Nicholas Johnson is a program manager for the Louisville Sustainability Council, which has partnered with dozens of organizations around the city for years in partnership to help the city’s environmental causes, including help drive down energy costs to people’s wallets and costs to the environment overall.
We sat down with Johnson, and asked him about his work with the council, and why he continues to fight against climate change in Louisville.
Parts of this interview have been edited for clarity.
LEO Weekly: So Nick, what’s your first and last name and what do you do for the Louisville Sustainability Council?
Johnson: Nicholas Johnson, my title is program manager. So, we have a whole series of programs that we run that I help with on a day to day basis, as well as just general administrative and typical nonprofit. Everybody does a little bit of everything.
LEO Weekly: What inspired you to work in sustainability and what’s kept you motivated so far?
Johnson: I grew up in a more rural area in Western Kentucky, a little more connected with nature, Boy Scouts, things like that. I always really enjoyed being outside and nature and things like that. But I didn’t really understand the issues about the environment until college. And there were some guys in my fraternity working on environmental policy and got me really interested in climate change issues.
I realized how important it was going to be moving forward throughout my lifetime, and those that follow us. So it really got me interested in trying to do what I could for our world currently, and also for the impacts in the future.
LEO Weekly: What changes have you seen in the city’s approach to sustainability over the years?
Johnson: You know, Louisville is a really interesting case. We are kind of a blue Island in a red state. So there’s some things that we try to do that maybe aren’t being done elsewhere in the state. We’re definitely not as far along as other parts of the country or world.
There’s a lot of really good things happening and we want to continue that momentum, but there’s a lot of work to be done as well. I think we’ve definitely seen nonprofit partners and the city government step up a lot in the last decade or so with more organizations and more focus and emphasis on sustainability at that city level.
That doesn’t necessarily mean everyone’s on board, you know. It’s still a diverse sort of community, and trying to bring everyone along is part of the challenge. I do think one of the really positive things about our area that I say is, if we can do it here in Louisville, Kentucky and coal country, we can do it anywhere.
So the wins that we’re able to make are really representative of models that can work pretty much anywhere if we can do them here.
LEO Weekly: How long have you worked with the sustainability council?
Johnson: About two years as an employee, but I was a volunteer for several years before that. So I’ve been affiliated with the LSC for a while. And then I was part time for about half a year and then full time for the last couple.
LEO Weekly: So, during that time, what are some of those wins that you were referring to during your time while you’ve been with them?
Johnson: From the Sustainability Council perspective, one of our most successful and exciting programs that we’ve been a partner on is Solarize Louisville. We just wrapped up the third year of it. The first year it was called Solar Over Louisville, so folks have heard that term.
It’s the same program, just with a rebrand. So Solarize is a national model of helping folks get access to renewable energy in an affordable and safe way so that they’re not getting scammed or taken advantage of. And the idea there is to really connect homeowners and small business owners and residents with vetted solar installers who are able to give them a bulk purchasing discount.
That saves money on their upfront costs and then down the line on their utility bill as well. So this is a campaign that we’ve wrapped up for the third year.
Solarize has been kind of a flagship and I do want to be clear, it’s a partnership. The LSC isn’t the only participant. We are the non-profit arm of the partnership and we interface with the public and do publicity and promotion and help educate people about the opportunity.
We couldn’t do it without our partners at the city government. The mayor’s Office of Sustainability runs a lot of the day to day logistics and admin of the program, as well as helping along with Kentucky Solar Energy Society. They’re a statewide organization. It’s a chapter of the American Solar Energy Society.
And they’ve really got the expertise for the actual solar, the technology, the installers themselves, the things we need to look for in the companies that are brought on board to be the installers. So it’s a really successful partnership. And the really cool thing about it is not only has it worked well here in Louisville, but as I was saying, if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere.
Related Stories
How Much Does It Cost To Raise A Child? See How Kentucky Compares To The Rest Of The United States
This article appears in Nov 4-19, 2024.
