Five Steps for Utilities to Foster Authentic Community Engagement

This guide by RMI outlines five strategic steps for electric utilities to implement authentic community engagement to ensure an equitable clean energy transition, particularly in US states where legislation mandates equitable decarbonization.

• Utilities should identify historically underserved communities using measurable criteria and data, tailoring the identification to local vulnerabilities. For example, in Washington State, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) identified the urban heat island effect as a specific vulnerability for its urban residents, while PacifiCorp focused on different needs for its rural service territories.
• Meaningful participation requires compensating underrepresented community members and organizations for their lived experience and expertise. Portland General Electric (PGE) implemented a compensation plan for community-based organizations that included funding for recruiting, convening workshops, childcare, and food.
• Engagement strategies must be linguistically and culturally accessible to remove barriers to participation. PacifiCorp utilized live Spanish interpretation and Spanish-language surveys in Yakima and Walla Walla counties to inform its Clean Energy Implementation Plan (CEIP) and employed a "trusted community messenger" model by hiring a diversity and community outreach coordinator.
• Utilities can foster equity by partnering with communities to design programs that build local wealth and distribute benefits. Examples include Xcel Energy's plan to create worker retraining and retirement packages with International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 111 for the retirement of coal resources, including Hayden Generating Station, and PGE's commitment to spend 15 percent of total supplier spending on diverse suppliers by the end of 2022.
• Utilities should co-create progress metrics with communities and partner with external organizations to fill data gaps. ComEd, for instance, is exploring a partnership with Aclima to obtain block-by-block air quality data that the utility does not possess internally.

APA

RMI (2022). Five Steps for Utilities to Foster Authentic Community Engagement. https://rmi.org/resources/five-steps-for-utilities-to-foster-authentic-community-engagement/

Chicago

RMI. Five Steps for Utilities to Foster Authentic Community Engagement. 2022. https://rmi.org/resources/five-steps-for-utilities-to-foster-authentic-community-engagement/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Five Steps for Utilities to Foster Authentic Community Engagement |date=2 June 2022 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/five-steps-for-utilities-to-foster-authentic-community-engagement/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2022five, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Five Steps for Utilities to Foster Authentic Community Engagement}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2022}, month = jun, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/five-steps-for-utilities-to-foster-authentic-community-engagement/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }