TIP SHEET: Green Power Community Challenge
These tips are based on Sustainable Connections' experience developing and implementing an 8-month campaign to purchase green power that resulted in Bellingham becoming the number one EPA certified green power community in the United States.
These tips are based on Sustainable Connections' experience developing and implementing an 8-month campaign to purchase green power that resulted in Bellingham becoming the number one EPA certified green power community in the United States.
1. Choose who, where, what and why
Learn what green power purchase options exist in your community. Does your local utility offer a program that is well thought of, convenient for customers, and third party certified? Does the money get reinvested in local or regional projects? If the answer is no to any of these questions, there are other good options. Searching www.green-e.org is a good place to start. Make your campaign a community-wide effort that requires support of businesses, households and institutions and set goals for each. In our case, we chose 1,000 households, 100 businesses and a few key institutions, with the goal of moving from .6% of our electricity coming from renewable sources, to reaching at least 2%, the EPA Green Power Community threshold. Carefully think through why each type of potential participant would want to invest in green power. Test your assumptions by talking to key stakeholders from each target sector. Brainstorm how to increase participation and always keep in mind that participants can not only buy green power, but also promote the Challenge to friends, family, customers, and employees.
Our intended outcomes:
1) Increase the percentage of power consumed in Bellingham that comes from a clean, renewable energy source and effectively reduce our green house gas pollution.
2) Encourage the local utility, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) to continue investing in
local renewable energy production capacity.
3) Become an EPA certified green power community (2% of our power) and the leading green power participant in PSE’s service area. (We had no idea we’d move
from .6% to 12% and become #1 in the nation!)
2. Develop a Planning/Working Committee
A planning/working committee is useful for all phases of developing and implementing a campaign like the Green Power Community Challenge (GPCC). Because the campaign budget was small and relied so much on volunteer time and in-kind contributions, we needed committee members who could both come up with the great ideas AND make them happen. Participants should be hand selected for a combination of skills and qualities such as marketing expertise, connectedness (to media, businesses, key institutions, and other target partners), passion for the issue, available time, credibility and a fun, positive attitude. In the case of the GPCC, committee members included the utility green power program manager and marketing staff, a representative from an association of neighborhoods, environmental education staff from the City of Bellingham and NW Clean Air Agency, two owners of local retail businesses and an active volunteer with the local chapter of Solar Washington.
3. Develop a Marketing/Communications Plan
The success of your campaign hinges on the number of times your potential household and business customers get a compelling message from messengers they pay attention to and trust. **Remember: For the most part, information doesn’t change people’s behavior – other people do! That said, do use good information and research key messages used by other successful green power campaigns. Clean air, reduced green house gas pollution, energy security, regional economic development are all good reasons. Be sure to localize the message and emphasize that if the whole community participates, the impact is great. Plan what key printed materials you will need and get the help of a graphic designer for an attractive look.
Consider newspaper inserts, street banners, progress marker banners that will be posted in high visibility spots, bill inserts with the help of area utilities, door hangers distributed by volunteers, point of sale sign up forms for your retail partners to post, and flyers for volunteers to pass out at community events.
Get the Challenge covered in local media and business and community newsletters by distributing releases about newly 100% green powered businesses, neighborhood challenges, upcoming events, and campaign progress (“We’ve signed up the first 20 businesses and 100 households!”) Encourage new customers to write letters to the editor. Increasingly, grass roots e-mail newsletters, social media websites, and peer list serves are where people get information they trust and act on. Create a simple, well designed website and make it as easy as possible for people to sign up. Plan to both create your own community events and participate in others as exhibitors. Home and garden shows, farmers markets, eco-events, and park concerts are good ideas. In addition, the GPCC did a few educational film events with panel discussions.
4. Develop a Budget & Funding Plan/Partners
A draft/working budget should be developed along with your communication plan. The GPCC had a fixed $40,000 cash expense budget for campaign development and was supported by the utility. The committee allocated that fixed budget to the most critical needs that it couldn’t get met through trade or in kind contributions. Along the way a number of additional great ideas came up and were implemented when we found additional small grants or partners simply provided human and other resources. A campaign that is showing success attracts additional support along the way!
5. Recruiting Business, Institution & Neighborhood Association Participation
Interview several business owners that already buy green power or have a track record of green business practices to find out what drives those decisions and how they would like to be recognized. Public recognition reinforces the decision to buy green power and turns participants into evangelists for your campaign. We recruited businesses first and recognized them as ‘Founding Partners’. These businesses were recognized in nearly every promotional resource from the start. At launch, business participants posted and distributed promotional materials. When it came time to ask local government to invest in green power, we were able to provide a letter showing the private sector was already leading on the issue. Finally, neighborhood associations proved very helpful in increasing participation. We developed a competition with a $1,000 grant going to the top two neighborhoods that increased the number of households participating. This unleashed terrific volunteer support and word of mouth coverage of the challenge.
6. Opening & Closing Your Campaign
Start and end your campaign with an event. We kicked off our campaign with a booth and green power cow costumed contestant (our green power comes from sun, wind, and local cow power – methane), in a popular multi stage race that coincided with farmers market day when the crowd was large. Volunteers canvassed the event handing out literature and sign ups were taken on the spot while we scooped free local ice cream cones and passed out green power pins. We had comments from the Mayor and County Executive and unveiled empty windmill progress markers, (like big thermometers that were filled over the length of the campaign). The GPCC finished up on Earth Day a year later, again, at the farmer’s market with kids activities, free cake, ice cream, balloons, and celebratory peeches by representatives of all the partners and the EPA. Awards were given to the winning Neighborhood Associations. The EPA presented ‘Green Power Community’ signage for roads leading into and out of Bellingham, and PSE provided the Mayor a large check for two demonstration solar systems at City facilities.
