Job Creation Possible through Energy Efficiency
New Website Helps Communities Pursue Economic Development
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) announces the launch of the Community
Energy Opportunity Finder, an interactive website that calculates
potential energy and dollar savings, air pollution emissions reductions,
and potential jobs a community could create by implementing an
energy efficiency program.
“Economic development professionals tend to focus exclusively
on recruiting new businesses,” said Michael Kinsley, founder
of RMI’s Community Services team. “Most simply don’t
know that there are business development and job creation opportunities
in energy efficiency and renewable energy.” The
Finder will give community members or leaders a tool to link changes
in a municipality’s energy use to economic impacts.
Users of the Finder website enter basic information about their
city or town, its energy use, and its physical characteristics.
The Finder then allows the user to create and save multiple scenarios
for the community, using different economic assumptions. Finder
users don’t need a lot of technical expertise to take advantage
of its planning features; active community groups can use it as
easily as community officials.
According to RMI, the Finder doesn’t take the place of an
economic development consultant, but is intended to provide the
equivalent of an energy consultant’s preliminary analysis.
Energy efficiency works as an economic development engine in two
ways. First, investment is required in devices and equipment—efficient
motors, efficient lights, and the labor required to, for example,
insulate homes and commercial and industrial buildings. All of
these activities create jobs.
Secondly, utility bills for residences and businesses are reduced,
freeing up money to spend in other ways. This money improves people’s
lives and allows further investment in the community.
Sacramento provides a compelling example. In 1987 Sacramento voters
refused to allow the municipal utility company to invest in a nuclear
electric generation plant. The utility responded by helping customers
use energy more efficiently, which avoided the need for new electricity
generation (power is ambiguous). It also had the amazing unanticipated
side effect of creating 880 new jobs and increasing regional income
by $124 million.
A team of RMI researchers developed the Finder in partnership
with the Environmental Protection Agency. The Finder website relies
on research from The Community Energy Workbook, written in 1994
by former RMI researchers, Alice Hubbard and Clay Fong. RMI’s
other partner in the project, the Land
Information Access Association (LIAA), a non-profit group that helps communities cope with the
impacts of changing land use, programmed the Finder’s engine
to do the necessary calculations.
Find the Finder at http://finder.rmi.org/.
For more on LIAA, please visit http://www.liaa.org/.
Rocky Mountain Institute, located in Old Snowmass, CO, is an entrepreneurial
nonprofit organization engaged in research and consulting. RMI
fosters the efficient and restorative use of resources to create
a more secure, prosperous, and life-sustaining world. For more
information, please visit http://www.rmi.org/.
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