About Teton Area 10×10

Sustaining our resources. Sustaining ourselves.

The Teton Climate Collaborative is a local grassroots organization that addresses sustainability issues around resource use in our community. The group, whose steering committee has representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Lower Valley Energy, Jackson Community Recycling, the Town and County and other aspects of the community, was created in 2008 to build on and tie together individual resource conservation and efficiency efforts. In 2008 the group received a 1% for the Tetons grant through Pursue Balance to support the community-oriented energy reduction program, the Teton Area 10x10 initiative.

Mission and Goals:

The Teton Area 10×10 leads and supports efforts resulting in increasingly efficient resource use in the Tetons region every year.

  • Every year more people and organizations in the Teton region will commit to using resources more efficiently.
  • Every year participants will maintain or improve past gains and expand their efforts to use resources more efficiently.
  • Every year visitors to the Tetons will learn how to conserve resources and how their efforts help sustain the region’s essential qualities.
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Background:

Over the past several years different segments of the Jackson Hole community have become interested in the community's consumption of resources such as energy, trash, fuel, and the like. For some, this interest stems from a concern about global warming; for others, it's a function of wanting to save money; for still others, it's a combination of these and other factors. Regardless of their motivation, local businesses, non-profits and government agencies have taken steps to use resources more efficiently and to teach and encourage others to do the same. In particular, during 2006 and 2007 several key events occurred regarding how the community thinks about and uses its resources:

  • The Town of Jackson signed the Mayor's Climate Change Agreement and Teton County made a similar commitment.
  • The Town of Jackson and Teton County government formed the Energy Efficiency Advisory Board to advise them on resource reduction and efficiency practices.
  • Nearly three-dozen Jackson Hole area businesses, non-profits, and government agencies participated in Jackson's Green Actions; a gathering of organizations actively taking steps to use resources more efficiently.
  • The Reduce Reuse Recycle (RRR) Business Leaders program enrolled its 50th business in their certification program for responsible resource use.
  • Lower Valley Energy started selling Green Power, and formalized a policy which holds that the least expensive kilowatt hour they can buy is the one they do not use (i.e. committing the company to encourage conservation).
  • The Teton Sustainability Project's annual Eco-fair hosted a number of prominent speakers addressing global warming and the need for resource conservation.
  • The Sustaining Jackson Hole Resource Use group held a Resource Use mini-Summit focusing on how the Jackson Hole community might systematically work toward reducing energy use and the amount of trash shipped out of Teton County.
  • The Town and County developed an Energy Efficiency Action Plan committing to 10% reduction in electricity and fossil fuel use by the year 2010 (10x10).

Combined, these and other efforts developed a great deal of momentum going into 2008, and the Teton Area 10×10 initiative was a logical next step.

Click here to learn more about our Steering Committee.