Community Highlights: Meet Bryce Carter of Solar United Neighbors

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryce Carter.

Hi Bryce, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in the suburbs of Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington D.C. In high school, I signed up for an environmental science course as a curiosity and nearly dropped it when I found out it required mandatory community service. I sat down and wrote out the pros and cons of staying in the class, and barely decided to give it a shot.

I was soon dropped off by a boat on the shore of a polluted river, shocked to be met with piles of various trash, floating plastic straws, tires, and swirling chemicals in the river which was just down the street from my neighborhood. I tried to imagine a deer drinking from the water, let alone the fact that it’s our community’s water source, too. While I learned about environmental pollution in textbooks, I didn’t realize how much was happening in my own community— often touted as one of the wealthiest in the world. A passion sparked in me that day, and I quickly committed myself to bettering the environment to lessen suffering in the world. From that initial hesitancy, I spent hundreds of hours planting trees and supporting community cleanups by the time I went to college.

I attended Virginia Tech and with my newfound passion for the environment I signed up for a two-year pilot course called Earth Sustainability. The course, funded by the National Science Foundation, focused on connecting the topics of the built environment, energy, water, agriculture, and community with a focus on an interdisciplinary approach. A class could involve a lecture from a nuclear engineer, or molding clay to do an artistic interpretation of water law. The program demonstrated success in growing scientific literacy by showing how an interdisciplinary learning helped students better understand and engage with science. I loved it!

At the same time of starting this course, a friend invited me to a youth-led energy conference highlighting the consequences of the energy policies from the pro-coal Bush era. It was there that I began to understand the enormous depth of the threat of climate disruption, and how the extractive industry can cause so much harm for frontline communities in Appalachia and elsewhere around the world. Inspired and empowered from this event, I started to organize groups of people and events and in Appalachia to help others directly connect with environmental injustice. For each event, I had the minimum goal to try and help just one more person get that spark to help make a difference, too.

At the end of my first year of college, I was helping gear up for a variety of Earth Day events when a mass shooter left 33 dead and dozens more injured on campus. The aftermath of April 16th, 2007 was a dark, difficult time for our community, but it also brought about unfathomable acts of compassion and unity from around the world. There is so much more to say than I can write here, but one of the most important takeaways I had from those days was just how important bringing together our community is. I realized from my experience it’s just as important to build a resilient community as it is a resilient environment. As we Hokies say, we “Live for 32.”

For the rest of my college years, I organized for science education and community engagement. I worked with countless other students, organizations, teachers, and community leaders to engage thousands of students locally and across the region around sustainability, but particularly around the energy sector and climate change. I even launched an unsuccessful bid for Town Council with the principles of community and sustainability during my senior year.

In the dozen years since I graduated, I transformed my passion into an engaging career. I sharpened my organizing skills through an environmental organizing training school called Green Corps, where I launched several successful environmental advocacy campaigns in urban and rural communities across the country. These campaigns involved defending global warming policy in California, requesting more studies around the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas, and even pursuing livestock marketing fairness in North Dakota.

By 2011, I moved to Colorado and started working for the Sierra Club where I ultimately launched the Colorado Ready for 100 Campaign. This work helped foster a movement of hundreds of leaders and community-based organizations to deliver support for the municipal, utility, and statewide goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity. We were successful, with dozens of communities embracing the vision through commitments and causing a ripple effect with the state and even Xcel Energy committing to the goal.

I especially have a passion to work within the nexus of connecting local governmental to community engagement. In the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Colorado floods, I formed a coalition of a dozen organizations and facilitated six cleanup events with local municipalities as part of a “Flood Recovery Weekend” where over 100 volunteers helped dig out homes and municipal facilities. In 2018, I consulted with the Compact of Colorado Communities and the National Institute of Hometown Security, helping facilitate municipal dialogue and research across diverse sectors on workforce preparedness for responding to climate change. The bottom line for me is when it comes to preparing for and enduring the impacts of climate disruption, we are all learning together as we craft a vision for the future.

Since 2019 I have been the Colorado Program Director with the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors. I see my work as helping answer the question: how do we help governments reach their community-based renewable energy and climate goals? SUN’s mission is to help people go solar through a group-buy program, bring together community, and advocate for energy justice.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Community organizing can be very challenging and underpaid work. I deeply respect anyone who commits themselves to the multiple forms of public service. I also have a limitless appreciation for those who can volunteer their time to important causes. Those volunteers and acts of kindness carry me forward on my hardest days.

While my passion shows up in my work, I operate as an introvert. I love to connect with people one-on-one but engaging larger groups of people can be taxing for me. I need to watch my energy levels when it comes to work-life balance as it is easy to burn out with this work. It’s taken a lot of reflection for me to identify unsustainable working habits, like putting others before myself, and ways I can be more present in my personal life for my wife and friends.

I also cannot emphasize enough how important self-care is, especially nowadays where it seems burnout is running rampant. I have struggled for many years with self-worth and post-traumatic stress disorder which took me down quite a few dark roads. I was bullied extensively in my youth, my parents passed away by the time I was 25, and I experienced several community traumas including three separate shooting events. I realized I have a choice to let these hardships drive me or I can flow through them. These events drive my personal career where I can ever-so-slightly make the world a better place by reducing climate emissions and build resiliency for our communities to not just endure, but thrive.

I have had some amazing people in my life including my wife Katie and my close friends who have supported me through difficult times. I also can’t emphasize enough how vitally important mental and physical health is. I highly recommend therapy for anyone, especially if it focuses on tools to help you better understand your own operating system. When I do get stuck on a bad day, I find myself running through a check-list on whether I: 1) had enough water, 2) had enough food, 3) had enough sleep, 4) have I been moving around enough, 5) made some type of connection with others. I find this list usually identifies the root of what I’m struggling with, and if I’m unsure I embrace the resounding power of a casual stroll through the neighborhood.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Since 2019, I have served as the Colorado Program Director for Solar United Neighbors (SUN). SUN is a vendor-neutral, nonprofit organization. We help people go solar, come together, and fight for energy rights. We recruit members to join a group-buy program for rooftop solar which we call solar co-ops, where participants can explore what going solar means for them for free and no obligation to install. Our members form a selection committee which reviews various bids and selects one solar installer to serve the whole group. Members save money and enjoy a streamlined process to go solar.

We’ve supported over 320 Coloradan families and small businesses install over 2.2 MW of rooftop solar across the Western Slope and Front Range. These projects will provide an estimated $9.8 million in energy savings of their lifespan, supporting an estimated 35 jobs and immediately investing $6.4 million into the local economy.

Our Colorado program has collaborated with several municipalities to pilot solar equity rebate pilot programs, amounting to nearly half a million dollars to support low-to-moderate income installations. We are pursuing additional rebates and policies to continue growing solar access across the state. I am very proud of this work, but I also know we have a long way to go to make sure everyone can gain the benefits of renewable energy, especially our disproportionately impacted communities.

We currently facilitating co-ops in San Miguel County, Northwest Colorado, and Adams County. Will also be launching programs in Denver, Mesa County, Broomfield, and Boulder County into early 2023. We also will be supporting the Marshall Fire rebuilding effort to help save money for impacted families.

What matters most to you? Why?
I deeply believe in the betterment of our communities and the building toward a vision of a more resilient and sustainable future.

Climate disruption is here. Period. We’ve barely tasted what is to come with our record winds, prolonged drought, floods, and fires. Events like the Marshall Fire where 1,200 family livelihoods can be devastated over mere hours highlight the vulnerability all of our communities face, and emphasize the urgency to facilitate preparedness and resiliency in our communities now. COVID has given us a hint of what further supply disruptions may look like as our energy, transportation, and agricultural systems are strained to their limits in the months and years to come. Disproportionally impacted communities already enduring systemic harms, and are on the frontlines of the impacts of climate disruption. Meeting this challenge is monumental, but we can take it on if we work together.

Community organizing matters and starts by building a vision together of what we want our future to look like. For me, it’s about community education and engagement, embracing localized resilience in the face of impending hardship, and fostering an inclusive and equitable renewable energy economy for all.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://solarunitedneighbors.org/

Image Credits
Bryce Carter