This report from Climate Solutions analyzes small- to medium-sized American cities that are using successful methods to further clean energy economic development. Better Buildings Neighborhood Program partners that are featured in the report include Bainbridge Island and Bremerton, Washington; Boulder, Colorado; Bedford, New York; Madison, Wisconsin; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. The report includes details on the how the featured cities funded their projects, found successful models to reach their goals, and to see which new projects are off to a promising start.

This report profiles the early results of a diverse range of small- to medium-sized American cities with different economic and energy profiles that are pioneering the clean energy economy. Many communities used federal grants to jumpstart long-term strategies to test and refine various clean energy and energy efficiency solutions. Others developed innovative financing strategies in the absence of grant money. These city-led efforts to catalyze local clean energy economic development are important to watch as federal grants sunset, especially in the absence of a comprehensive national energy or climate policy.

Community-based social marketing (CBSM) is a concept that has received a lot of attention lately, but may not be particularly well understood across the entire energy efficiency community. This white paper discusses insights drawn from the social and behavioral sciences in order to advance energy-efficient behavior and choices. This paper describes the core concepts and application of CBSM generally, citing specific and recent examples of its use within energy efficiency and demand-side management programs. It concludes with an illustration of how CBSM might be used to encourage uptake of home energy retrofits.

This report describes how customer usage data can help promote the adoption of retro-commissioning polices for public and private commercial buildings.

This handbook is intended to assist electric utilities in overcoming barriers to using social media; provide a clear and simple stepwise approach to get started or enhance social media use; and provide a set of recommendations for using social media as an additional marketing tool to drive participation in energy efficiency and demand management programs.

This case study explains how Efficiency Maine provided contractor sales training to boost upgrade conversions.

This case study describes Efficiency Maine's Home Energy Savings Program (HESP), one of the few large residential energy efficiency programs that has attempted to navigate the transition from rebate-focused offerings to financing focused offerings that better align with its limited budget.

This case study discusses BetterBuildings for Michigan's targeted outreach campaigns which applied varying incentives and outreach strategies to neighborhoods with a goal to understand which rebates and strategies work best in the target communities.

This case study discusses how Clean Energy Works Oregon (now Enhabit) used performance-based incentives, limited-time bonus rebates, early financing approvals, and seasonal advantages to broaden its program reach and increase home upgrade completions.

In this video interview segment, Emily Levin of Vermont Energy Investment Corporation shares the importance of market research.

This example guide was originally designed for grantees participating in U.S. DOE's Better Buildings program from 2010 - 2014 to ensure uniform, easily recognizable national identity of the Better Buildings brand. Pages 5-9 provide useful guidance for crafting messages. It also provides messaging examples.

This document provides an overview of how state policymakers, utilities, and regulators can overcome barriers to deploying customer energy information and feedback strategies.

This report provides state and local policymakers with information on successful approaches to the design and implementation of residential efficiency programs for households ineligible for low-income programs.

This report provides data from nationwide utility customer satisfaction surveys and two case studies to encourage utilities to offer high-quality energy efficiency programs and services for their customers.

This case study features a Massachusetts-based program that used an SUV-mounted thermal imaging camera to evaluate thermal leakage from homes.

This report shares strategies for marketing local energy efficiency programs, particularly through focused messaging, leveraging partnerships, and social media.

This report provides an overview of residential customer information and behavior efficiency programs, and identifies key challenges to and solutions for increasing the penetration of these programs nationwide.

The Residential Retrofit Program Design Guide focuses on the key elements and design characteristics of building and maintaining a successful residential energy upgrade program. The material is presented as a guide for program design and planning from start to finish, laid out in chronological order of program development.

This report helps policymakers understand how electric and natural gas utilities can achieve greater efficiency by establishing numeric energy savings targets and goals for energy efficiency programs.

This case study discusses strategies that Austin Energy, a municipally owned utility, used to collaborate closely with building contractors to launch a new Best Offer Ever promotion quickly and effectively.

This case study discusses the strategies Clean Energy Works Oregon's (now Enhabit's) used to actively engage contractors to make the program successful (e.g., balancing contractors' work priorities, enforcing quality standards).

Building on its understanding of homeowners in Rutland County, Vermont, NeighborWorks of Western Vermont (NWWVT) enlisted respected local citizens and organizations to spread the word about home energy efficiency upgrade opportunities, an effort that helped drive demand for nearly 200 home upgrades in just six months

This case study shares how Seattle's Community Power Works engaged a vast network of partners to build on existing capacity and knowledge, extending the reach of its program in a short period of time.

Through its target audience research, Rutland, Vermont's NeighborWorks H.E.A.T. Squad learned that neighbors are the most trusted messengers of energy efficiency upgrade information, rather than governments or utilities.

This paper describes a wide variety of behavior change insights potentially applicable to the energy efficiency program context, provides examples of efficiency programs that have applied these insights, and explores some untapped opportunities to achieve energy savings through behavior change.

Flowcharts showing the key program elements (financing; workforce development; marketing and outreach; and data, evaluation; and reporting).

This fact sheet provides information about energy efficiency, explains how utility and state investment in energy efficiency helps consumers, and describes what to expect from utility or state efficiency programs.

This report summarizes the approaches used by energy efficiency program administrators when assessing the range of financial and other incentives to be used in energy efficiency programs.

This guide provides an assessment of various approaches to Marketing & Outreach for home energy efficiency improvements.

This report presents best practices for operating successful portfolio-level efficiency programs, including assessing efficiency potential, cost-effectiveness screening, and developing a portfolio of approaches.

This report shares the results of focus groups that were convened by the U.S. Department of Energy to identify what motivates people to undertake home energy improvements.

This article discusses valuing high performance houses in the appraisal process.

This report examines how to influence customer behavior and choice.

This report summarizes the issues and approaches involved in motivating customers to reduce the total energy they consume through energy prices and rate design.

This report considers consumers' perspectives on policy and regulatory issues associated with the administration of energy efficiency investments funded by ratepayers of electric and natural gas utilities.

This report provides an overview of market segmentation purpose, examples and methodologies.

This report describes the effects of utility spending on efficiency programs, how those effects could constitute barriers to investment in energy efficiency, and how policy mechanisms can reduce these barriers.

This marketing strategy includes the goals and objectives the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Energy Alliance set out to meet.

Research traditions across the social sciences have explored the drivers of individual behavior change and proposed different models of decision making. In this paper, four diverse perspectives are reviewed: conventional and behavioral economics, technology adoption theory and attitude-based decision making, social and environmental psychology, and sociology. This paper concludes with how to develop a more integrated approach to both behavioral change research and intervention design in a residential energy context.

This brand model, developed by the Dubberly Design Office, provides useful steps and tips for developing a new brand. Download the document for a better view. Note that the document is poster size, so zoom in for clarity.

This table identifies several challenges and the strategies and tactics that can be used to overcome them.

These case studies highlight examples of participating contractors who have employed Home Performance with ENERGY STAR to help homeowners improve their home's comfort and lower their utility bills.