Buildings
Thou Shalt Covet Thy Neighbor’s Home Energy Upgrade
When surveyed, homeowners respond that they want to do home energy upgrades. So why haven’t home energy upgrades spread like wildfire? Residential solar installations, meanwhile, spread like crazy in neighborhoods where even a few solar panels appear, in a process called “solar contagion.” A webinar on December 1 will reveal…
Report Release: Mapping a Pathway to Low-Carbon Campuses
In Rocky Mountain Institute’s recently released report, Mapping a Pathway to Low-Carbon Campuses, we draw on best-in-class examples to celebrate the common elements that define leaders, and provide integrative approaches that campuses can use to go deeper in their pursuit of low-carbon campuses—including aiming for zero net carbon and beyond.
Setting the PACE for Consumer Protection
Residential PACE (property assessed clean energy), an innovative solution for financing energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, is being led by a set of industry mavens seeking to realize the promise of this public–private partnership. Specifically, industry stakeholders have come together to create a set of consumer protection standards that…
How to Use Peer Diffusion to Make Better Homes a “Must Have”
Co-authored by Larry Zarker, Executive Director, Building Performance Institute Peer Diffusion: A form of communication within and between networks of people that (1) occurs through varying forms of social comparison and social interaction around an innovation (i.e., a new behavior, idea, or technology) and (2) ultimately promotes the broader adoption…
Getting to Net-Zero Carbon in Multifamily Homes
Consumers wanting to undertake a deep energy retrofit of a home currently face a challenging process that involves multiple complex steps, as shown in the infographic below. For this reason, many give up on energy efficiency. Figure 1 Consider what a corollary example would be with a…
