Whether you follow us on Twitter , attended one of our training sessions, visited our website , joined our Smart Energy LinkedIn group ,heard about us through your friends or saw us on the street, you know that Smart Energy Now® is on a mission to make uptown Charlotte the most sustainable urban core in the country. You might also know that Envision Charlotte powered by Smart Energy Now® plans to achieve a 20% reduction in energy use by 2016. With your help educating those around you, we are on the right track. We know you hear us because we get asked the following all the time:

• So, where are the results?
• What has your program accomplished?
• Give me a reason to care.

With our persistence and with your help (The Smart Energy Now community) is pleased to share some of our successes.

In the last 4 months we have:

• Trained employees in 41 out of 64 buildings
• Trained over 450 uptown workers
• Registered approximately 500 users on the web site
• Received approximately 40 campaign submissions

With your help, we will continue to increase participation, leading to decreased energy usage. In the coming months we will update you on what we as a community are accomplishing. We also want to hear about your successes and share your stories. Keep submitting your campaigns on our Web site!

Susana

Smart Energy Now Project Coordinator

According to Cheri, before she was a Smart Energy Now® Energy Champion, she “used to talk a big one when it came to energy consumption.”  But, like many others she knew, she didn’t take enough action. She immediately jumped on the Energy Champion training opportunity to learn how to “break her own bad habits by helping others break theirs.”

It’s been a few short weeks since she became a trained Energy Champion, and now she’s managing an extremely successful campaign involving all 40 people on her floor.

We asked Cheri to tell her story so others around Uptown could benefit from her successes – and, we are excited to share what we learned.

Cheri quickly started gaining momentum by giving presentations to the four different groups on her floor.  She spoke about easy ways to reduce energy waste, and they all got very excited about taking responsibility for their own waste.  The only Energy Champion on her floor, Cheri’s still gotten everyone involved—“it’s a fun group and they immediately jumped onboard”.  The team is focusing on flipping out unnecessary lights, turning off appliances, and opening their door manually, instead of hitting the automated door button.

The Flipping Out toolkit was a huge success; people had fun “crabbing” each other and within the first few weeks, everyone was remembering to turn off lights — no one wanted to be crabbed!

To generate participation, Cheri’s team used “Adopt-A-Light” for people in cubicles that don’t have their own task lighting. The cube workers have stepped up to take responsibility for the lights in common areas, such as meeting rooms, break rooms, and storage areas.  They have even decorated the light switches to claim them as their own!

To reward her fellow employees, Cheri created her own competition.  She made ENERGY STAR cards that coworkers hand out when they see someone reducing energy waste. Everyone turns in their cards at the end of the month, and the person with the most cards wins a lunch with the director of their group. Says Cheri, “Everyone is eager to participate and it’s become a fun challenge.”

Cheri was also excited to report that her coworkers are bringing these lessons home and sharing the message with the people they love.  Cheri has even drawn crabs and posted them near her home light switches as a gentle reminder to turn off lights.

In her new blog post, Cheri challenges YOU to find inspiration, too!  Read more about it in her terrific Act Louder! blog post. 

Susie

The past couple of weeks have been great for our program. We attended two very high powered conferences. The first was Edison Electric Institute’s Powering the People conference in DC; which I blogged about a few weeks ago. The second was the EE Global conference sponsored by the Alliance to Save Energy. We exhibited the interactive kiosk at both conferences and it was well received.

The opening plenary of the EE Global conference featured Dr. Kandeh Yumkella, Director General of UNIDO, who declared 2012 as the “International Year of Sustainable Energy for All.” He talked about energy poverty and resource scarcity from a global perspective. It was a compelling moment for all of the attendees. After his speech, he transitioned to a panel discussion with the who’s who for global sustainability. There was one exchange that caused me to toss and turn that night.

Here is my paraphrased recollection:

As one of the panelists (an American top executive for a fortune 100) spoke about trying to figure out how to get his teenage daughter to turn off the lights, he made a joke about not buying her a car if she did not adhere. Another panelist from a developing country simply said, “and therein lies the challenge, as we speak about providing electricity so that people can eat, bathe, study at night; we have those that have excess. How do we create a global sense of urgency and help people connect the dots that tie access to electricity to a more secure and stable planet?”

Please understand that the statement was not made in a judgmental or condemning fashion, it was just simply stated. All panelists including the American nodded in agreement and a very robust conversation followed. As a matter of fact, that same panelist from the developing country went on to say that there are many examples of waste in developing countries because the markets have not demanded that the full cycle of energy be captured. As an example as gas is being gathered, the old practice of allowing an open flame to burn off the excess is still in place. The amount of gas that is simply burned at the site is enough to provide energy to small villages. Yet the companies are reluctant to invest in the technology and training because of unstable market situations. Well the markets are unstable because the energy is unreliable and scarce and so the cycle continues.

Declaration of Change

The Smart Energy Now® effort is important work. It is not a conversation about sustainability for the sake of a conversation. It truly has the ability to shift the market and cause a chain reaction which could lead to real change. It’s a complex issue but it can be solved. The question we are asking is “Will the market support a program based on behavior change?” We have seen some very positive signs but we have a long way to go. In fact, today we are announcing a new tactic. As we continue to work with building owners, facility engineers, office workers and property managers. We are starting our “Declaration of Change”. The Smart Energy Now team will contact EVERY single tenant in a participating building in the coming months and ask a member from their leadership team to sign this declaration. More details to come but in short, this will be a commitment to actively engage with the program by encouraging and supporting their employees to take action.  

Are we relevant in the global discussion?

What can Envision Charlotte and Smart Energy Now do to help a village in a developing country gain reliable and affordable access to energy? I believe we have the ability to prove the following: Access may allow for excess but it certainly does not have to lead to waste. If we can do that, then others will follow, the shift begins and the cycle will eventually be replaced with sustainable energy for all.

Check out my short clip from the EE Global conference.

Vincent