Abstract: This is an ethnographic account of a social worker’s efforts to create a local
“Energy Alliance” to help moderate-income residents reduce energy costs in a small,
urban, northern plains community in the United States. Additionally, the initiative would
help create jobs, increase energy efficiency, and reduce carbon outputs. While the project
met with mixed results, lessons learned are relevant to the emergent intersections of
community practice, sustainable community development (economic and social), and
social work. The benefits of social work education and experience to this work are
highlighted, as are the challenges inherent in planning and implementing green
community development.