To Promote Efficiency, Don’t Talk ...

A recent discussion in the New York Times, called “The Siren Song of Energy Efficiency,” caught my attention. A handful of leading energy thinkers responded to a question about energy efficiency with a variety of opinions. Here’s the question: “Whatever happened to “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”? Now many...

Move Over, Letterman: The Energy Efficie...

Browsing through David Letterman’s archives, you can find some real treasures. Here’s Dave’s “Top Ten Ways I, David Letterman, Am Conserving Energy” from the summer of 1999: 10.        Brushing teeth with air conditioner drippings. 9.         Goodbye Ricky Martin chat room, hello Ricky Martin pen pals! 8.        ...

Sweet Energy

Cold nights. Warmer days. The maple sap in Vermont has started to flow. A decidedly low-tech industry, “sugaring” takes advantage of gravity as the primary force used to collect the sweet sap that gets boiled down to make maple syrup. Any Vermont schoolchild can tell you that it takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of...

I’m Melting: Death Star – or...

Here’s a true energy-efficiency advocate’s quandary: Are energy-efficient home windows melting hybrid vehicles? According to Heather Patron of Studio City, California, the answer is yes. When the plastic side-view mirrors on her Prius began to melt, she took it to the Toyota dealer. The car checked out. Then, according to sources including...

When marketing home energy efficiency, d...

  “Small is the new success story.” KSV attended the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, and it got us thinking about energy efficiency programs, and how to market them effectively. One of the threads we heard again and again was that people were having success, all over the country...

2012: The Year of the Positive Deviator

If 2011 was the year of “The Protester,” according to TIME, then let’s declare 2012 the year of “The Positive Deviator.” Recently, I’ve had a few instances where I told people what I did for a living. My answer: “I’m in marketing.” Their response: “What do you sell?” Let me suggest that, while we are all...