Net Zero Black Rock City: The Quiet Work of Remaking Systems

From the outside, it might look like just another pile of Asana tasks, late-night spreadsheet sessions, requests to schedule something, and action items stacking up from endless meetings. But this is where the heart of climate progress at Burning Man beats.

While Black Rock City is famous for its spectacle and creativity, much of the work driving Burning Man's transition to sustainability happens behind the scenes. It’s in the planning calls, the ongoing coordination between departments, and the administrative tasks that align timelines, budgets, and approval processes. It’s slow, methodical work, but it’s where real transformation starts.

As the Program Coordinator for the Regeneration Department at Burning Man Project, I help steer this complex transition. Our department manages a restricted donation supporting Black Rock City's shift off fossil fuels, all in alignment with the ambitious goals outlined in our 2030 Environmental Sustainability Roadmap:

The work we do is deeply collaborative. Together with our Project Manager, Director, Solar Manager, and other key stakeholders, I help turn strategic goals into actionable steps. We work across departments to align timelines, budgets, and systems, ensuring that our shared vision becomes a reality. This teamwork is the foundation of our success, and it's through this collaboration that transformation can truly happen.

2024: From Idea to Implementation

2024 was a year defined not by a single breakthrough, but by steady, incremental changes. It was a year where we treated governance itself as a regenerative practice.

The successes we celebrated weren’t the result of a central sustainability team dictating solutions. They emerged through collaborative governance and cross-departmental coordination. Key players from Power, Business Services, DPW, Art, Placement, Civic Activation, Communications, and Fly Ranch all contributed through participation in our Net Zero BRC working groups, which I facilitate. It takes real effort to align these diverse teams, harmonizing their different cultures and priorities.

At times, this looked like awkward bi-weekly working group calls that gradually became spaces for trust-building and problem-solving. Other times, it was about creating a shared Slack workspace or Asana project that allowed distributed teams to see each other's work in real time, helping us all stay aligned.

These processes weren’t glamorous, but they were essential. The most sustainable outcomes come from sustainable relationships.

Culture Change Starts in the Calendar

One of the biggest lessons from this year was how cultural change is embedded in practical systems: timelines, budgets, and meeting schedules. If sustainable solutions aren’t baked into the planning process months in advance, they won’t be viable when it’s time to act.

We worked upstream to make sure that renewable energy options, like propane and battery-supported infrastructure, were part of early planning and budgeting. By rewriting onboarding materials, adjusting timelines, and surfacing sustainability questions early, we were able to ensure that these options became embedded in the annual operational rhythm.

This steady coordination led to measurable results:

• 55 percent reduction in generator run-time, saving 22,600 gallons of diesel and preventing 231.5 metric tons of CO₂e
• 66 percent replacement of diesel light towers with solar, saving nearly 3,880 gallons of diesel and avoiding 39.7 metric tons of CO₂e
• Deployment of 12 mobile solar units, fully powering 15 DPW sites and eliminating fossil fuels at Man Base
• Transitioned 50 percent of DPW power needs away from petroleum diesel, including tripling renewable diesel use
• Powered 18 art installations with solar, saving 3,030 gallons of gasoline
• Diverted 65 cubic yards of organic waste, sequestering 8.6 metric tons of CO₂e, with compost supporting land restoration and food cultivation in Gerlach, at Fly Ranch, and at the Pyramid Lake Paiute garden in Nixon.

These successes were made possible not just by the deployment of renewable technology, but by a foundation of systems: clear communication, ongoing documentation, and robust follow-through.

Systems Behind the Success

Every visible win, from solar-powered art installations to diesel-free generators, was supported by an invisible network of systems. It’s easy to imagine that scaling sustainability means simply adding more hardware, but the truth is, it’s about clarity, consistency, and ease of access.

A solar trailer sitting unused in storage isn’t helpful. A solar trailer that’s used year-round as part of an established request process, maintained by a trained team, and tracked for performance is a functional part of a broader system. The real work is about making these systems accessible and sustainable in the long run.

Regeneration Is Administrative Work

There’s a common belief that climate solutions must be dynamic or high-profile. People envision sweeping legislation or groundbreaking technology, and those are also important, and highly procedural. From policy to implementation, much of the real work of transition is unglamorous, clerical, procedural, and deeply human.

What makes this work regenerative isn’t just the tangible outcomes. It’s how we do it. It’s about care, transparency, and a commitment to continuous improvement. At Burning Man Project, we often talk about leaving no trace. But Net Zero BRC is also about what we intentionally leave behind: new systems of collaboration, accountability, and long-term transformation.