Pitch
Manage and Control Carbon Emission biggies, energy use and transportation choices with CarbonGobbler. While saving money too.
Description
Summary
Somerville spread over 4.2 miles with around 33000+ homes and about 20000 personal transports. With over 40% of the populace driving alone. There are over 1800 business located in Somerville, employing over 20000 employees.
Our proposal is designed to address and empower citizens of Somerville to understand their energy use, be it in homes or business. Compare with other homes or business and with National Averages as well. Providing a fairly detailed levels of comparisons.
Our Mobile users (available on iOS and Android devices) helps you monitor and account for carbon emission from transportation choices.
We promote the 1 kWh Advantage !https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDXQOeswLIA. This short video of 3.38 minutes explain the concept and is focused on business. Having said that this can be well suited for citizen engagement as well.
We believe with the basic statistics stated in the beginning we are looking at a potential of reducing carbon emissions from the homes in Somerville at the rate of 16.5 MT (Assuming 2000 kWh = 1 MT of carbon emissions of per day, while the CDP average is much lower in the 1700 kWh+ range). Business in Somerville have the potential of reducing carbon emission, roughly 1 MT per day only for facilities. (we estimate this can be at least 5 time the number).
This is not including accounting for Transportation use, emissions. Our product creates consciousness by specifically identifying carbon emissions from your mode of transport. And the money saved by using less energy.
The best part, we do not collect personal information. So no names, address or phone numbers. We do require an email to send alerts.
Given that the utilities servicing Somerville are NStar and or National Grid, we anticipate that the city is already equipped with Smart Meters (this is not a requirement) if so our product has the capability to look at hourly usage analysis for energy use and carbon emissions.
What actions do you propose?
We do not think our proposal requires any policy changes and or require any technology to drive it. We are a hosted offering and if you have a PC or MAC or even a mobile device, you are good.
What is required is a commitment from city leaders and citizens to create and make concrete actions to reduce energy use and thereby reduce carbon emissions. Towards this we propose the following:
1. We propose that the City of Somerville set up competitions for residents and business to reduce energy use and associated carbon emissions. THE SOMERVILLE CARBON SHIELD
2. THE GREENFLEECE AWARDs (the name is proprietary to GreenHatters) We as GreenHatters will contribute a certain percentage of our earnings through the City of Somerville to go towards creating awareness messaging. Open to the schools in Somerville, engaging the students to look around them and take note of the actions that are being taken by citizens and the government of Somerville. This will be in a competition form to be held once every 6 months. We believe the voice of our millennial generation carries a mighty messaging power.
3. Some of our previous work with Schools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV2_Ig5bXuc (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZQOPeCjOGc (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UHCq2zOG4
4. There could be other awards instituted by the City as well, we have some and have provided details below, where possible use inhouse TV's that today stream news and or activities within the premises such as in corporate offices, public offices and schools to display the carbon emissions trajectory and savings
5. CarbonGobbler has the ability and capability to run and post updates on the competition with leader boards, and provide various other parameters
6. To begin with the City needs to Adopt CarbonGobbler for all its facilities with active participation of city employees from their homes and in transportation use, set an example and prove its commitment to reducing carbon emissions
7. We will require help and facilitation with the Utilities to provide access and customer consumption data (meter data), by account number and meter id. ONLY. We do not require any other details to power CarbonGobbler. Neither do we want access to the utility systems; this might go a long way in onboarding citizens onto CarbonGobbler.
8. With the Utilities cooperating the city can have VERIFIED carbon emission saved
9. Demonstrate Money Savings
10. Competitions:
1. The Somerville Carbon Roundup:
Purpose: Onboard residential and business to the City of Somerville Carbon Neutrality initiative
This should be of 3 months Duration. Honoring - the First 100 registrants in both categories. (We could expand the categories to include educational institutions as well). The leaders will be displayed on the leader board on CarbonGobbler. We would recommend that they be sent a personal vote of thanks from the Mayor’s office for showing enthusiasm and participation in the Carbon Neutrality initiative of the city. The Top 10 Names could be invited to meet with the Mayor and other such publicized media outreach.
We could have Multiple Roundup’s as Fall and Spring.
2. Somerville Carbon Derby:
Purpose: Moving past the Roundup to the second stage. Here we propose the Energy saving and Carbon reduction as the main themes
This will also be a 3 month challenge. With leader boards and honors. We could further split the categories in multiple areas – Residence (i) Apartment dwellers (ii) Single Family Homes. Business into (i) Small (ii) Medium (iii) Big business. Special Category – Most Involved!
3. Somerville Transportation Carbon Challenge
Purpose: Getting all Somerville individuals and business to account for the transportation emissions. To be initiated along with the Somerville Carbon Derby. Similar categories for all honors/ Awards.
WITH 6 MONTHS IN FROM THE ABOVE 3 CHALLENGES WE GO FOR THE BIG ONE. A SIX MONTH CHAMPIONSHIP
4. Somerville Carbon Champions Shield (shield as in protection, ward off etc.,)
Purpose: this is the Big one running for 6 months….on carbon emissions reduction by energy use and transportation choices.
This will take into account Carbon reductions across energy use at homes and office and transportation related carbon emissions reduction. We will use the above 3 competitions to come up with an average baseline for savings. And the intent here is how much more can you do…to reduce carbon emissions.
This should honor the Top 5 in different categories.
5. The Green Fleece Awards (The name is proprietary to GreenHatters)
Purpose: To create snap shot views of the community activity and involvement at Somerville in reducing carbon emissions. These could be painting/Drawing (for elementary schools) Photography/Drawing/Painting for Middle Schools. For High School and Colleges it will be short video clips not exceeding 3 minutes in length. There will be a business Category also where employees of the firm will show case in short videos not exceeding 4 minutes about the work and effort of the company and coworkers in creating a sustainable work place and a greener Somerville.
This part of the program will be funded by GreenHatters, based on the revenue generated from the City of Somerville from CarbonGobbler Product sales. We will set aside a portion of our earning for these awards. We can explore additional sponsor, if required.
All submissions for this contest will be the property of GreenHatters to be used ONLY for Non-Commercial and awareness related initiatives by GreenHatters.
THESE ARE JUST SOME THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTION ON HOW TO GO ABOUT MAKING THE INITIATIVE A SUCCESS AT SOMERVILLE. WE WILL HAVE TO JOINTLY PLAN A SEPARATE OUT REACH CAMPAIGN VIA SOCIAL MEDIA WITH THE CITY OF SOMERVILLE AND ITS OTHER SPONSORS, IF ANY. SOME THOUGHTS HERE ARE FOR THE FOLLOWING:
Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram. We will work with the city of Somerville to seed these outreach.
Press & TV: The Mayors office to release periodic updates on what is happening with its efforts via this initiative
Get small and medium business to promote this via their social media initiatives
Quarterly the Mayor's office can have Town Halls to update its citizens and business and call for more innovative ideas. The top 10 contenders to be invited for a Mayor's tête-à-tête.
Who will take these actions?
Government: City leaders and all city employees from all branches of the city's business
Business: Business Owners, Management staff and all employees of a business
Schools: All School board leaders and educators including students
Homes: All family members
The roles are common, Adopt the CarbonGobbler and start actively using it.
All it requires is for you to provide some innocuous data points about your home and business. All are in ranges, so there is nothing specific to identify anyone in particular. Business do have to disclose some additional information.
Awareness Messaging: Our research show inaction or inadequate action by citizens is due to the lack of understanding and awareness that each and every one of us can do a little bit to help abate Global warming, by taking responsibility and demonstrating action. Every body want to help but feel the task is enormous and how can they make a difference? so it leads to inaction. We need build the way to conscious action to reduce our personal carbon footprint responsibility and collectively that number will be something to contend with.
City: In particular, it is important to create more messaging for awareness and run different campaigns
Business: Create awareness, we provide a comprehensive learning program, choose from the many available and start getting the basics right for success for you, your employees and our planet.
Schools: We have program for the young and if the schools so desire we can help design programs specifically suited to encourage and build enthusiasm with the young minds and they will be a wonder in action, once aware.
What are the key challenges?
Given that the average US household emissions roughly 48 MT of emission per year, the CarbonGobbler can help make a nice dent on those numbers. http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/footprint
A small business employee with average of 5 employees (typical size of the small business at Somerville) has a footprint of roughly 350 MT per annum http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/business-calculator (per California)
A typical 65 Gallons of fuel per month consumed by household vehicles equals to roughly 8 MT of emissions (note this is included in the overall 48 MT of household emissions ) http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/ind-assumptions.html
With the tools like the CarbonGobbler, we believe awareness will fuel action. Just on Energy use at home we could aim at a minimum of 10% and a Max of 20% saving per annum. Likewise for business as well.
On transportation choices, we believe a 10% reduction at the minimum should be possible.
And let us not forget that is money in pocket for all that energy saving.
USING THE ABOVE STATISTICS AS A GUIDELINE.
Household Emission in Somerville today is roughly @ 1.585 Million MT. We anticipate between a 10 to 20% savings. (Includes transportation) And that is also more money in the pocket.
Business Emissions in Somerville today is roughly @ 525,000 MT, we anticipate between 10 to 20% saving potential. And save on energy expenses.
What are the key benefits?
The reduction in energy use will directly affect the demand management at the utilities. It is possible for the city to negotiate with the utilities to have a preferential rate for Somerville residents and business, due directly influencing them with action for reducing energy use. Such schemes are available and funded federally.
Reduce energy use means, less carbon emission for the city, improving the overall environment and the health of the society.
With an ecologically conscious city, attract more new business to the area, increasing the tax base.
Attract newer residents again increase the tax base, boosting the economy with the buying power of the new dwellers.
Reduce cost of funding in Schools and Government buildings for energy use and transportation. And use the savings towards improving the buildings and or general health of the public.
The revenue saved with using lesser energy can fund such projects.
NOTE:
- We set aside a portion of our revenues to create awareness messages, our current focus is messaging through the eyes of the Millennial and sample of our work is available in references section.
- We do not want to seek donation, we believe in generating our own revenues to fund our awareness programs.
What are the proposal’s costs?
We propose the city promote 5 portals:
1. Home Owners
2. Business Small
3. Business Large
4. Government Buildings
5. Schools
- Each portal will be @ $5000.00 A Onetime fee with a 30% Annual Usage charges
- Each Home will need to pay a yearly fee of $5 per month
- Each Small business will need to pay a monthly fee of $10 per month
- Each Large business will need to pay $50 per month for up top 5 different meters per facility.
- Separate portal for Large business @ $5000.00 Onetime Fee + 30% annual usage charges
- Each Add on Facility for Large Business $3000.00 onetime fee and 30% usage charges. Plus an additional fee of $50 per month
- Employee engagement, each employee @ $ 5 per year
- Citizen Engagement each @ $5 per year.
Time line
CarbonGobbler is FULLY ready to use now on the Web!!
CarbonGobbler is also AT&T approved for all mobile devices sold by AT&T.
We are also Apple and Google approved to be available on the App.Store and Play Store for different mobile devices phone, pads etc.,
The On boarding will take us about 30 days to set up Portals.
Start seeing results in as less as 30 days from Participation.
Implementation Strategy
First, Start small, get the business and government facilities on line. Encourage this with Awards for business getting online and saving the most energy = least carbon emissions. Remember it saves money.
Second, start engaging citizen through business, and state employees, which is a solid segment and will be multiple smaller efforts manageable. Again a reward program by the business for energy saving at the business level (we have good ideas on this) and at a personal level, start recognition at business and city level.
Finally, Consolidate. And constitute Annual City awards, we have a defined program for this as well.
Needless to say the portals, need to be in place, so you start seeing participation numbers, energy saving, carbon emissions. And total savings in money terms, from the program for the city and community.
Related proposals
The 1 kWh Advantage !References
Our YouTube Channel link is
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZJTi_Xy1mHM4aCtGB5Uwyg
- The Power of Man - Will to Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08CtbNtG5V4
- The 1 kWh Advantage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDXQOeswLIA
- The Energy Challenge - An experiment by The Guardian, co-sponsored by Unilever to prove that 1 kWh Advantage can work
GreenHatters Awareness Messaging: We use the power of young minds to get the message of global warming, renewable energy sources. Developed in association with NCERT of India, sponsored by GreenHatters, these 4 films were produced to convey our awareness programs.
- The Grey Climate - a Film by Aarushi Khan for GreenHatters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hAqWB3iFNQ
- My Friend Ozone -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZQOPeCjOGc
- Nandus' Endeavour -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4UHCq2zOG4
- As Long As the Sun Shines -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94JR1V2NP88
- My Earth My Home -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV2_Ig5bXuc
Get To Know More About Us And What We Do...
www.GreenHatters.com - What we are committed to do..
www.CarbonGobbler.net- For CarbonGobbler capability
www.CarbonGobbler.com- This is where we host the product
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
The 1 kWh Advantage - Explained
http://en.calameo.com/read/003405805cd3248dcb061
Getting to know Sustainability for Corporate Employees
http://en.calameo.com/read/003405805f0435e4cd476
ENERGY AND CARBON FOOTPRINT MANAGEMENT FOR BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
http://en.calameo.com/read/00340580590366900a264
A PORTAL FOR UTILITY CUSTOMERS
http://en.calameo.com/read/00340580590366900a264
TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY, McCOY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND THE ENACTUS PROGRAM
I must also mention our effort with Texas State University(TSU) Working with the ENACTUS program at the McCoy College of Business, we seeded CarbonGobbler and have reached out to 1500 students. Who are saving money and energy and have targeted to save 685 MT over the next 8 months. This is likely to double as the program is reaching out to all 37000 students and over 100 campus buildings. That is the plan.
CarbonGobbler was presented as a case study by TSU at the recently concluded ENACTUS Nationals. Placing among the top 8 teams, and past Champions for 2014.
By:
CarbonGobbler
