STEVENS POINT – The Stevens Point Common Council unanimously committed to a clean energy and carbon-neutral future Monday at its regular meeting.

The council passed a resolution stating its commitment to “striving towards 100 percent clean energy and carbon neutrality by 2050” and the creation of a “sustainability commission.”

“We need a target that we can be accountable to striving towards and we need to plan and resource for that target in unison as a community so I think it is really important to be specific,” Jacqui Guthrie, District 2 alderperson said.

No spending is authorized by the resolution nor does it create any penalties for failing to meet the ambitious goal.

The effort to bring the resolution to the council began over a year ago, according to Maxwell Johnson, organizer for Wisconsin Conservation Voters, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization focused on environmental policies and holding elected officials accountable.

Over 350 signatures were gathered on a petition by the organization to bring the resolution to the council’s attention. Johnson told a Stevens Point Journal reporter he also spoke with dozens of area residents and business owners in the process of creating the language of the resolution.

“This is the beginning of a conversation for a community to build a more sustainable Stevens Point,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure we make both a sustainable choice and a fiscally responsible choice.”

The resolution passed through the Public Policy and General Government Committee a week before it appeared before the council. Mayor Mike Wiza and city staff shared several concerns about an initially proposed goal date of 2040 and definitions of some terms used in the resolution’s language. The council unanimously compromised on a change in date to 2050 so the city’s timelines for certain items like fire truck replacements would not be accelerated, according to comments made by alderpeople during discussion.

“I want to validate that staff is going to keep making their everyday decisions and their innovative changes that have already given Stevens Point a fabulous reputation and leadership in this space,” Lara Broderick, District 4 alderperson said. “The point of this resolution is to codify the work that is already happening and join the hundreds of U.S. cities that have already made the strong commitment to achieving 100% clean energy and carbon neutrality. With all the work that is already going on in Stevens Point, I think we are better suited than most to achieve that commitment.”

Johnson sees the resolution as a message from the city to clean energy innovators that the city and its citizens are willing collaborators in those efforts. He said grants available through recent federal legislation such as the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provide opportunities for clean energy and sustainability projects like solar panels or electric heat pumps.

“The message [people] should take away is that our city is investing in the future of Stevens Point by creating this committee and now this [clean energy] plan is going to be moving forward,” Johnson said.

The City of Stevens Point has partnered with 21 cities, villages and counties across the state in the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition. This coalition provides opportunities for member local governments to collaborate and share knowledge about clean energy and climate change solutions, according to the organization’s website.

Other cities in the coalition have recently passed similar resolutions and have formed similar committees focused on identifying environmentally sustainable practices for city policies and operations. The City of Wausau passed a greenhouse gas emissions reduction resolution in Feb. 2023, which came out of the city’s Sustainability, Energy and Environment Committee. The Green Bay City Council unveiled its Clean Energy Plan in Nov. 2023 and five years after the creation of its Sustainability Commission.

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus within the city operates utilizing 100% renewable energy and is beginning a resilience planning process in 2024 along with over 100 universities across the country in a coalition of higher education institutions committed to action on climate change called Second Nature. UWSP leaders signed Second Nature’s Carbon Neutrality Agreement in 2007 and signed its Resilience Commitment in Dec. 2023, according to the university’s website.

Commissions in Stevens Point are created by ordinance and are made up of a mix of alderpeople and citizens. Members are chosen by the mayor and those choices are approved by the council. City staff will write the language of the ordinance which will determine the structure of the commission and the process for choosing its members. Common council will likely have opportunities to approve, modify, or decline its creation in the upcoming months.

Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA-TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Contact him at epfantz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: Stevens Point commits to clean energy and carbon neutrality