Tools- of Changes

Toronto's Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) involves comprehensive energy efficiency retrofits and building renewal initiatives for buildings in the public, non-profit and private sectors. Innovative financing strategies are implemented...

In Southeast Michigan, the Clean Air Coalition runs a program to help reduce the formation of ground level ozone, which is a threat to environmental and human health and is one of the primary contributors to smog. The Ozone Action Program...

When air pollution concentrations approach unhealthy levels, people living and working within the San Francisco Bay Area are notified, and encouraged to avoid activities that pollute the air. Partnerships with local businesses and public...

The City of Ashland runs a range of conservation incentive programs aimed primarily at promoting energy efficiency but also encompassing water conservation, regional air quality, recycling and composting, and land-use planning. The programs...

This program is a great example of the use of ongoing individualized feedback and prompts, coupled with norm appeals. Opower helps individual utility companies to send customized home energy use feedback reports to their residential utility...

This program is a great example of applying a “loyalty group” approach to progressively engage participants in changing behaviours. Because electricity and electricity conservation tend to be a low priority for many British Columbians, BC...

This well-evaluated program uses feedback, reminders, normative messaging, loss-aversion, goal setting and commitments to improve energy conservation and overcome the “rebound effect.” Sacramento county residents get Home Electricity...

Once a resident signs up for Queensland’s ClimateSmart Home Service, a licensed electrician visits the home, installs a variety of energy-efficiency products, conducts an energy audit, provides recommendations, and leaves behind materials...

Making the housing stock more energy-efficient provides persistent and ongoing returns. However efforts to do so often run into obstacles that diminish program impacts. This program illustrates how to overcome many of these barriers, and...

Since 2010, Cool Choices has inspired employees to embrace sustainability through an innovative game model. Organizations in sectors as diverse as commercial construction, health care, manufacturing, U.S. primary and secondary schools, and...

This comprehensive, long-term approach combines education, training, behavior change and goal setting with progress tracking, recognition and continuous improvement to reduce energy use in schools, hospitals and other institutional settings...

Energy+Illawarra is a community oriented strategic social marketing program with the aim of supporting home energy efficiency, comfort and wellbeing among 830 older, low-income people in the Illawarra, NSW, Australia.A strategic social...

In a pilot from the fall of 2015 to the fall of 2016, Fort Collins Utilities doubled enrollment rates, converted 44% of energy efficiency assessments to comprehensive upgrades, and doubled average project energy savings. In 2017, this...

OhmConnect pays participants to save energy when it’s most beneficial to the grid and their wallets. On average, participants save 50-100 kWh at peak times per year per household. This case study highlights three innovative elements of...

Energy Connect shows that energy savings and occupant comfort can be achieved quickly and persistently in large, complex facilities when building operators and mechanics are empowered to solve building performance issues. Five interventions...

This pilot program used personal communication, norms, commitments, and prompts to engage government employees to turn off both their computers and monitors at the end of the workday. A control group was included in the evaluation design....

Europe’s Energy Neighbourhoods program engaged neighbourhoods to ‘bet’ with their municipalities that they could reduce energy use by at least 9% over a four-month time period, with no investments in technology allowed. Each neighbourhood...

While many people in Germany say they would use green energy if presented with a choice, very few consumers do so. In contrast, most people have been using green energy in a few German municipalities where citizens have had to opt out...

The Port of San Diego’s (Port’s) Green Business Network (Network) is an integrated energy efficiency and sustainability program that educates tenant businesses on sustainable business practices and identifies resources to implement building...

Participants in California’s Energy Conservation Competition work to change energy conservation behaviors in their schools relating to lighting, plug-loads, and mechanical systems. They also develop campaigns to encourage fellow students to...

This innovative social marketing approach changed the energy use behaviours of low-income renters in Brisbane, Australia, through meaningful gamification. The gamified experience promoted desired behaviours and reduced undesired ones,...

London Hydro ran a Randomized Control Trial to test the impacts of real time information (RT), and critical peak pricing (CPP) on peak time residential energy use. CPP participants delivered summer On-Peak and Mid-Peak energy savings that...

A Randomized Controlled Trial tested the impacts of providing consumers, on their monthly utility bills, with high-resolution infrared images of their houses, information about their heat loss relative to their neighbors, and estimated...

Solarize is a group purchase program designed to simplify and reduce the cost of investing in solar energy. The campaign organizes a volunteer committee of residents to competitively select a solar installer who agrees to set pricing. At...

WaterSense, a partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeks to protect the future of the nation’s water supply by offering Americans a simple way to use less water with water-efficient products,...

The Energy Cat computer game was piloted with social housing residents in Plymouth, United Kingdom, to motivate and help them learn about affordable, energy-saving steps they could take in their homes. The game provided an average...

What if you want to move away from gas and oil, but rent, are about to move, or can’t afford solar panels? If your energy supplier has not already pledged to go green, you have few options. The co-ownership of wind farms engages and...

This comprehensive program utilized several strategies including home visits, incentives and starter kits to induce households to reduce energy, water consumption, waste to landfill and pollution.The Green Home Tune-Up provided free...

Started in 1993 under Ontario's Green Communities Initiative, Guelph 2000 provided a home visit service that encouraged City of Guelph residents to undertake a wide variety of conservation related actions in their homes, including...

In Concert With The Environment ( In Concert) is a customizable educational program developed by EcoGroup. It is sold to electric, natural gas, and water utilities in the U.S. who provide the program to local schools free of charge. In...

To influence households to reduce natural gas and electricity use, 20-minute home visits were conducted in which conservation strategies were explained, people were asked to participate, and a commitment to participate was requested.A...

To promote energy conservation, Jasper residents received a one-hour home visit in which conservation strategies and a retrofit incentive program were explained. They were also offered energy efficient products, installation included. The...

Pacific Gas and Electric was using home audits to encourage residents to improve the energy efficiency of their customers' homes. In order to improve the effectiveness of home visits, the utility trained some of its auditors to obtain...

Peterborough Green-Up is a non-profit community environmental organization that helps people become more resource efficient through a home visit service. A demonstration Ecology Park is also run, in conjunction with related workshops and...

The Residential Conservation Assistance Program ( ReCAP) provided a free home visit service to the residents of Oshawa, Ontario, aimed at helping householders reduce their use of energy and water and improve their 3Rs practices. Trained...

The region of Greater Cincinnati implemented an episode day program to deal with the problem of smog and air quality. When smog levels were particularly high, citizens were notified and encouraged to change their behaviours to less...

A 20 minute television program that suggested simple, no-cost strategies for reducing household energy consumption in summer was delivered over cable television in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1982. Residents who viewed the program once, adopted...

This alert reviews research and resources relevant to turning down the heat (turning up the air conditioning temperature) - either by hand or using a setback thermostat - based on a report from Toronto Public Health.Incentives Promising...

This ongoing program educates the public and provides incentives to improve air quality in Portland. It uses non-regulatory approaches that target vehicles, lawnmowers, paints and certain consumer products - to reduce emissions from...

The City of Barrie, Ontario has deferred millions of dollars in waste water and water supply capital expenditures with its retrofit water conservation program. The City supplied subsidized ultra low flow toilets, showerheads and aerators to...

This is a great example of a home energy efficiency retrofit incentive campaign for smalller communities. It achieved 257 energy efficiency assessments, or 22% of the single-family homes in Rossland. Of those households, 95%+  made some...

Southern California Edison, an American electric utility, reduced the price barrier that discouraged its residential and commercial customers from utilizing compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) rather than the less energy-efficient incandescent...

Unprecedented steps were taken by the Town of Okotoks, Alberta to ensure its long-term sustainability. The community devised a sustainable development plan that rests on four guiding principles: environmental stewardship, economic...

The Energy Smackdown uses engaging game playing to involve community members in energy conservation, and television and webcasts to make visible the energy-saving efforts of teams of households. The Smackdown is organized into two broad...

This case study is a great model for reducing energy consumption through behaviour changes in student residences. Toolkits provide student organizers with detailed discussions of the environmental impact of specific behaviours,...

The Action By Canadians (ABC) and Count Me In! programs were designed to communicate the issue of climate change to the Canadian public through workshops delivered to individuals at their place of work. The climate change workshop focused...

Everyday Kyoto is a program for educating Bell Canada employees on climate change and inviting them to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses released at work and at home.Bell set up an Everyday Kyoto Intranet site, and offered road shows...

This is a great model for generating enthusiasm among students for energy efficiency. To engage more students in energy conservation, UBC adapted a Facebook application called My Every Day Earth to create a point structure for participation...

20/20 The Way to Clean Air involved individuals in the Greater Toronto Area in reducing home energy use and vehicle use by 20%. It asked participants to make a small commitment (some easy-to-do activities done for a period of two weeks),...

BC21 PowerSmart is a province wide project to conserve resources and create jobs. Residential energy efficiency audits are conducted, and incentives are offered to encourage residents to take steps to improve energy and water efficiency...

ENERGY STAR is one of the most effective public sector voluntary behavior change programs in U.S. history. The program was designed with the goal of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the energy efficiency of products. ENERGY...

This well designed and executed pilot project, which  achieved unusually high energy use reductions among 100 volunteer participants, illustrates the power of real-time feedback, friendly competition, and timely, personalized, credible,...

In the context of Japan's urgent need for energy conservation, Cool Biz and Super Cool Biz have used strong norm appeals to bring about marked reduction in energy use. These programs were designated a Landmark case study in 2012.Cool Biz ...

France's multi-year "Familles à énergie positive" program uses peer support groups (eco-teams) to reduce residential energy and water consumption. During the 2014/2015 period, participants reported an average 12% reduction in...

The City of Burlington's Ice Rink Energy Competition employs a low cost, easily replicable approach to significantly reduce energy consumption, associated greenhouse gases (GHG) and energy costs. A friendly competition to reduce energy at...

A Better City’s Challenge for Sustainability has engaged over 100 participating businesses and properties to develop and meet sustainability standards and practices, and to drive local innovation in energy efficiency. The program uses a...

The Way to Save, Burlington! pilot program was a community-based approach to marketing energy efficiency. Unlike many other community-based energy efficiency programs, no new measures were offered and existing rebate levels were not...

Get Energized, Iowa! is a highly replicable community-based program that encouraged rural Iowa communities to compete against one another to achieve high gas and electricity savings, based on actual usage.  Designated in 2017.  The...

The Cool California Challenge is a state-wide competition between California cities engaging their residents in climate action. Participants earn points for tracking and reducing their electricity, natural gas and motor vehicle emissions...

The Shower Feedback program provides households with real-time feedback on one specific, energy-intensive behaviour: showering. Participants receive smart shower meters that display feedback on the individual’s energy and water consumption...

The Bonneville Power Administration’s Energy Smart Industrial (ESI) energy management program has changed how large industrial facilities prioritize and manage energy. Through participation in ESI’s High Performance Energy Management (HPEM...

The Girls Learning Energy and Environment Program (GLEE) was designed to reduce home energy consumption as well as energy use related to food and transportation, among targeted Junior Girls Scouts (ages 9-10) and their families. It was...

Duke Energy's Smart Energy in Offices program (SEiO) is one of the few behavioral programs targeting energy savings opportunities in large commercial office buildings. It encourages energy savings from improved energy efficient building...

This easily replicable pilot demonstrated how to use normative feedback and conservation tips to reduce window air-conditioning use among low- to moderate-income tenants of large multi-family buildings who do not pay their own utilities....

Chicago was the first U.S. city to require building owners to prominently post a building’s energy performance rating, and to share that that rating with potential buyers and/or renters. While the rating system was being introduced, ComEd...

Green$aver provides home energy efficiency assessments and retrofit services in metropolitan Toronto. These assessments are conducted using Canada's EnerGuide for Houses system, which rates the overall energy efficiency of houses,...

  RE100 is a global, collaborative initiative that is accelerating a shift in corporate energy purchasing to reduce global carbon emissions and buy energy from renewable sources. Members commit to public disclosure of progress, with...

2019 Youtube Program Update Video from USGBC Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a tremendously successful program that engages builders and owners in designing, building, selling / buying and operating more energy...