There are a variety of ways to promote your involvement in the ENERGY STAR Challenge and involve others in your efforts. Promotional activities are an important way to educate the community about energy efficiency and to reward outstanding efforts to save energy, money, and help prevent climate change.
A great way to get started is to plan ENERGY STAR kick-off meetings in your community to announce your participation, and motivate other area leaders to join in improving energy efficiency and fighting global warming.
(3.91MB) in EPA's collection of promotional best practices from ENERGY STAR partners.Orange County, Florida
CFEEA devised the Kilowatt Crackdown Challenge to raise awareness of energy efficiency and to motivate businesses to manage their energy use to prevent greenhouse gas emissions and save money. The Challenge calls for a 10-percent reduction of energy use per year for 3 years. This amounts to a total reduction of 30 percent for all buildings that have taken the Challenge.
The Kilowatt Crackdown Challenge involves five steps:
.CFEEA encourages its participants to use Portfolio Manager to benchmark their buildings and take advantage of ENERGY STAR resources for energy management. Participants include the Orlando Health, Flagler Development Company, Orange County Public Schools, and the University of Central Florida. The CFEEA campaign is a multi-government collaboration, as evidenced by the number of local governments also involved in the campaign, including the Cities of Maitland, Orlando, and Winter Park, as well as Lake, Volusia, and Brevard Counties.
Through the efforts of CFEEA, more than 1,800 buildings are currently benchmarking in Central Florida for the Kilowatt Crackdown Challenge. Participants that entered into the Challenge before June 2010 will be eligible to receive an award for their energy savings, and the winners will be announced in June 2011. CFEEA will add a water conservation program and a waste management program within its 3-year funding period.
To promote the Challenge, CFEEA team members took a number of simple steps to maximize the program's effectiveness. CFEEA sponsored a number of workshops designed to educate their target market about the Challenge, EPA's Portfolio Manager, and energy efficiency options. The program took advantage of opportunities to be featured in local media outlets such as the Orlando Business Journal and the Orlando Sentinel, and also distributed mailers and fliers to the public informing them of this unique program. In addition, CFEEA arranged for speaking engagements with neighboring local governments and the hospitality industry to expand the program's reach and target new market sectors, including other local governments and hospitality companies and organizations, as well as faith-based communities.
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