Enviromedia Social Marketing

At 8:30 am in Austin today, Earth Hour has already begun in cities in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji and Kuala Lampur.

Before and after Earth Hour in Sydney, Australia today

Kuala Lampur skyscrapers powers down for Earth Hour 2009

Tonight from 8:30-9:30 p.m. Austin time, I’ll be turning off the TV, lights and computer at home to make a statement about the importance of energy conservation related to global climate change. I invite you to do the same.

Participants in 4,000 of cities across the world are going dark for the hour, and at least 8 casinos on The Strip in Las Vegas will do the same.

What on earth will you do without the lights and TV blaring for an hour? Some have suggested dinner and sex by candlelight. If the weather is nice, invite your neighbors over for a drink and sit outside, and look at the stars.

Check out the Earth Hour Web site to see photos and video from around the world. The event in sponsored by World Wildlife Fund, and is getting support from governments and businesses like Google. Here is some video from Olympic Stadium in China.

Austin Will Power Down for Earth Week Instead

Unfortuantely, our hometown of Austin couldn’t get its act together in time to participate in this global event, but Austin City Council Member Lee Leffingwell, along with Council Member Mike Martinez and Council Member Randi Shade, unveiled a resolution yesterday aimed at promoting light and energy conservation throughout the City of Austin.

The resolution asks that the City of Austin turn lights out in city buildings from Friday, April 17th, at 9 PM, until Monday, April 20th, at 7 AM, leading into “Earth Week.”  The city would also work with several community groups to encourage reduced light use during that weekend.  The resolution also calls for a comprehensive review of light use at city buildings to determine opportunities for reducing light use and improving energy conservation.

That’s good. Hopefully the UT Tower and State Capitol will do the same. Lighting up all these downtown buildings at night begs the question, “How much money could taxpayers and businesses save if we turned those lights off at say, Midnight every night?”

Before you power down your computer tonight, be sure to check your computer’s energy settings. You could save $60 per computer, per year by turning off your computer at night and setting it to sleep after you’re away for for 15 minutes. Find out tips on computer power management and make the pledge to Power Down for the planet with Climate Savers Computing Initiative.

Call it a PR stunt for the planet, but hopefully it will begin to change attitudes about how we consume energy and the impact that has.

EnviroMedia Social Marketing and Green Canary Sustainability Consulting are mentioned in this story from the March 13 edition of the Austin Business Journal.

Will solar power’s cost make it a tough sell?
More green for green
Austin Business Journal - by Jean Kwon ABJ Staff
March 13, 2009

Now that Austin Energy is committed to building the country’s largest solar power plant, the utility may face an uphill battle to convince customers to buy the new green energy — its priciest power ever.

Earlier this month the Austin City Council authorized the city-owned utility to seek an agreement with San Francisco-based Gemini Solar Development Co. to build a 300-acre solar array in the eastern Travis County village of Webberville. The $250 million plant would generate 30 megawatts annually, enough electricity to power about 5,000 homes.

Austin Energy said the plant is a big part of its plan to generate 30 percent of its energy through renewable sources by 2020, including 100 megawatts from solar. The new plant, expected to be ready in 2010, would bring the utility’s renewables portfolio to 13 percent.

But the project, which comes on the heels of the approval of a $2.3 billion biomass plant in East Texas last year, has been controversial — largely because of its cost to Austin Energy’s customers. Solar power is the most expensive type of electricity to generate, about twice as much as wind power and four times as much as conventional electricity. Although building the new plant in Webberville would sidestep problems with transmission grid congestion that have plagued wind power coming from West Texas, the steep cost of photovoltaic solar panels means solar would be the most expensive power Austin Energy has offered.

Experts said that poses a unique marketing challenge to the municipally owned utility, which hopes to develop a promotional campaign in the next few months and roll it out before the plant is ready.

“There will have to be a significant sell to all individuals and companies in order to try to get them to buy solar power,” said Kevin Tuerff, co-founder of Austin-based companies Green Canary Sustainability Consulting and EnviroMedia Social Marketing. “Ultimately, you’ll have more pickup and sales when your price is comparable, and so price is key, but it’s not the only factor in consumer decisions. So hopefully the people who sign on will do it to make a statement, just as those who first bought hybrid cars did it less for the pollution and gas mileage than for the statement about who they are and what they believe in.”

Ed Clark, spokesman for Austin Energy, said the utility won’t spend a lot of money on marketing. He said marketing will be done through speakers’ bureaus and neighborhood groups, as well as through the Internet and newsletters that customers receive with their utility bills. The utility will also “assess what paid media will be advantageous. All the components will be looked at, and the campaign would be created to achieve maximum results at the lowest costs.”

But Tuerff said a significant marketing budget is needed to explain the new program and that the campaign needs to be multiyear.

“You have to reinforce the message for quite some time,” he said. “Just ask [Whole Foods Market Inc. founder] John Mackey. When his first store was on North Lamar, organic grocers were few and far between. Now, to buy organic food you can go to Wal-Mart and HEB. Clean energy is becoming a social and lifestyle movement very similar to the way organic foods became one, but it takes time.

“Getting people to change their purchasing behavior is a lot harder than trying to sell a product off the shelf, and it takes a much higher frequency of repeating the message,” Tuerff said.

Austin Energy sells its renewable energy — only wind, for now — through its Green Choice program, which started in 2002. Since then, it has sold out of every annual output of wind power it has offered except for the current batch, which was available starting this January. That batch has sold just 1 percent, attributable to the fact that wind power is more expensive than ever, Clark said.

Wind power bought through Green Choice costs 8 cents per kilowatt hour through a five-year period, almost five times the cost when wind was first offered six years ago. Conventional energy customers pay 3.65 cents per kilowatt hour, while customers who bought wind power before January locked in their prices. These costs are on top of operational costs — which are the same regardless of the power source — and typically account for about two-thirds of an electric bill.

Clark said Austin Energy is developing a solar-only option in its Green Choice program, as well as a blended solar, wind and biomass option. If it fails to sell enough solar, it will need to spread the cost to its nearly 400,000 customers — something the City Council asked Austin Energy to avoid.

Corporate customers of the Green Choice program, such as Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and Spansion Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSN), have complained that the new solar power could not only translate into significant increases in the fuel pass-through charge for all of Austin Energy’s customers by as much as 100 percent through 2015, but also for bulk electricity consumers who are already feeling the economic heat.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Portland as we launch a new branch office for the West Coast. What’s really cool is I’m living in a downtown condo and I haven’t touched a gas pump in weeks. Their transit system–light rail, streetcar and buses are far better than most American cities. (Austin voted down a simlar plan years ago, and now we’re trying to catch up).

Portland is a city with a bustling downtown restaurant and entertainment scene, very similar to Austin. Lots of new downtown high-rise condos creating the urban density required to get cars off the road to suburbia. They already have the grocery stores, art galleries, day-cares, dry cleaners and convenience stores in place with “transit-oriented development.”

In the “no-brainer” department, some of these same Portland restaurants are asking city transportation planners to rip up their designated 3-5 parking spaces in front of their restaurant, and instead put bike racks on the pavement, potentially increasing their number of customers by 20 percent.

Like Austin, Portland has lots of great downtown destinations, but not enough EASY parking spaces to accommodate cars. If you’re like me, spending $8 to drive around a 8-story parking garage on 5th Street to park at one restaurant on the garage’s first floor is now a deal-killer for me.

With the price of gas increasing, bicycle commuting is bigger than ever nationwide. So why not convert downtown parking spaces to have 4-5 bike racks for one parking space on  on every downtown block? It encourages alternative commutes (pollution-free biking) and rewards cyclists and restaurants alike with happy customers.

This restaurant took this action, and their restaurant sales have skyrocketed. Cyclists can hop off-and-on their bikes right in front of the sidewalk restaurant.  Sales are way up. Customer satisfaction is way up. Seems like some South Congress Ave. restaurants and retailers should give this a try.

Environmental and public health benefits are also way up from all this new gas-free exercising, unless you get to the restaurant and eat a heart-attack Tex-Mex on a platter, then have to call a taxi, or worse 9-1-1.

Simple changes like parking policies by local governments can impact healthy behavior change.

Ten-year Austin resident Patrick Early caught an amazing photograph on July 4th, 2008 that juxtaposes the image of the latest Independence Day fireworks with a retired City of Austin Seaholm Power Plant.

According to the Austin American Statesman, “five isolated blocks of city-owned land will become a residential, commercial and cultural hub in the biggest single development ever downtown. About 1,000 apartments and condominiums will be built, including a significant number of low to moderately priced units.”

Photo by Patrick Early © 2008, used with permission.

I asked Patrick about his photograph:

Q: Did you know in advance you would be watching Austin’s fireworks show from in front of the old energy plant?

A: Trying to think of a place to shoot from earlier in the afternoon, I came across the previous picture of the Power Plant I had posted on Flickr. We were lucky there were minimal crowds by the plant. I guess people thought it would block their view.

Q: You may or may not be aware the image of power plants are taking a beating lately, as a major contributor to global warming. Knowing this, how would you describe your photo?

Relict’s of the old industrial past hold a special place in the hearts of both my girlfriend and I. They always posses a striking image in photographs. As environmentally conscious alternatives make their way to the forefront of the worlds’ industries, these outdated structures no doubt will be destroyed in favor of a shiny new high-rise condo or fall into disrepair before eventually being paved over for a parking garage. I’m glad to capture these places in pictures that can put a bit of beauty back into them.

I like the idea of honoring the history of our energy industry, as we move forward with pollution-free energy.

A half-page ad in today’s Daily Texan is promoting new reserved carpool spaces on the UT campus. Incentivizing carpooling isn’t new, but some of these perks UT is offering are cool: reduced permit fees ($50 per carpooler), $100 garage debit cards and guaranteed ride home if you need to leave campus before the carpool is read or in case of emergency. (paid bus or taxi service).

Finding parking on campus or almost anywhere in downtown is a nightmare. And of course carpooling reduces vehicle emissions and saves money on gas. Maybe the City of Austin and State agencies should try a downtown program modeled after UT.

Today’s front page Statesman story “With $30 million deal, city closer to an aquifer trail,” is the best news for our Central Texas environment in a long time. We commend Mayor Will Wynn, the Austin City Council and the Nature Conservancy of Texas for this bold, important effort.

A group missed in this news story was our friends at the Hill Country Conservancy. The “Walk for a Day Trail” is an ambitious partnership between the City of Austin and the Hill Country Conservancy to link easements, preserve lands and existing trails and create a continuous 35-mile hike-and-bike trail extending south from the Barton Creek Greenbelt to Onion Creek in Hays County.

We remember discussions about the “Walk-For-A-Day” trail system eight years ago when EnviroMedia was working for the Hill Country Conservancy (a pro bono client at the urging of former Mayor Watson). It seemed like a pipe dream at the time. It was so much money, so much politics, so much work.

The patience, hard work and political savvy all paid off.

“This property (Austin’s purchase) puts a critical piece of the puzzle in place for the southern portion of the Walk-For-A-Day trail system. said Hill Country Conservancy President Steve Drenner.”

“The trail is real now. We’ve made a lot of progress,” said George Cofer, the group’s executive director.

“Unexpected partners protecting our land” is HCC’s slogan. That’s because the group was formed in the 90s after the most contentious public fight in Austin, about development in the Barton Springs recharge zone. Developers, bankers and environmentalists literally smoked a peace pipe when they agreed to work together on a land trust that would preserve 50,000 sensitive acres of land by purchasing development rights.

Many details are yet to be worked out on how the trail would work. “I think we all picture the Lady Bird Lake hike-and-bike path,” Cofer said. “It could be identical in some places and very different in other places. Rural trail systems in America vary from a footpath in the woods to a fairly wide crushed granite tract that’s ADA accessible. Sometime in the same trail system, you’d have both of those things.”

“We’re big fans, love the concept and fully expect Hays County to be participating in some shape or form in the future,” County Commissioner Karen Ford said.

Cofer says the groups hope to break ground on the trail in late 2008 or 2009. Like the new Long Center for the Performing Arts, this project will require a lot more money from business and individuals. You can make a donation or simply become a member of the Hill Country Conservancy online.