Resources
How to transition off fossil fuels
One of the easiest ways to lower greenhouse gases on a governmental or personal level is to focus on four things, because they are responsible for the vast majority of Shrewsbury’s greenhouse gas emissions.
- Electricity: Increase renewable energy and reduce overall demand.
- Buildings: Weatherize to increase building efficiency, and electrify everything.
- Transportation: Transition to electric and low emission vehicles.
- Solid waste: Recycling is very important. But ultimately, our focus needs to move beyond just recycling to source reduction, reuse, and repair.
Electricity
Where does your electricity come from?
People almost never consider where their electricity comes from. Was it mostly generated by natural gas in a town many miles away? How much of it? Was it also generated by nuclear energy? Diesel? Wind? Solar? Hydro? What ratio is your mix? If you want to reduce your climate impact, knowing where your electricity comes from is key.
In Massachusetts, there are two main sources of electricity: Municipal Light Plants (MLPs) and Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs). Shrewsbury is one of 41 Massachusetts towns that have an MLP, Shrewsbury Electric and Cable Operations (SELCO). The remaining towns in Massachusetts receive electricity from Investor Owned Utilities, such as Eversource, National Grid and Unitil. In Shrewsbury, we are fortunate that SELCO’s electric rates are about half of those in the IOU towns, because IOUs need to satisfy their investors. SELCO is municipally owned, and a local employer. SELCO managers work in town, and we can talk directly with them to get answers when we have questions or concerns.
As of 2024, about 50% of Shrewsbury’s electricity comes from non-carbon emitting sources. In 2021, SELCO committed to supplying Shrewsbury with 100% net-zero electricity by 2032. This is excellent for Shrewsbury’s town wide greenhouse gas emissions because it means that all the electricity used by the Town’s buildings, residents and businesses will be created from non-carbon emitting sources by 2032. SELCO is achieving this while keeping rates among the lowest in Massachusetts.
With rebates available from Mass Save, the Federal Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and SELCO, residents have the opportunity to install rooftop solar, generating their own renewable power. SELCO allows net metering, so residents can sell back excess electricity from solar panels to SELCO, thus lowering their cost of electricity. In addition, rooftop solar helps reduce spikes in peak electricity demand for SELCO on very hot or very cold days.
The next step in the rooftop solar process is to consider installing battery backup. Batteries can be charged by electricity from the utility grid as well as from your solar array. Then it’s there for you to draw from when it rains, the sun sets, or an intense storm knocks down power lines. It can also power your EV.
Find electrification rebates here:
🔗 Massachusetts State Incentives: Massachusetts Energy Rebates & Incentives | Mass.gov
🔗 SELCO Residential Solar information: https://www.selco.shrewsburyma.gov/solar
🔗 Renters can electrify too: https://homes.rewiringamerica.org/electrify-your-home-renter
Buildings
Heat Pumps for Homeowners and Renters
Federal, State, and Mass Save rebates, tax credits, and loans are available to you, and can be layered for the transition off fossil fuel heating and cooling systems and onto modern, efficient heat pumps.
🔗 Basics of how to upgrade your heating and cooling with a heat pump.
Find Heating and Cooling Rebates Here:
SELCO
All Shrewsbury residents are SELCO customers and therefore are eligible for SELCO’s NextZero rebates. Electrification, Efficiency & Renewables | selco-residential
Mass Save
If you are a resident of Shrewsbury who buys natural gas from Eversource, you are eligible for rebates from Mass Save to increase your home’s energy efficiency. The first step is to contact Mass Save to schedule a free home energy assessment. This is a requirement for you to qualify for rebates. Weatherization is a first step in reducing the cost to heat and cool your home and Mass Save provides rebates for this purpose. In addition, Mass Save offers several rebates and zero-interest loans when you transition from gas or oil and move to heat pumps and mini-splits for heating and cooling. You receive these financial incentives because every month a portion of your Eversource gas bill is put aside into a special account to help Massachusetts residents transition away from fossil fuels in order to reduce carbon emissions and slow global warming.
It’s important to check back frequently with Mass Save because their rebate programs change, and you will want to use the most up-to-date information to qualify for rebates.
🔗 Mass Save Home Energy Assessment
🔗 Mini-Split Heating & Cooling - American Installations
🔗 How much money can you get with the Inflation Reduction Act? — Rewiring America
Transportation
For most people, transportation means a car or light truck. Between EV’s and plug-in hybrids, there are more choices and rebates for carbon-free vehicles than ever before. Rebates are available for cars and trucks, as well as for home chargers. Federal IRA tax credits, Mass Save rebates, and Shrewsbury SELCO rebates can be layered. Some rebates may vary with income, so be sure to check into that.
It is important to check the SELCO website Rebates Page often because their rebate programs change, and you will want to use the most up-to date information.
Find EV and EV Charger Incentives Here:
Federal EV incentives
🔗 How much money can you get with the Inflation Reduction Act? — Rewiring America
Massachusetts EV incentives
Mass Save (For Eversource customers. In Shrewsbury, gas customers)
🔗 Eversource EV Rebate Process
SELCO Financial Incentives
🔗 Electric Vehicles | SELCO - Residential
Solid Waste
An often overlooked fact is that everything we either recycle, or do not need to manufacture in the first place, reduces our climate and environmental impact. Learn how to do more!
🔗 https://productstewardship.us/
“Every aspect of our lives is, in a sense, a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.”
-Frances Moore Lappe
Environmental Justice
In March 2021, Governor Charles Baker signed into law the 2050 Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plan. That law, often referred to as the 2050 Climate Roadmap, was the first in Massachusetts to define Environmental Justice (EJ) and to place it at the center of our decarbonization efforts.
What is Environmental Justice? Environmental Justice is the right to a safe, healthy, productive, sustainable environment for all. Environmental Justice looks at historical wrongs based on racism, gender, and socioeconomic inequality. It addresses the historical fact that low-income, marginalized people, and people of color often bear the brunt of environmental degradation and the climate crisis. They breathe dirtier air, are more likely to live in a flood zone, live in hotter neighborhoods without trees or nature to cool them, and have far fewer resources to adapt to a changing, hotter world of magnified pollution and extreme weather.
Because of that, some IRA, Mass Save, and SELCO rebates are income based and more robust for members of Environmental Justice Communities. Both the Federal government and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts require that more climate funding be allocated to EJ individuals and neighborhoods in order to protect their climate and ecological safety.
“We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.”
-Dakota Proverb
Conservation
Historically, our culture has misunderstood the value of conserving the natural world. We have been slow to understand the science of how our own preservation ultimately depends on the preservation of wilderness and healthy biodiversity. For example, when we see woodlands being cut down, it is obvious that trees and animals die. In addition, water from rainfall does not soak back into the ground to refill aquifers. Instead it runs off, adding to the burden of storm water systems. Very few of us know that there is a massive fungal network in the soil that not only allows the trees to thrive, it dies without the trees. That fungal network protects us too. It draws carbon dioxide, the largest greenhouse gas, into the soil and stores it there. Conserving nature - woodlands, wetlands, meadows - is the preservation of us all.
“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”
-Jimmy Carter
Climate Optimism
Climate anxiety affects many of us, and right now. It often hits young people the hardest. Over and over again, the most helpful response is to take action. If people are presented with what looks to be a hopeless problem, they tend to give up. But when people join together to make change, they don’t just feel better, they become the force that will indeed change the world.
Look at our History page to see what a small group of committed Shrewsbury residents accomplished by working with our town government! Here, at the local level is always where we have the biggest opportunity to effect change.
“You are not Atlas carrying the world on your shoulder. It is good to remember that the planet is carrying you.”
-Vandana Shiva