[Angela Casler]

From our friend Mary Pat Baldauf, Sustainability Facilitator, City of Columbia, SC’s Public Works. Mary Pat served on the SMA Board of Directors in 2014 and I hope you will network with her. She sent me an email to share her feedback on this post. We need budgets to implement or projects – don’t you agree?

So often, I struggle with defining success in my role as sustainability facilitator for the City of Columbia. Angela with SMA forwarded this article, and it really hit home, especially this: So taking on any new initiative can be challenging. Where we can help in this area is by helping these groups sell sustainability to internal stakeholders, which means helping them understand and communicate the business case to make it clear internally that they need to make budget available for sustainability and energy programs.

I often forget that this role is such an odd one, and not always one with a lot of visible wins. Thank you both for your leadership and your reassurance. MPB