Center for EcoTechnology

Success this decade hinges on catalysts like CET: boots-on-the-ground agents of change who work directly with customers to advise on state-of-the-art solutions, help optimally sequence and bundle options, identify and access layered incentives from utility, state, and federal sources, and shepherd projects from feasibility, to installation, to performance. It is catalytic agents who will unlock the $800 B climate spending potential of the IRA2 and who will hit targets like deploying 1 M heat pumps in Massachusetts by 20303. CET is built for this challenge.

For nearly 50 years we have been helping customers implement environmental solutions that make their buildings and operations more sustainable, habitable, and less expensive to operate. Our expertise is in waste reduction and diversion, energy efficiency, and electrification, and our passion is in getting customers to yes. We operate under contracts with state and federal agencies, utilities, and donors, and provide no-cost services to our customers, packaging solutions that are too good to say no to and too easy to put off.

CET has a model that works and currently we provide tailored support on a scale of over 20,000 customers per year. In 2022, we helped 22,000 people and businesses save over 1,095,000 lifetime MMBtu’s (the equivalent of 14,000 homes off the grid for a year) and divert 29,000 tons of waste from disposal. These actions generated over $32.4 M in lifetime savings for our customers and mitigated 286,000 tons of lifetime CO2 emissions (that’s 62,000 cars off the road for a year).

- Align our recommendations with climate ambitions.
- Establish culture and sytems to foster innovation.
- Expand and increase accessibility to decarbonization services.
- Achieve industry-leading adoption rates.

Our 90+ professional staff have expertise in energy efficiency, renewable energy, waste management, and customer outreach and education. CET has extensive experience in all aspects of program development and delivery, including planning, budgeting, program administration, evaluation, and monitoring of performance.

We work with partners from industry, government, foundations, and the community to help people and businesses save energy and reduce waste. We act as a catalyst to spur marketplace development and effective public policy to divert wasted food from the commercial/institutional sector to all levels of the waste hierarchy. We have been a regional leader in food waste reduction and diversion for over 20 years, implementing some of the first food waste composting programs in the country and creating and operating an award-winning food waste reduction effort in MA. We have expanded these efforts into CT, RI, PA, NY, and are in the process of adding more Northeast states and advising on other state and local policy and programs nationally.

We serve thousands of residential, commercial, agricultural, institutional, and government customers each year in both the retrofit and new construction markets. Our staff are qualified to perform energy modeling and building code analysis and training, and provide Passive House, Zero Energy, LEED, BPI, and RESNET assessments and certifications. We provide customers with energy assessments, energy action plans, and guide customers through complicated utility, state, and federal grant, incentive, and rebate applications. We partner closely with dozens of energy efficiency and renewable energy companies to provide coordinated services, training, referrals, job specifying, contractor arranging, oversight, and quality assurance. This collaboration helps support industry success and growth and ensure successful outcomes for our clients and their stakeholders.

The Center for EcoTechnology’s store, EcoBuilding Bargains, is the largest used building materials store in New England. EcoBuilding Bargains accepts donations of quality home improvement materials and sells them to the public at discounted prices. We help New England homeowners prevent perfectly good building materials from going to the landfill and make home improvement more affordable for more people.

Our EcoFellowship provides passionate and high-achieving college graduates with a one-year paid position to carry out outreach, education, and other activities related to climate action initiatives in western MA. The EcoFellowship draws a competitive pool of applicants from across the country who seek mentorship from our staff as they launch their careers as environmental leaders.

CET is at the cutting edge of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and waste reduction, spearheading an array of pilot projects in food waste reduction, local carbon offsets, deeper energy retrofits, and building deconstruction, and more.

CET consistently meets or exceeds our three year goals that we set in each strategic cycle. CET is on a mission to innovate, implement, and scale the environmental solutions that communities need to thrive, and are targeting 5x scale up over the next two years. Simultaneously, we will invest in our technical services team to stay on the cutting edge of the rapidly evolving landscape of solutions while holding ourselves accountable to developing, demonstrating, and disseminating industry-leading customer adoption rates. CET’s ambitions for impact are as audacious as the work ahead—we are scaling like our lives, and the lives of future generations depend on it.