Meet the woman behind the clean energy movement in Fayetteville 

Anne Schrader has been quietly working behind the scenes in Fayetteville to bring awareness to the ongoing climate crisis. She is the founder and owner of Eco Solutions, a consulting firm that works with local businesses, homeowners and community leaders to assess their sustainability needs and come up with practical solutions to address the changing energy demands of the future. 

Eco Solutions focuses on several areas, including “awareness and education, waste reduction and recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and protection, green purchasing, clean transportation, resilient grounds keeping and community engagement.”

Locally, Schrader has given presentations and led workshops and training sessions at information-sharing venues such as the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and Fayetteville Technical Community College. Her work has been spotlighted in local news outlets like the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal and Women’s View magazine, and she has written columns about the climate crisis for several publications, including the Fayetteville Observer.

Schrader told CityView there is a three-fold crisis facing our planet: pollution, loss of biodiversity, and climate change (which experts have said poses an “existential threat” to humanity).

“We’re polluting the air, we’re polluting our water resources, we’re polluting the oceans,” Schrader said. “We’re polluting air, water, soil — the soil that grows our food, then we spray the food [with pesticides] — that needs to be addressed. And then not to mention the biodiversity loss … We’re driving the sixth mass extinction of our planet species. This is a crisis.”

Schrader regularly speaks at Fayetteville City Council meetings and other public forums on sustainability issues, hoping to encourage community leaders to approach the climate crisis as a regional and community-wide issue. For the last two years, she told CityView, she’s been advocating for the Fayetteville City Council to develop an updated sustainability plan — something the council did in March, after 15 years with the same plan.

Last month, Fayetteville was awarded a climate grant to develop a collaborative energy efficiency plan in Cumberland County, a concept that Schrader applauded.

CityView sat down with Schrader this week to learn more about her work, and what motivates her to keep pushing for sustainability. Her answers are excerpted below and have been edited for brevity and clarity.

CITYVIEW: How did you first become interested in the environment and climate issues? 

ANNE SCHRADER: I have people in my family who were very in tune with the environment and being an Army brat, and my father loved beauty, I grew up in some of the most naturally beautiful places in the world. My father exposed us to the beauties of the world.

We lived off-grid in a Bavarian farm cottage up in the Alps. And so off-grid, there was no running water, there was no electricity. There was a well, so it came from deep aquifers on the ground. We lit the stove. We had a fireplace. It was one of the best times of my life. Stunningly beautiful. 

When we’re children, we’re climbing trees and we’re eating grass and we’re chasing butterflies and smelling flowers. And just when we’re little, we eat it, we smell it, we taste it. We’re hanging in the trees. What’s this grass taste like? Try this clover. Eat this clover. And so when you really experience nature with all the senses, you get a better idea of it. 

What prompted you to start Eco Solutions? 

I was here in Fayetteville with my family, who have a business on the other side of the city council [building], and we were flooded waist-high by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Then two years later, Hurricane Florence came. Those are two 500-year storms typically that occurred back to back. So clearly, this is what we’re seeing more and more around the world. 

Part of what keeps people in poverty is what’s going on with the environment. And many of these people are impacted by drought. It affects agriculture. There’s no food. They’re forced to migrate, and then they might be impacted by flooding.

And so when I got hit, we were able to recover. Many people down that street weren’t. And then my company sustained a fire two years later. And then I had to sell that company, and then we went into a global pandemic for two years. So then we were all in a lockdown.

When I was impacted by my company’s fire and went into a global pandemic, as a longstanding entrepreneur and being very in tune to what’s going on with our environment and climate crises, I knew I was going to start another company right here in Fayetteville, and to bring greater awareness and engagement around our environment and our climate crises. And again, I’ve been impacted twice by two environmental disasters. So I lead my company’s mission from example, personal experience.

What kinds of things do you do to help business owners and residents achieve sustainability? 

Essentially, I bring awareness and education. We’ve got a crisis. We’ve got a challenge. I bring awareness. And then once I’ve hopefully inspired you by this information, then I roll up my sleeves and I do sustainable business and home assessments. Then I start getting into the community, in the homes and the businesses, and I walk together with you, and I put together something super duper easy. It’s a checklist and report format. It’s digital, so we’re not using paper or trees. I do a collaborative walkthrough in your home or your business, following environmental best practices. 

I help people improve waste reduction and recycling in their homes and businesses. I help them improve energy efficiency, water conservation and protection of our Cape Fear River, our water resource that is bearing the impacts of sea level rise of industrial pollution from Chemours and Dupont and coal ash, and from stormwater and factory farm runoff. 

Is there a local appetite for the kind of work you do with Eco Solutions? Are people interested in living a more sustainable lifestyle and adopting sustainable business practices? 

It’s still slow. It’s incredibly slow. I’ve talked to leadership at churches. Like at the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, we’ll have a prayer breakfast. I’m a spiritual person. I show up. With pastors, I make a beeline to them afterward, and I thank them very much for their talk. I introduce myself as a local sustainability consultancy with a big mission. And this is what I’m doing. ‘Would you mind if I follow up with you for a meeting?’ They defer me to somebody else who then shuts the door. These are our churches. And the Bible, if you read it, they talk about being good stewards. We’re meant to be good stewards.

I’m very aware of how you present yourself publicly and then what you’re actually doing behind the scenes. And you see this with a lot of leadership that’ll sort of, say, pay lip service to, ‘Oh, we support local businesses.’ And then when you actually talk to them, they don’t want to take a meeting. They don’t follow up, or they say, ‘We’re not interested.’

To answer your question, there is some movement, there is more open-mindedness, and everybody’s turning on the nightly news. This is all over the nightly news. Record-breaking wildfires, forest fires, devastating flooding. And so while they say we’re not interested, then they go home and turn on the nightly news, and so it’s very ironic. Mother Earth is one of my biggest marketers. Because if you don’t believe me, just step outside. It’s hotter than s—, right?

What do you do about people who deny the reality of climate change, or who feel nothing can be done to stop it? 

When something’s on fire and I’m knocking on your door, I’m straight to the chase. We’re at a level of crises where I don’t mince words. What is left to deny? It’s hotter than hell. This is hotter than it was last year. And so for people who are in denial, what I could essentially say is this: The truth of the reality does not adjust to your belief system. The facts are the facts. So it’s going to be up to more and more people to rethink their belief systems and their priorities and make the changes that reflect the reality of what’s going on in the world. The facts don’t accommodate your belief system. That’s up to you. 

Secondly, because we are at such a level of crisis and because it’s so undeniable — you can feel it on your skin when you go outside, you can read local newspapers and read about what we’re doing to our Cape Fear River and our landfills. If you’re a reader, it’s all in the news. Or you can turn on the news. The people that are going to save this crisis are going to be the people who get it. So if you’re in denial, you’re not on my radar. We don’t have the time. 

What words of wisdom do you have for the community about climate change and the environment? 

Not only is this a crisis, it is an opportunity — all crises have an inherent opportunity and blessing in them if we look for it. And I believe all of our challenges, I don’t call them problems, I call them learning opportunities, because that’s why we’re here. We’re here to love each other and learn and evolve. And so we’ve got a crisis, which is an opportunity. It’s at a level that is no longer deniable.

As a local resident and citizen and business owner taking on a critical crisis, we are now aware that it needs to be a priority. So let’s now work together in solving it. Let’s now work together as a community, in our homes and our businesses and our churches and our schools. We’re aware now. You can no longer say that you’re not aware, and the level of action needs to rise up and meet the calls that are proportionate to the crises.

Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608. 

This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.