Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Seventeen: Achieving Resilience 319wildcatter” (an independent driller of speculative oil wells. Now, the groupprovides workshops on superinsulation retrofits. Kropper is planning to forma local energy services corporation to fix up buildings and share the savingswith local institutions such as community libraries and churches. 67Some neighborhood groups have also organized energy co-ops for bulkbuying of materials at wholesale cost, have replaced Tupperware parties with“housewarming parties” where weatherization methods are demonstrated,and have arranged block meetings to discuss energy issues. 68 The bondbetween people who already know each other can enable knowledge andmotivation to spread quickly. 69The deterioration of America’s urban areas over the past few decades hasbegun to lead public and corporate interests in sound local economies to anew convergence. The declining quality of life and rising price of energy inthe cities has limited recruitment of able staff, while many cities’ dwindling taxbase has put pressure on corporations to pay a higher share of taxes. Somecorporations have responded to these forces by supporting community programsfor energy efficiency and renewables. Corporate objectives—assuredsupply, minimized costs and a fair return—are at least as well served by theseprograms as by more traditional investments. Thus in Hartford, Connecticut,several local companies donated the services of advertising and marketingexperts to help the city “sell” (successfully) an energy assistance program. 70Volunteer advertising executives helped city officials in Portland, Oregon todevelop a multi-media campaign publicizing the then-proposed PortlandEnergy Policy. 71 Los Angeles worked with local businesses to develop thenation’s largest ride-sharing program, encouraging carpooling with speciallanes and other incentives. By arrangement with the city, companies that convinceemployees to carpool or use mass transit can provide fewer parkingspaces than local codes normally require and can use the scarce land for other,more productive purposes. 72Businesses also have at hand immediate opportunities for energy efficiency,and not only in their own factories—where, for example, a recent surveyshowed that sixty-nine percent of businesses which had installed automatedenergy management controls were planning to buy more of them within thenext year. 73 Employee drivers of business fleets are being trained in safe, energy-consciousdriving through workshop programs being offered by communitycolleges and by the Atlantic Richfield Company. Driver education easilysaves ten percent of fleet fuel, but some businesses have reported savings ashigh as forty-six percent. 74 Vanpooling is another money-saver; not only infuel (a fully loaded van gets the equivalent of a one-hundred-fifty mpg car),but also in saved parking spaces worth about two thousand dollars per com-