09/02/2025
Today, September 2nd, is the deadline for RPU's survey!
Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) Board is considering abandoning its 100% Renewable Energy by 2030 commitment. Please take RPU's survey to show your support for climate action. See instructions below!
All of us deserve a healthy, livable climate. However, the Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) Board is considering abandoning its 100% Renewable Energy by 2030 commitment, threatening our progress on climate action. We cannot let this happen.
This commitment is the cornerstone of our community’s strategy to fight climate change. Without it, Rochester will fail to hit its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. The cost of backtracking is big: we’re all already feeling the impacts of the climate crises with bad air days impacting all of our health.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ACTION YOU CAN TAKE
RPU sent a survey to customers, asking them to choose between our current, strong 2030 goal and the weaker state 2040 requirement. We must show support for 2030 through this survey. This is the single most effective way to influence this critical decision.
STEP-BY-STEP: HOW TO TAKE THE SURVEY
Your voice is essential. Here’s how to make sure it’s heard:
1. FIND THE EMAIL: If you are an RPU customer with an email on file, you should have received a survey from [email protected] with the subject: “Rochester Public Utilities (RPU) would appreciate your feedback!”
2. CHECK YOUR SPAM: If you don’t see it in your inbox, check your spam or junk folder. It may have been filtered there. If the link is in your spam, you may need to mark the email as “not spam”, then go to your inbox so the link will work.
3. REQUEST A LINK: If you cannot find the link, contact GreatBlue Research directly during business hours:
Phone: 860-740-4000
Tell them you are an RPU customer and need the survey link.
4. TAKE THE SURVEY: Please complete the survey and advocate for climate action and to keep our 2030 clean energy goal! The deadline for the survey is September 2nd, TODAY!
5. AMPLIFY YOUR IMPACT: Share this alert! Forward this action to people you know in Rochester who are also passionate about clean air and climate action. Not everyone is on our email list, and every single customer voice makes a difference.
After you complete the survey, please reply to let us know you took action! This helps us track our impact and show strength in numbers.
This is one of the most powerful local climate actions you can take. Thank you for standing up for a clean, healthy, and sustainable future for Rochester!
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Background: Why We Must Fight for 100% by 2030
In 2019, thanks to the hard work of Sierra Club volunteers, student activists, and community advocates, RPU adopted its groundbreaking 100% renewable by 2030 goal. Now, that progress is under threat. ( https://www.sierraclub.org/minnesota/blog/2022/07/rochester-keeps-path )
Wrong Direction: RPU is considering surrendering to short-term cost concerns and defaulting to the state's less ambitious 2040 carbon-free mandate. With federal rollbacks of climate and energy programs, it is more important than ever to make progress at the local level! Abandoning the goal is the wrong direction, and the survey is an important opportunity to raise your voice.
Giving up would result in an estimated additional 166,735 tons of CO2 emissions in 2030 alone. That’s equal to the annual emissions from over 35,000 gas-powered cars or the electricity use of over 31,500 homes.
False Economy: While achieving the 2030 goal may have a minimal initial cost (estimated at ~2% more per year until 2030), renewable energy is cheaper in the long run. Fossil fuel prices are volatile and prone to spikes, while renewable costs keep falling. More importantly, the devastating health and environmental costs of pollution are never factored into our bills.
Our Health & Our Future: Abandoning this goal directly undermines the city's ability to cut community-wide emissions by 50% by 2030, prolonging our reliance on dirty energy that harms public health.
