Reducing climate impact sounds like a big task, but at C3 we know it’s easily accessible for everyone - it has to be! With our larger partners in the Green Business Alliance, our work involves a lot of coaching and data-crunching as they work toward deep emissions reduction goals. For our community partners and some microbusinesses, we offer professional services to identify energy-saving opportunities and navigate the jungle of financial incentives to help put them into action.

For small businesses, we recognize how hard it is to find the time and resources to reduce your energy costs and carbon footprint, or even know where to start. With our Energy Efficiency Grants program, we work directly with small businesses to identify the most impactful opportunities for energy savings, and support upgrades that will benefit the grant winners for years to come. This process results in better working conditions, reduced operating costs, and less carbon in the atmosphere.

2024-25 Energy Efficiency Grant Winners

We’ve been hard at work with our 2024-2025 grant recipients, and are thrilled to introduce this year’s winners. We thank these wonderful partners for taking the time to fill out our simple (simple!) application, walk us through their businesses, and collaborate with us to make sure the implementation went smoothly.

Collective Impact

The Energy Efficiency Grants delivered more than $6,000 of projected annual energy cost savings back to the businesses! Collectively, this year’s grants included:

$20,000 total awarded to 12 small, primarily woman- and/or minority-owned businesses (2 of these are still in process)

13,000 kgCO2e greenhouse gas reduction. That’s the same amount of carbon absorbed by 13 acres of forest in a single year.

Our Awardees

“One of the best opportunities to improve efficiency [was] to replace the current dryer we use with an Energy Star dryer. One of the many tasks that we do in between jobs is clean towels and microfiber rags. This is a daily task for us and utilizes the dryer. We appreciate everyone at the Community Climate Collaborative who has made this process easy, and we would like to thank Cville Appliances for delivering and installing the dryer.”
- Charlene Munford, Monster Cleaning

“Coles was able to come out to our space and was able to take a look at what did we need to be able to conserve energy….we can now dim the lights, so if we are doing a strength class, we can make it brighter, if we’re switching to a yoga session we can bring the lights down and make it a little cozier.”

- Nicole Hawker, Heart & Soul Fitness

“It was easy! [The C3 Team] found all of these…different ways we were losing energy…they found all of these micro-solutions for us that added up to big savings….It’s a great program.”

(Speaking of her new storm door) “Not only does it look better, but also the customer comfort level is significantly raised.”
- Kristin Rabourdin, Batesville Market

Community Partners

Almost everything we do at C3 receives vital help from community partners, and this program is no exception. A very special thanks to our partners this year: