PV Squared Solar was honored to participate in the 2025 Western Massachusetts Arts Economic Summit at MASS MoCA, joining more than 100 leaders from across the region’s creative, municipal, nonprofit, and cultural sectors. The gathering brought together state officials, arts advocates, and community partners to strategize around housing, energy, funding, workforce, and long-term sustainability for the Commonwealth’s cultural identity.

Representing the solar cooperative was Brittany Hathaway, Worker-Owner and Marketing & Outreach Specialist, who emphasized the powerful and often overlooked alignment between the arts and renewable energy.
“Creativity and climate action rely on the same strengths; imagination, problem-solving, and the courage to build something better before it’s obvious. Artists help people feel the future,” Hathaway noted, underscoring how essential the arts are to a just energy transition.

The Summit highlighted Western Mass as a region defined by abundance, not scarcity. As speakers reminded the room, the creative economy contributes nearly $30 billion to the state and supports 130,000+ jobs, more than transportation or utilities. With over 15,000 cultural organizations and more than 112,000 working artists, the creative sector is one of Massachusetts’ economic cornerstones.

It’s also why PV Squared is so committed to this region:
Western Mass is a powerhouse of arts and culture, an environmental leader, and a community of enthusiastic solar adopters.

PV Squared emphasized that for arts organizations, energy isn’t abstract, it’s the invisible infrastructure that keeps creative work alive: gallery lighting, archive-safe HVAC, fabrication studios, media labs, projection, performance systems, and more. And with many venues housed in historic mills or industrial buildings, the need for efficiency, electrification, and carbon reduction is both urgent and deeply aligned with mission.

Energy improvements (i.e. weatherization, heat pumps, and “photovoltaics” aka solar) aren’t simply “green” upgrades; they:

• Strengthen financial stability
• Reduce operating costs
• Protect cultural and archival assets
• Expand creative capacity
• Reinforce regional climate leadership

The Summit’s broader message echoed PV Squared’s mission: cultural institutions are anchor institutions in their communities. They drive economic development, inspire civic leadership, and (with the right tools and support) can accelerate an equitable climate transition in Western Massachusetts.

As Senate President Karen Spilka reminded attendees, arts and culture are not decorative or peripheral; they are “absolutely essential to our economy, our success as a state, and fundamental to the soul of the Commonwealth.”

PV Squared is proud to stand alongside the region’s artists, cultural leaders, educators, policymakers, and partners as they work together, collaboratively, creatively, and boldly; to ensure that Western Mass continues to thrive as both a cultural powerhouse and a climate-forward community.

Arts institutions are climate leaders.
Their buildings are canvases.
Their programming is influence.
Their leadership matters.

PV Squared remains committed to helping turn that leadership into real, local climate action.

Many thanks to the phenomenal event organizers at MASS MoCA for hosting; to legislative champion Senator Paul Mark; and to the inspiring speakers: Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Senate President Karen Spilka, State Rep. John Barrett III, Emily Ruddock (Executive Director of MassCreative), and Dee Boyle-Clapp (Arts Extension Service at UMass).