… Read More
Why should a city seeking 100% renewable energy focus on local generation? ILSR’s Director of Energy Democracy, John Farrell, provides a short presentation to a forum in Rochester, MN, with three reasons. … Read More
In October 2017, John Farrell gave a keynote address to the annual meeting and expo of AERO, a Montana organization with a similar mission of empowering communities to promote a sustainable economy. He addressed the widespread opportunity for clean energy in Montana, the shared desire of communities to capture that growing economic opportunity, and three ways communities can get started.… Read More
In September of 2017, ILSR Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell spoke in front of the Minnesota Solar Energy Industry Association’s Midwest Gateway to Solar event. In his talk he spoke about the importance of sound renewable energy policies that enable growth in locally-owned solar energy and how massive electric utilities are doing their best to harm locally-owned renewable energy like solar.… Read More
On November 8th, 2017 ILSR co-director and director of the Composting for Community initiative presented to a congressional hearing on the Zero Waste Development & Expansion Act of 2017 (HR 1034), sponsored by Representative Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). You can view the … Read More
