Name: Jennifer
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NESEA Retrofit Revisited?
August 23rd, 2010We’re having lots of great conversations internally about the strategic role of 50 Miles Street to NESEA.
For the uninitiated, “50 Miles Street” is the address of the NESEA building. Unlike many nonprofit organizations of our size, NESEA actually owns its building. We have owned it since the mid-1990s, as a result of an agreement with the City of Greenfield, MA, which also led to NESEA creating the Greenfield Energy Park.
From what I gather, people have been talking about making the building a showcase for energy efficiency and renewables for as long as we’ve owned it! Several members have initiated studies and made proposals as to what we should do, and in the mid-1990’s, the board even entertained completing a capital campaign to raise funds for a retrofit of the “Northeast Sustainability Center” at NESEA.
Lately, a number of NESEA members have again taken up the torch! Last fall, Nancy Hazard arranged for a comprehensive energy efficiency audit of the building, and since then NESEA board member John (JJ) Jacobson has completed a more comprehensive review, including:
• Reviewing all the previous studies of the building
• Talking with the city planner’s office and local businesses about anticipated economic development in Greenfield
• Reviewing the financials, including our utility and building maintenance expenses, our rental income vs. market rates, and other related information.
JJ is planning to present his findings to the NESEA board later this fall. The next step will likely be to establish a NESEA work group, comprised of board members, NESEA members and staff, to develop (and hopefully ultimately implement!) a strategic plan for the building.
So what’s your feedback. What would a Northeast Sustainability Center mean to you?
Quick Update from the Executive Director
July 28th, 2010This will be my last communication for a week or two, as I’m headed off to vacation in Madison, Wisconsin with my family on Friday. But I wanted to fill you in on what the staff and I have been working on over the past few weeks.
The short story is that we’ve been operating at a fever pitch this summer, and finding opportunities to collaborate, both internally and with external partners, almost everywhere we look.
Here’s a snapshot of what’s underway:
• We have developed a media tool kit so that we can better equip our Green Buildings Open House organizers and hosts to promote the tour, being held on October 2nd;
• Our Education Department is working closely with the BuildingEnergy planning committee on our first Educators’ Summit, to be held at BE11;
• We are partnering with other organizations (Affordable Comfort, Green Roundtable/NEXUS, the BSA, and others) to spread the word about our programs and better serve our members;
• We are more clearly defining NESEA’s brand so you’ll begin to recognize us more readily. We’ve been working with Mitch Anthony and Susan Lapointe on our ads, website, and other promotional materials to create a cleaner, more consistent look and feel for the NESEA tribe.
• We’re looking closely at the relationship of NESEA members and chapters to NESEA central – trying to envision what it might look like if we were building it from scratch, and identifying ways to move toward that ideal state.
• And there’s more . . . much more!
I’m happy to share any of these developments with you if you’d like to contact me directly after August 8th. Until then, I’ll be “off the grid!” — Jennifer
On winning . . . NESEA style
June 30th, 2010My favorite blogger, Seth Godin, wrote yesterday about winning. He started with the toddler’s approach to winning – getting what you want, now. But he went on to describe more nuanced ways of defining a “win.,” asking instead, “What happens when you define a win as getting closer to someone who wants the same thing? Or when you define it as improvement over time? Or in creating trust?”
These three questions set the framework for what could have been a very difficult meeting yesterday.
NESEA staff had a visit from representatives of our New Hampshire Chapter, NHSEA, yesterday. Madeline McElaney, Program and Outreach Coordinator, and Christa Koehler, Vice President of the Board of Directors met with me and the rest of the NESEA staff for almost two hours. We all knew at the outset that this might be a challenging meeting. The New Hampshire Sustainable Energy Association (NHSEA) has for years been doing wonderful, compelling work (both education and advocacy) on behalf of residential consumers and business owners in New Hampshire who wish to learn more about sustainable energy. Their mission and their focus have been different than NESEA’s, as we have devoted most of our energy toward supporting professionals in sustainable energy in their networking and professional development. This difference in mission and in strategic direction has been a source of concern for NHSEA for several years – to the point that they are actively considering whether affiliation with NESEA still makes sense.
Madeline and Christa also shared with us several concerns about the current NESEA membership and chapter structure – some of them relating to the revenue chapters receive from NESEA for each new member, and others relating to the “contract” between NESEA and its chapters, and the lack of clarity about what is expected of the chapters and what they can expect in return.
These are pressing issues to NHSEA, and they want to see progress on them . . . now!
Clearly this wasn’t a meeting where either party could expect a “toddler win.” Everyone around the table understood that. Too many complex issues requiring the consent of too many stakeholders who weren’t even in the room. Yet I would absolutely classify this meeting as a “win” on the basis of the other three, more nuanced questions.
Getting closer to someone who wants the same thing: We shared information and experiences with respect to the Green Buildings Open House program and identified ways we could work together more effectively immediately on that program so that it reaches more consumers in New Hampshire. We also raised the possibility of working together on a pilot for the program to increase its visibility and its financial viability over time – a pilot that might serve as a model for other NESEA chapters.
Improvement over time: We committed to work together to address the concerns they raised with respect to membership, in the context of the NESEA Membership/Chapters Advisory Committee. This committee will be addressing each of the issues raised by NHSEA within the next six months or so – but will do so in the context of the “whole system” that is NESEA. Madeline will serve as a member of that committee, which will make final recommendations to the NESEA board with respect to membership structure and benefits, revenue share with chapters, what will be expected of chapters and what NESEA will provide in return.
Creating trust: This one’s probably pretty obvious. It spoke volumes to us that Madeline and a member of her board cared enough to visit us, to sit with us face-to-face, to tell us the hard truth, and to give us the opportunity to work together to resolve the issues.
So are we all ready to sing Kumbaya? Not quite yet. As I shared with Madeline and Christa, I can’t guarantee the outcome on some of the items most important to them – those relating to membership and revenue. These are decisions that the NESEA board will ultimately make. Nor can I guarantee that our missions will continue to align sufficiently that NHSEA will find value in affiliating with NESEA. What I can guarantee is this:
• NESEA will try to be as transparent as possible throughout this process;
• The door will remain open for better communication between the chapters;
• They will have a seat at the table as we reformulate the membership/chapter structure; and
• We will continue to try to find ways to support them, whether they decide to remain a chapter or not.
I hope it’s enough for now, and I look forward to working together to sort out the rest.
On silo busting, bridge building, and social media . . .
June 25th, 2010Wanted to bring you all up to speed on what’s happening with the NESEA strategic plan, and catch those of you up who might not even be aware that we have a strategic plan!
The board adopted a new strategic plan in May. The plan sets forth a number of priorities for the coming year. But rather than bore you with you a dry list of bullet points relating to communications and branding, strategic partnerships, membership and chapters, metrics, etc., I thought I’d bring you up to speed on a few of the things I’ve been working on in conjunction with the plan that excite me most.
First, we’re breaking down silos and building bridges. Such cliché language, such over-used expressions. What they mean in our case is that we’re looking at NESEA as a solar system, and BuildingEnergy is the sun. For many people, BE is NESEA and vice versa. So part of what we are doing is reevaluating all of our programs with respect to what works well with BE: great opportunities to network with and learn from a multidisciplinary group of professionals, a “whole systems” approach to energy efficiency and renewable energy, the opportunity to share the results of proven case studies . . . the list goes on. We’re trying to add a bit more of the BE vibe to our other programs, and bringing our other programs to BE, both figuratively and literally. For example, this year we’ll hold our first educators summit at BuildingEnergy. For years we’ve been offering excellent teacher training programs on energy efficiency and renewable energy, but we’ve not created opportunities for educators to network and learn from and with other NESEA professionals. This year, we’ll have educators attend sessions geared toward K-12 science curriculum, but will also invite them to take in a few of the traditional BuildingEnergy sessions. We’ve known for years that teachers involved in our K-12 training programs are often the strongest advocates for introducing energy efficiency and renewables into our schools. Let’s equip them with the tools and the passion to be evangelists for a larger audience of students and their families as well.
Second, on the sponsorship front: we looked at NESEA’s sponsorship packages and found ourselves really uninspired. We also did a lot of research into the sponsorship packages that other, like-minded organizations were offering and were similarly unimpressed. Then it struck us that we’d never really gone out asked our sponsors what they wanted from their partnership with NESEA. Duh! So one of the first things we’ve done is to schedule meetings with a few of our key sponsors to hear from them. We held our first meeting this week with BuildingEnergy sponsor Conservation Services Group. They gave us lots of ideas of really do-able things that would add value for them. And more than anything else, I think they were delighted just to be asked. Just this meeting set us apart from the other 100+ organizations and/or trade shows that seek money from them each year! A great opportunity to build the relationship and learn more about the needs of some of our key members in the process. We’ve got a few more of these meetings set with other sponsors over the next few months, which I’m hoping will be equally valuable.
Third, (and last for now), on the communications and branding front: We know we need to be doing a lot more with social media to keep our members in the loop and to attract potential newbies as well. This blog post is one of my first personal efforts in that regard . . . and I have to say it’s a bit terrifying to try to speak in my own voice, and to figure out what’s relevant to share. I’d love for this forum to be a dialogue . . . but then again, I don’t want anyone to disagree with me . . . ever. (Just kidding, of course – working with this highly engaged and opinionated group sometimes requires me to have a thick skin!) I’m going to do my best to keep you all updated, both here and through our enewsletter, but if a few weeks go by without you hearing from me, feel free to jiggle the handle. You can always reach me at jmarrapese@nesea.org. Thanks!
Interview with Young NESEA-ite Caroline Petrovick
March 24th, 2010In the spring 2010 issue of the Northeast Sun, we published an article/compilation of interviews with 13 young NESEA members, exploring what they find valuable about NESEA, and how we can make the organization relevant to those under 40. Space constraints prevented us from publishing each interview in full, but the content from these interviews was so rich that we wanted you to be able to read them. What follows is the full interview with Caroline Petrovick, 28, a project manager at Coldham and Hartman.
Caroline Petrovick completed her undergraduate degree in film at Yale, and worked on commercials and independent films as a set designer and prop master for a few years in New York, and for an architecture firm in Boston for a year before moving back to Amherst and returning to school for her Masters of Architecture degree at UMass Amherst. This year she is helping to coordinate the Public Forum at BE10. She is also involved with NESEA Night, helping to get the Solar Decathlon teams to the conference. “I’m hoping we can make NESEA Night a more inclusive event this year, and create better opportunities for younger people to meet people who have been involved with NESEA for a long time.”
NESEA: How did you become involved in NESEA and what inspired you to become involved?
Caroline Petrovick: I got involved through our office. Bruce (Coldham) and Tom (Hartman) are very involved with the BE conference. I started by contacting presenters before the conference to help coordinate their presentations for online access. I’ve volunteered at the conference, both as a general volunteer and session chair. I’ve also helped with the Public Forum.
This year I’m involved with NESEA Night, helping to get the Solar Decathlon teams to the conference. I’m hoping we can make NESEA Night a more inclusive event this year, and create better opportunities for younger people to meet people who have been involved with NESEA for a long time.
NESEA: How are you currently involved with NESEA?
Caroline Petrovick: This year, our office is coordinating the Public Forum, which I feel is always one of the most important parts of the conference. The Public Forum is something I really enjoy because it draws in a lot of people who might otherwise be intimidated or be unable to afford the conference and gets them involved. It’s also a really exciting to see who will be speaking at the Public Forum, as it draws some pretty big names.
NESEA: Are you currently active in one of the NESEA chapters? Which one and how?
Caroline Petrovick: No. I live in Worcester and commute out here to Amherst. There’s not really a NESEA chapter in central Massachusetts. I’d be interested in helping to set one up or to be involved in a Central MA chapter.
NESEA: What do you value most about NESEA?
Caroline Petrovick: I really value the opportunity to meet different people in the field that aren’t architects, the BE Conference, and the opportunity to network and meet people. It’s helpful to me to hear the perspective of an engineer or a builder, to broaden my perspective as an architect.
NESEA: What other professional and/or networking organizations do you belong to? Are there things NESEA can learn about the way they operate? Any examples?
Caroline Petrovick: Our office is involved in Deep Energy Tribe, a small network of different professionals who share information and advice about retrofits and building science. One of the things that makes it work so well is that it’s a very small circle of experts. Because of the size, there’s an element of trust in sharing information. We use basecamp to organize our discussion and our work together.
I’m also a member of NEWIEE – New England Women in Energy and the Environment. The first meeting I attended was last year, at BE09. That’s a group of professional women mostly in public relations, government, and nonprofit. I think our firm may be the only member firm actually involved in building. I’ve really enjoyed the networking opportunities that NEWIEE provides.
For both of these organizations, the main means of communication is via social networking sites. More outreach through online social networking would be very valuable to me for NESEA.
NESEA: What things, specifically, should NESEA be doing to cultivate emerging leaders in sustainability and the built environment?
Caroline Petrovick: If I weren’t involved with NESEA through my firm’s office, I don’t know how aware I would be of NESEA. In my grad school program, I think the only people who attended the BE Conference were Jesse and I – both from Coldham & Hartman. I think NESEA could do a better job of marketing to students and faculty of the NE schools.
Social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, present good opportunities for reaching out to younger potential members. I don’t mean to focus only on social media as a way to reach younger members, but I strongly believe it is the best, most efficient way to introduce NESEA to that generation.
NESEA: How can we use mentoring?
Caroline Petrovick: I think there’s an opportunity to get the universities more involved, initially by involving the professors and then engaging the students.
Again, I am not active in a chapter because there isn’t one in central MA, but I imagine that they could be a great opportunity for mentoring. I think smaller groups like the chapters would be a more comfortable setting for young members to get involved with.
NESEA: In person meet ups?
Caroline Petrovick: I’d like to see more opportunities available for smaller group meetings in Central Massachusetts. Social media might be helpful in convening such group meetings.
As I mentioned earlier, I also really like the way the public forums are set up. A series of lectures or forums similar to the Public Forum at the BE conference may attract younger members. These lectures/forums could potentially be set up at Colleges in MA.
Interview with Young NESEA-ite Brian Hayden
March 15th, 2010In the spring 2010 issue of the Northeast Sun, we published an article/compilation of interviews with 13 young NESEA members, exploring what they find valuable about NESEA, and how we can make the organization relevant to those under 40. Space constraints prevented us from publishing each interview in full, but the content from these interviews was so rich that we wanted you to be able to read them. What follows is the full interview with Brian Hayden, 30, of HeatSpring Learning Institute, who serves on the NESEA Professional Leadership Award Committee.
NESEA: Tell us about yourself: your background, what you do, how you got started, and how long you’ve been doing it.
Brian Hayden: I launched my business, Heatspring Learning Institute with my business partner three years ago while we were MBA students at Babson. We were looking for an opportunity to start a business in the sustainable energy/building space. We didn’t know exactly what it would be, or how it would fit into the broader community, so we used our time as students to go out and see what was “out there.” One of the ways we did that was to get involved with NESEA networking events. We attended the BuildingEnergy show and started reading about some of the companies involved with NESEA.
Our business is complementary to what NESEA is. We offer some niche topics that the NESEA community could benefit from going really deep on and having data and info to make decisions to do their jobs and grow their businesses. Many of our customers are small businesses involved with NESEA. We offer technical training on geothermal heat pumps and solar PV.
We’ve had a lot of involvement with NESEA. We’ve exhibited for the past three years at the BE show. It’s a good community environment for us to find customers. We really value the feedback we get from NESEA members because we view them to be our core audience. We’ve taken what we’ve learned here locally and do the workshops across the country.
I’d guess that 25% of our business comes either directly or indirectly from NESEA.
NESEA: How did you become involved in NESEA and what inspired you to become involved?
Brian Hayden: The student discount to attend BE was a big draw for me. It got me involved with the show, which is the most visible manifestation of NESEA.
There was also a job board on the NESEA website. I applied for a job with NESEA member John Abrams’ company. It was inspiring for me to get to meet someone whose work I respected so much through NESEA.
NESEA: How are you currently involved with NESEA?
Brian Hayden: We will probably exhibit again this year. We’re Business Level Members and we have a speaker on geothermal energy at one of the Tuesday workshops. (Brian, can you please tell me which workshop and which speaker?)
NESEA: Are you currently active in one of the NESEA chapters? Which one and how?
Brian Hayden: No, I’m really not. Geographically, BASEA would make the most sense for me. I’ve been to some events, but for whatever reason haven’t made the time to get super involved.
NESEA: What do you value most about NESEA?
Brian Hayden: What I like about it is the accessibility for small businesses. And I like the people that I meet. It attracts people that I’m glad to have met because they tend to be thoughtful group of people interested in doing things the right way. The values the group seems to have are ones I share.
NESEA: What other professional and/or networking organizations do you belong to? Are there things NESEA can learn about the way they operate? Any examples?
Brian Hayden: We’re members of International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA), National Ground Water Assocation, AIA, Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium
The reason we are involved in these other organizations is for marketing our business. That’s not the reason we’re involved in NESEA.
IGSHPA has a thought leadership curriculum that they developed, and a lot of our classes are delivering their content. We’re working as a partner or affiliate to spread their message, credential and materials.
NESEA: What things, specifically, should NESEA be doing to cultivate emerging leaders in sustainability and the built environment?
Brian Hayden: Give us official positions and titles. It sounds a little silly, but if someone has a title they often feel a lot more invested. They are more likely to commit when they have a personal stake in the outcome. Give me an opportunity to help build on what NESEA does really well because NESEA is a community of people that I care about. I want to stay relevant to that group, which would spur me to do more.
NESEA: How can we use mentoring?
Brian Hayden: I really valued meeting John and being mentored by him informally. One of the things I’ve done is to set up a peer mentoring group. It’s a group of small business owners who meet to talk about the issues we’re facing. One person gives a presentation every time, and we all learn from each other because we’re all facing many of the same issues, and each of us brings a different professional perspective. If NESEA could help convene something like this, and make sure that some of its more experienced members participate, that would be great!
Interview with Young NESEA-ite Luke Falk
March 7th, 2010In the spring 2010 issue of the Northeast Sun, we will publish an article/compilation of interviews with 13 young NESEA members, exploring what they find valuable about NESEA, and how we can make the organization relevant to those under 40. Space constraints prevented us from publishing each interview in full, but the content from these interviews was so rich that we wanted you to be able to read them. What follows is the full interview with Luke Falk, who will be chairing Track 1 on Climate Change Policy at the BuildingEnergy 10 Conference, to be held March 9-11 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston.
Luke Falk, 30, is a project manager in NYSERDA’s New York City office. In that role his responsibilities include development, design and deployment of energy efficient and green building programs for multifamily buildings, also a large part of NYSERDA’s intergovernmental coordination in the downstate New York region, and work relating to the development of various new energy initiatives, whether it be development of technical standards or financial products or formal legislative rulemaking.
How did you become involved in NESEA and what inspired you to become involved?
Andy Padian introduced me to NESEA. I was in a grad school class at NYU and Andy was brought in as a visiting professor. He engaged the class in a frank conversation on practical approaches to reduce energy consumption in buildings. His no-nonsense, real world solutions-orientation was a nice counterpoint to a lot of the theory in academia that was going around at the time. I struck up a friendship with Andy and he told me I should go to NESESA and I did. A few years later I was deeply involved in planning the conference.
I heard about NESEA in about 2005, but wasn’t able to afford to go to the BE Conference until 2007, because my internships wouldn’t pay for it, and my student loans were not big enough to support it (although, damn, they seem pretty big now). I went as an attendee in 2007, chaired a few sessions in 2008, and chaired the full conference in 2009.
I’ve attended the events of GreenHome NYC, a NESEA affiliate, every now and again since 2004 and 2005.
How are you currently involved with NESEA?
I am Chairing Track 1 on Climate Change and Policy, together with Ev Hyde. I’ll also be doing a session in someone else’s track about real world results from the largest ratepayer funded energy efficiency program for Multifaimly Buildings in the country – the Multifamily Performance Program.
Are you currently active in one of the NESEA chapters? Which one and how?
I’m somewhat active in GreenHomes NYC, although I don’t have any sort of leadership role within that chapter. I attend events a couple times a year, and when NYSERDA is able to lend support to an activity being headed up by GreenHomes NYC, I always try to facilitate that.
What do you value most about NESEA?
I think that the conference is great! It provides a platform for professionals to meet and learn from regional experts in a way that few other conferences I’ve been to do. Beyond that, the conference is the centerpiece of what NESEA does. I think that there’s a lot of opportunity for NESEA to bolster its nonconference related activities. It’s almost like there’s nothing else to it.
The GreenHome chapter is active and does good events. NESEA itself doesn’t seem to have much involvement beyond what the local chapter is doing.
What other professional and/or networking organizations do you belong to? Are there things NESEA can learn about the way they operate? Any examples?
I am a member of USGBC, although I am not a member of the local chapter.
Also the InternationalBuilding Performance and Simulation Association. I occasionally attend their meetings.
I am also involved with NYU alumni activities.
I teach a course at the Cooper Union in their Department of Continuing Education about green buildings in New York City.
The groups that have the most presence in my sphere are advocacy groups, political parties or groups with certifications or processes. NESEA doesn’t fall into any of those categories, so their models may not be applicable (ex. Center for Working Families, Sierra Club. Both of these organizations really keep people in the loop as advocacy organizations.) Organizations like USGBC, with its LEED products and AEE with its CEM certifications are also different animals. People flock to them for those performance indicators. NESEA doesn’t really have that kind of advocacy position, or a certification, or a product, so in that regard these organizations are not necessarily analogous. Maybe Alex Wilson’s publication sort of approximates what NESEA aspires to become – a clearinghouse of information.
What things, specifically, should NESEA be doing to cultivate emerging leaders in sustainability and the built environment?
There seems to be a tension between the close-knit group that formed the organization a few decades ago and the new people who want to come in.
NESEA values its superstars. My question is whether people feel like everybody else involved can carry the torch. How do you create the spirit of camaraderie and trust without the intimacy of the circumstances under which NESEA was initially created?
Something I’ve observed is that often times pioneers run the risk of having their influence marginalized when the ideas that they were out ahead of and have been trumpeting all of the sudden take hold in the greater market and the pioneers remain married to notion of being pioneers and steadfast outsiders. Then the opportunity to have the wave of momentum that they helped create be as beneficial as it can be and as finely tuned en masse is abandoned by the pioneers themselves. Many people are advocating for the abandonment of LEED because the LEED Energy and Atmosphere section is based on modeled savings, which don’t necessarily materialize during building operation. Some of NESEA’s most brilliant pioneers think we should destroy LEED because of this. But from my perspective, this isn’t a situation where we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. LEED is the most powerful market transformation tool that green building advocates have ever had (except for maybe ENERGY STAR). But as with any tool (take a hammer, for example), there are geniuses who use it to create masterpieces and morons who use it to create crap. It doesn’t mean the tool should be tossed off. I’m not arguing that there isn’t certainly room for improvement in LEED; of course there is. To continue this silly analogy, if a hammer doesn’t work half the time, it probably needs to be redesigned or fixed, but the task of nailing something into the wall will remain. And I think, if you already have a hammer, even if it’s bent, maybe it’s better to try and fix it rather than toss it off in favor of something else entirely.
One of the things that I’ve noticed is that some of the NESEA luminaries seem to be afraid of the ruling corporatocracy and the money and influence that go along with it, which is totally understandable. But if you’re going to bring things to scale (grow the conference, or develop new technologies), you have to deal with the prevailing reality, which, in this case, is that we live in a capitalist system where big corporations control a lot of money and operate for profit. I don’t think NESEA should be shy about taking sponsorship dollars from corporate actors as long as the organization is able to maintain the integrity of its mission. And I don’t think the green building market should be shy about using tools like LEED and ENERGY STAR to convince market actors who could otherwise care less about sustainability to change their behavior simply as a response to market demand and potential for profits. Just because the economic system may be flawed doesn’t mean we shouldn’t engage it to try to solve problems!
How can we use mentoring?
There’s always going to be a tension between an organization trying to promote mentoring and the fact that real mentoring is a personal experience that a professional has to decide to engage in. I’ve been beyond lucky to have Andy (Padian) play such an active role in my professional development, but I’m not sure exactly how you can work to institute that across a broad group of people. Maybe NESEA can provide money to allow people to do this, through conference scholarships, facilitating free places to stay, having local residents agree to cook a meal during the conference etc. These are all pieces of the puzzle.
My feeling is that young kids aren’t attracted to NESEA because they don’t know about it and if they do, they can’t discern a value proposition in participation in its community beyond a vague notion of professional development. There are other organizations that are more widely known, like NRDC, Clinton Climate Initiative, USGBC, and others. There’s a lot of interest from the young community about getting involved, but NESEA is not identified as being a major player because it does not have a visible and understandable mission. NRDC and CCI are national and global policy advocates and market transformation agents. USGBC, BPI, RESNET, and AEE all have a product or certification to promote. What does NESEA have other than the smartest people in the Northeast? Is that community enough to keep the organization growing in the long term?
Social networking?
The fact that people think this is a central issue shows a lack of understanding about the real issue. The reason social networking is such a phenomenon is because it’s viral and decentralized and its mass adoption required little top-down management. But on our list serve you see dozens of emails debating whether we should encourage the use of it or not. I don’t get it. If someone wants to tweet the NESEA conference, great, they will. Who cares? The whole point is that it doesn’t need coordination, only facilitation.
I think the problem for NESEA is deeper. You won’t attract people mainly by virtue of the means of communication. Social media is just a vehicle for content. It’s the content that’s important, and that drives people to the conference and to NESEA.
If everybody thought that the BuildingEnergy conference was an absolute imperative for working in the fields of energy and sustainability, we’d have 35,000 people coming to it, but as it is, it’s mostly just a great place to network and seek general professional development. In a way, it’s not for all practitioners, it’s more for the professionals who already know that their workproduct is going to be distinguished by its quality. Targeting that audience, the top quartile of professionals, if you will, may serve to limit the conference’s appeal to the average practitioner looking to secure a tangible certification or set of skills.
What kinds of things are you looking for in terms of professional development opportunities?
I like the idea of the traveling road shows that people have done in the past. Marc Rosenbaum did a few, Larry Harmon as well. There are a lot of people who could do topical stuff. However, If NESEA wants to be the clearinghouse for information and a professional connection hub, there may need to be more of an effort to move away from our impulse to highlight only the best and the brightest within the community. If NESEA is seeking to become the glue that unites the field, we need to be not only into the nuts and bolts of building science, but also nuts and bolts of the tools that professionals need to make their businesses work. For example, Jon Straube is doing a session on the conference this year about a computer program called THERM. That session is a perfect union of a brilliant guy teaching a tool that many stakeholders in the field could benefit from learning about. I think that kind of targeted training may be a key to the future of the organization.
NESEA honored by American Lung Association
December 3rd, 2009The American Lung Association of New England recently selected NESEA as a recipient of its “Healthy Air Award,” which is granted “in recognition of research, education, and advocacy efforts focused on protecting and enhancing indoor and outdoor air quality.” I met with their Development Manager, Bianca Walker, yesterday, and was very interested to learn that the ALA’s mission is much more comprehensive than fighting tobacco use, asthma, and lung cancer. In recent years, the ALA has also been focused more broadly on both outdoor and indoor air quality – two arenas in which NESEA members have made clear contributions!
The award will be presented at the American Lung Association’s “Breath of Life Ball,” to be held on Friday, May 7, 2010 at the Springfield Marriott. NESEA will be represented at the event, and if you’d like to join us, you can learn more and purchase tickets at http://www.mrsnv.com/evt/home.jsp?id=2885.
ASES Releases Report on Climate Change and Jobs
November 11th, 2009
The American Solar Energy Society released a report earlier this week that you may find interesting. It shows that tackling climate change can be a major net job creator for the U.S. economy.
According to the report, aggressive deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency can net up to 4.5 million new U.S. jobs by 2030 and provide the greenhouse gas emission reductions necessary to tackle climate change.
With Congress debating energy policy in Washington D.C., this is the type of information that can really make a difference.
Renewable energy and energy efficient technologies could displace approximately 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions annually by 2030 – the amount scientists believe is necessary to prevent the most dangerous consequences of climate change.
The report is called, Estimating the Jobs Impact of Tackling Climate Change, and was produced by ASES and top economists at Management Information Services, Inc. based in Washington, D.C.
You can find the report at: www.ases.org/climatejobs
Here’s one of the best parts. According to the analysis, renewable energy and energy efficiency deployment costs would be revenue neutral or better!
That’s because the costs to implement the technologies are offset by savings from lower energy bills, making total net costs near zero.
As Brad Collins, ASES’ Executive Director described it, “The twin challenges of climate change and economic stagnation can be solved by the same action-broad, aggressive, sustained deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency. The solution for one is the solution for the other.”
NESEA Goes to the White House
November 4th, 2009On Monday I had the chance to attend The White House Clean Energy Economy Forum, hosted by the Department of the Interior. NESEA was one of about 200 invitees, ranging from renewable energy companies, environmentally oriented nonprofit organizations (Sierra Club, NRDC, Scenic America, and many others) other professional membership organizations like the American Wind Energy Association, tribal representatives, sportsmens’ organizations, and many others with a stake in how the Department of Interior chooses to repurpose federal lands to support the use of renewables, and how to promote energy and water conservation on federal lands.
So what was cool and different about this event? It demonstrated that there is a new sheriff in town with a new energy agenda. It also demonstrated to me, at least, that the Administration is embracing what NESEA has known all along – that real change is possible only when all stakeholders can be heard and included in the process. It was clear from the discussion that this culture of inclusiveness comes from the top – from Ken Salazar, Director of the Department of the Interior. Salazar and members of his staff reiterated throughout the day that they wanted the session to be a dialogue, and that they intended for the participants to shape the proposed policies, and poke holes in them where necessary and appropriate.
NESEA members have had a long history of bringing renewables to the White House, dating back to the 70s when longtime member Steve Strong installed solar panels on the White House itself. This forum opened a new chapter, and represented the first step among many through which NESEA and its members can have an impact in shaping the policies of the Department of the Interior, and the larger conversation on the legislative front.
Ken Salazar
