Appleton at the forefront of sustainability initiatives

Ten years or so ago, Steven Schrage was hiking on South Mountain in Phoenix. When he got to the top, he gazed down on the valley below and saw a cloud of smog settling over the city. 

It’s an image that never left him and to some extent informs his work today as the Project and Sustainability Manager for the city of Appleton.

“When you can see that physically, that cloud above the city,” Schrage says, “you’re thinking this is not good for anyone. And I don't want Appleton to look like that. I want to start being proactive and doing what we can to keep something like that from happening in our community here.”

Schrage heads the Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel, put in place in 2022 after a recommendation by the Climate Task Force and a resolution from the Appleton Common Council. The panel, comprised of seven experts in various relevant fields, provide the mayor, the Common Council and various department heads with insight, ideas and advice on moving the city forward with its sustainability objectives. The panel is further charged with collecting data on everything from carbon emissions to invasive plants.

Schrage is well credentialed for what he does, having worked at the Department of Natural Resources for eight years before joining the Appleton Parks and Rec Department in 2016. Along the way, he became a certified energy manager, a certified renewable energy professional and a certified sustainable development professional.

Schrage thinks of sustainability in three ways: environmentally, economically and socially. If it is to work, it must factor in all three, what he calls the triple bottom line.

“What we're doing here is try and meet in the middle and show everybody, whether you're for or against or in the middle, that this is a good technology or a good approach that we're taking – to energy management or facilities management, for example. If you're on the economic side, we can show you the bottom line, the dollars and cents. Or on the environmental side, we can show you the reduction of emissions. And on the social side, we can do the education part of it, and show what a benefit this is to the society in our community.”

50% emissions reduction over 10 years

Environmentally, sustainability might refer to a reduction in greenhouse gasses or criteria emissions, such as carbon monoxide or particulate matter. It might refer to the means of achieving that, via, for example, public transportation, electric vehicles, bike-friendly trails, etc. It can refer to wastewater treatment and biomass. It can even refer to promoting native plants, mowing reduction or elimination of invasive species or plants. 

The Appleton Sustainability Advisory Panel (ASAP) is looking in all those areas and more for ways to make the city environmentally friendly. But, for now, it has three overarching initiatives it is working on: clean energy; alternative transportation; and sustainable ecosystems.

While the net-zero emissions goal by 2050 is more aspirational than realistic, Schrage says the 50% emissions reduction by 2035 is doable as part of the clean energy initiative.

“We have a really good chance of making that happen,” he says. “So much of it has to do with the fossil fuel makeup of power from We Energies (the state’s largest natural gas and electric utility). Unless they get to 100 percent renewable, we’re not going to be able to achieve that net-zero goal.”

Schrage says that 10-year goal can be achieved through initiatives around wastewater treatment plants; a change to electric vehicles in the city fleet; solar panels on city buildings to reduce stationary energy use; and geothermal use, such as the new Appleton Public Library utilizes for all of its heating and cooling.

That geothermal system was subsidized by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which incentivized public and private investment in renewable energy. Schrage admits that President Trump’s and the Republican Party’s so-called ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ (H.R. 1), which end this month, along with anticipated cuts to grant programs, has him concerned. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, the former CEO of the second-largest fracking oil company in the U.S., just announced those subsidies will end on July 4.

“The biggest thing we’re up against right now is the elimination of solar (incentives),” Schrage says. “The incentives from that really made these projects financially viable. I mean, if you look at the library, the return on investment is 6.9 years (to pay back the original investment through energy savings) which is really good for a system with a 30- or 40-year lifespan.

“With that going away, it’s going to be more difficult to get some of these solar projects through. But I still think that we can show a good enough return that we’ll be able to install some new systems around the city. But yeah, that was a big hit to our renewable energy efforts.”

The good news is Appleton, after waiting for two years, finally received $25 million in RAISE money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to build its new transit center, which will utilize clean infrastructure and renewable energy and is expected to operate on a net-zero emissions basis when it is completed in 2028.

Alternative transportation and sustainable ecosystems

That new hub will also promote public transportation, including bike storage and a fleet of buses utilizing “clean diesel,” which, while not entirely clean, is significantly cleaner than regular diesel. There will also be EV charging stations for city as well as personal electric vehicles.

The second key initiative, alternative transportation, will encourage more biking by making it safer to ride around the city via better bike lanes and by connecting trails.

“It’s also getting awareness out there that, yeah, you can do a lot of things on a bicycle,” Schrage says. “You can even go grocery shopping with bicycles with three wheels and the cart on the back, so you can haul all your groceries. And I do think that with the popularity of E-bikes that are making that transition a little bit easier, just because you can go pretty fast on those, and you can get through the city pretty quick.”

Sustainable ecosystems is the third focus of the ASAP. It involves looking for natural solutions, for issues plaguing the city, whether those be related to stormwater, invasive species, native tree plantings or pollinator habitats. The panel created a Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping tool to track vegetation across the city.

“We're doing a data analysis based off of what we get from that survey to figure out where we are right now, because we can't just say, ‘hey, we want to do this and this.’ We need to know where we're at now before we know where we're going,” Schrage says. “And that data is also going to give us where the invasive species are, and then we can work out planning for removing those, and then planting that area with the native planting that will try and keep the invasive species from coming back in that area.”

Trying to do the best they can with the resources they have

Schrage says he is immensely proud of the city of Appleton for taking the reins with sustainability. He says he works with the Wisconsin Local Government Climate Coalition, which gives him a sense of just how well Appleton stacks up around the state.

“I have something new to say every meeting about what we're doing for initiatives and funding and projects in Appleton,” he says. “I think Appleton is really a leader in the state and is really showcasing and leading by example in this space of sustainability.”

He has equal pride for the unpaid volunteers on the ASAP, whom he calls “intelligent and dedicated and committed to making the community a better place on their own time.”

He thinks the key to success is winning over people in the community and he says the way to do that is finding the right balance as well as the right message. You can’t scold people or mandate that private citizens take up the cause, he says. But you can nudge them along.

“We want to do the research, do the due diligence, show that these technologies work, that they have return on investment,” he says. “And we can show them financial and environmental savings along with this. With projects like the library and the proposed transit center, we can show the community that, look, we made this work, it works really well, and we can show you that we're saving money, having an environmental impact, and being a good steward for the community.”

That’s why for the past five months, the ASAP has asked citizens to provide their own input through a survey available through July 5. It asks the public to identify what they deem environmental priorities.

As for doomsayers who claim it’s too late to save the Earth or that a city the size of Appleton can’t make a dent in the problem, he doesn’t listen because, he says, there’s no point.

“I honestly don't pay attention to any of that because I have no control over that,” he says. “I want to focus on what I have control of, and what I can do with that. I want to focus on what the city can do, and just do that to the best of our ability, And try and do the best we can with the resources we have. Every little bit helps. 

“So, we're obviously not going to save the world in Appleton, Wisconsin, but we can do our part to make Appleton a better place.”

Appleton at the forefront of sustainability initiatives © 2026 by Kelly Fenton is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0