Sustainability and Business Support 2021-2022

Dear Wisconsin Legislators,

I am excited to share an update on the efforts of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Sustainability and Business Support program. Like previous updates, we include narratives highlighting our customers’ experiences and perspectives. We also share how our efforts continue to deliver valuable services to Wisconsin’s industries and local governments.

Much has changed since we last reported to you in 2020. The greatest lesson we learned can be summed up in one word – resilience. Resilience is a recurring theme linking all the stories in our 2022 update together.

Wisconsin’s business community and local governments continue to face new and evolving challenges. We recognize the need to be agile and flexible with our services to help these partners as they navigate uncharted waters. We continue to adapt and reinvent ourselves in an ongoing effort to reinforce our ability to provide customers with the most pertinent information and assistance.

The DNR’s Sustainability and Business Support team puts our customer’s first, quickly connecting them to the resources and experts they need. Whether a customer’s first stop is one of our new, curated websites or a referral from a local economic development professional, our team stands ready to answer questions and identify solutions. We are proud to support our customers as they work toward goals that support our shared vision for healthy, resilient Wisconsin communities and businesses that are equipped to adapt and grow in the face of today’s challenges.

I invite you to continue reading to learn more about how our services help organizations expand their capacity to move forward, recover and achieve resiliency.

Sincerely,

Preston D. Cole Secretary, Department of Natural Resources

All Green Tier participants in the program as of Sept. 30, 2022 can be found on the interactive map below.

Tips for using the map:

• Refer to the legend to see what the various icons indicate on the map.
• Hover over an icon on the map to read more details about that Green Tier participant.
• To toggle categories on and off, visit the  Green Tier Webpage  which hosts the most current version of this map.

While these data points are helpful, they don’t tell the whole story. In 2023, participants will provide normalized data instead of raw data. This will allow us to track progress over time and make comparisons across participants and sectors. It also helps paint the picture of how efficiencies change as both business and environmental outcomes fluctuate.

Looking forward, normalized data will help us tell more robust stories about how our participants manage their environmental impacts.

Economic development choices are key to helping communities grow and thrive. Our team is working hard to do our part by making connections that help smooth the path toward successful development for businesses and development professionals. Our 2020 Better Choices, Better Businesses, Better Environment campaign initially connected with over 1,200 local, regional and state-wide economic development professionals, offering  tools  to help them help their customers.  Over the course of the email campaign, newsletter subscriptions increased 75% and now our news and resources reach an economic development audience of over 2,100. By raising awareness of our business services, our outreach ensured that chambers of commerce and other local development partners were familiar with and knew the value of our services. Based on feedback from those we connected with in 2020, the following year we turned our attention to regional planning commissions to help us bridge the information gap. We developed a webinar that uses a stylized community model to paint a better picture of how SBS can help communities grow with the environment in mind. The model identifies the types of businesses and community activities that would likely benefit by contacting our team. We crafted the webinar as a relationship-building tool with questions and polls woven throughout to foster dialogue and identify topics for future sessions. Our initial pilot was successful!  For more details about this effort, see the below real-world example. 

Teams from across the state at the DNR are exploring ways to adapt the webinar for their regions and will serve as a model for future outreach as we continue to make the connections that support better choices, better business and better environment.

In October 2021, we teamed up with the Southwest Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission (SWWRPC) to pilot a new webinar designed to function as a relationship-building tool with regional economic development audiences. The webinar successfully opened doors for the regional planning commission, its partners and our team to collaborate on future sessions.

Building off the pilot webinar, we focused on a tangible impediment to economic development: the increased frequency and severity of flood damage to our roads. SWWRPC helped gather over 30 public works and emergency management staff to learn about  Breaking the Cycle of Flood Damage to Wisconsin Roadways . They heard from:

• Scientists and DNR staff illustrating changing weather patterns and more frequent and severe flood events that are causing catastrophic culvert failures.
• Technical experts providing tools to help communities identify roadways and culverts at high risk and plan for upgrades.
• Local officials from flood-damaged parts of the state sharing their real-life experiences and offering their lessons learned.
• Assistance providers explaining the financial resources available to flood-impacted communities.

Want to connect with us or learn more about our programs? Email the Sustainability and Business Support team at:  DNRBusinessSupport@Wisconsin.gov