Municipalities and nonprofit organizations from southeast Michigan will be sharing the latest environmental infrastructure know-how this week at a Michigan Green Communities workshop organized by an SNRE master's project team. The workshop will provide an update to the Michigan Green Communities Challenge, a reporting mechanism for communities to track sustainability activity and share information with one another. The Economic Energy Analysis tool make its debut at the workshop.

A team of four dual-degree SNRE students took second place last week in the Clean Energy Prize contest for their master's project. Team Smart Energy—Andrew Lubershane, who is completing a master's in applied economics in addition to a degree at SNRE, and Erb students Mike Elchinger, Ryan Flynn, and Graham Brown—won $25,000 for a plan that uses an innovative financing model to retrofit municipal buildings for energy efficiency savings. Their master's project client is the Clean Energy Coalition. The group has also received a $50,000 grant from the Ford Motor Company to support implementation of their business plan over the summer.