Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
Draft Workplan: Program Design and Recruitment
Summary
In designing a community pilot to scale multi-family energy efficiency improvements, there must
a deep understanding of local stakeholder needs and strengths. At the same time, the pilot is
being designed to apply new financing mechanisms to reduce the split incentives between
landlords and tenants, to incentivize and encourage stakeholders to spread messages about the
opportunities of energy efficiency, and to successfully address the key needs of community
members.
Our Stakeholder Engagement and Community Outreach program will support the rest of the
class to identify key community groups to discuss elements of the proposed pilot mode over the
coming months. In addition to outlining this process, we outline potential elements for the pilot
and for longer term programs that enable community members to become advocates for energy
efficiency. The Financial model being developed will enable landlords and tenants to overcome
the split incentives, while also allowing individuals to obtain financing in a much more
streamlined way.
Stakeholder Engagement & Community Outreach
Objective:
The longer-term objective of designing a stakeholder engagement strategy is to help pilot
implementers to have an effective outreach method. Buy-in from community members will be
critical in gaining momentum for not only the pilot but for the future success of a scaled-up
community energy efficiency program. At the same time, our short-term objective over the
course of the semester is to identify key stakeholders, understand their major concerns, and
effectively engage them in the design of the pilot itself.
The immediate goal of understanding relevant stakeholders’ needs is to motivate stakeholders
to participate in an energy efficiency program. This requires understanding the barriers that
prevent widespread program adoption, identifying specific program elements that would mitigate
these barriers, and implementing and disseminating a program and outreach effort that includes
these program elements.
Parameters:
A community engagement and outreach approach must:
● Identify all relevant stakeholder groups, not only the most vocal or most public.
● Take into account the concerns and desires identified in the stakeholder engagement
process.
● Reflect the unique segmentation and stakeholder map of the Cambridge multi-family
housing market.
● Create indirect and direct mechanisms that address the barriers to energy efficiency
identified in the engagement process.
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Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
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Provide an incentive for the primary stakeholder groups (landlords, tenants, condo
owners) to participate in an energy efficiency program.
Be in communication with the energy data aspect of the program by considering how
data can be used in an outreach effort and how an outreach effort can be used to collect
a robust data infrastructure.
Method:
In order to understand and evaluate our proposals for a pilot, stakeholder engagement methods
would be broken into several phases:
Stakeholder Mapping:
Owing to the short time frame of our semester, we would not be able to run a comprehensive
stakeholder analysis with widespread community interviews, so will rely on discussions with
representatives from groups who understand the political arena and the local context. We plan
to conduct interviews with the following people/groups:
● Megan Shaw of the Cambridge Energy Alliance
● Audrey Schulman, Cambridge HEET Squad
● Minka vanBeuzekom, City Council member and Central Square resident
● Peter Shapiro, Just-a-Start
● Landlords from the landlord support groups organized by Peter Shapiro
● Small Property Owner’s Association (SPOA)
● Mass Rental Housing Association
● Eric Belsky and Ann Forsyth, Joint Center for Housing Studies
● Elizabeth Glynn, Boston LISC
● Ceasar McDowell, MIT Professor and Director of Engage the Power
● DeWitt Jones, Boston Community Capital
● Department of Neighborhood Development
● Alan LaBella, Home Improvement Program, Just-a-Start
● Colliers International, property management firm for MIT’s off-campus housing
● Banks
○ GE Capital
○ Admirals Bank
○ Cambridge Savings
● Realtor (TBD)
● Travis Estes, Next Step Living
From these conversations, we would identify additional groups and representatives, both formal
and informal leaders of those communities.
Understanding Barriers and Priorities:
Through these conversations with community members, we will work to understand each
group’s major priorities and concerns in order to analyze major barriers and opportunities for
engaging each stakeholder group in energy efficiency initiatives. We will seek to identify past
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Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
community initiatives, including but not exclusive to environmental programs, that have taken
place in the area, and discuss what elements were most and least successful, and what specific
barriers were in the past.
Developing Strategy in Collaboration:
The marketing and outreach design must be done in close coordination with the stakeholder
engagement process, and the development of an outreach strategy should be done in
collaboration with key stakeholders. The development process will be done in three primary
stages:
1 Prepare a menu of marketing and outreach strategies that have been used elsewhere
and identify how they might be implemented in Cambridge. This will be done by looking
at the experience of programs and initiatives in peer cities and places (particularly Better
Buildings Neighborhood Program partners and Engage the Power), as well as having
conversations with NSTAR on past program outreach successes and failures, and
thinking about how they may address the needs of the current Cambridge housing
market.
2 Bring these ideas to key stakeholders, either individually or in groups. Discuss the
barriers that stakeholders see to program implementation and their reactions to the
preliminary strategies identified.
3 Use stakeholder feedback to inform a final marketing and outreach approach. This must
be done in collaboration with the program design and financing development and with
the energy data team.
We would work with community members to review pilot design, particularly financing needs
and strategies, as well as the longer-term community engagement methods. The community
meeting in late April will be one opportunity to present a proposed pilot design to the community
for feedback, but it is important that we review ideas on an ongoing basis with our contacts.
Similarly, it will be important to set several check-points throughout the semester to review and
share our findings with all program design groups in the class to inform their current work and
ensure a coherent program vision, as well as to understand their work progress.
This will likely play out as an iterative process, with the ad hoc scheduling of stakeholder
discussions leading to multiple rounds of refinement. By the April 22 symposium, we will be able
to present a draft proposal of specific actions and program elements for an efficiency program to
adopt that incorporates stakeholder feedback. We will use the symposium as an opportunity to
gain additional stakeholder feedback and help tighten the connections between the various
elements of the program.
Potential Program Elements
Below, we present several initial approaches to program outreach that may be effective in
encouraging a multifamily energy efficiency program. We discuss these ideas in greater detail in
the attached one-pagers, and will focus on refining, adding to, and consolidating this list of ideas
in our discussion with stakeholders.
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Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
Amplifying Local Success Stories
We believe that using previous local program participants (both building owners and residents)
as energy efficiency success stories would be an effective way to demonstrate the benefits of
multifamily retrofits. A pilot program could advertise either qualitative or quantitative information
that supports program outreach. We will investigate viable ways of identifying and recruiting
these individuals, as well as the most effective means of using their experience to encourage
greater participation.
Empowering Energy Champions
While residents are typically the primary beneficiary of energy efficiency in multifamily buildings,
they often lack the resources to advocate for efficiency upgrades. We will investigate ways to
turn residents into energy champions, and empower them to discuss efficiency with building
owners and condo associations. This would entail providing residents with a cohesive of
resources--potentially including energy audit results or a comparison of energy costs to nearby
buildings--that would make a powerful financial case for efficiency.
Using Local Strengths and Organizations
We will identify ways to use Cambridge’s unique strengths to advance and organize a
multifamily efficiency program. These could include partnerships with MIT’s and Harvard’s offcampus housing offices, landlords and landlord associations, banks, community development
corporations, the dense social network of Cambridge’s student population, and local churches
and faith groups. Each of these could offer substantial heft to an efficiency program if managed
properly, and we will investigate potential areas of mutual gain with these social entities.
Leveraging Energy Data
In partnership with the treatment and transparancy group, we are investigating the viability and
usefulness of coordinating an energy data collection effort. Our outreach effort will investigate
the range of energy data products that could be useful in encouraging greater energy efficiency,
and what community-based social marketing approaches would be most effective in collecting
the data necessary to create these products.
Timeline:
The proposed timeline below is intended to produce a cohesive draft proposal in time for the
April 26 symposium, at which point we will be able to present our proposal to a group of
stakeholders and receive feedback that will inform our work over the remainder of the semester.
Prior to April 26, our group will:
1 Create an initial list of stakeholders and contact representatives to schedule interviews.
2 With each stakeholder, discuss the barriers they see to energy efficiency in small
multifamily buildings, their views on the viability and effectiveness of the potential
program elements raised above, and any additional stakeholders that should be included
in our outreach effort.
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Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
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Compile the information gleaned from these stakeholder interviews and use the
feedback to propose a preliminary program design proposal.
Follow up with individual stakeholders to inform them of our preliminary design, ask for
their thoughts, and invite them to the April 26 symposium.
At the symposium, we will present our preliminary proposal to the stakeholders in attendance
and lead a discussion focused on soliciting feedback and encouraging discussion among
stakeholders. Based on the feedback we receive, we will develop a workplan and timeline for
producing a final proposal by the end of the semester.
Program Design and Finance
Objective:
We hope to develop a viable financing mechanism that can support multifamily energy efficiency
retrofits in Cambridge. This mechanism would potentially leverage not just utility funds, but
other sources of funding as well to create a neighborhood pilot that can realize greater scale
over time.
Parameters:
An ideal financing mechanism would overcome the split incentive barrier between landlords and
tenants, not have any security requirements, ensure ongoing recapitalization of efficiency funds,
and enable landlords and tenants to realize energy efficiency upgrades without any upfront
costs.
Method:
To determine a viable financing mechanism and structure for the pilot design, we will use the
following strategies:
Background Research:
Potential financial mechanisms include on-bill tariffs, community-based revolving loan funds,
green leases and PACE programs and more research will be necessary to determine their
viability as part of a pilot program in Cambridge. We have already conducted background
research into MPower Oregon as a model on-bill tariff program and we will further investigate
PlaNYC’s model lease and Connecticut’s PACE program, which were both recommended to us
by Ed Connolly of New Ecology. DUSP alum Rosie Sherman works for Connecticut’s PACE
program, so an interview with her will help us determine whether such an approach might be
replicable in Cambridge.
Stakeholder Outreach and Engagement:
Key questions about program design and financing will have to be carefully integrated into the
stakeholder outreach and engagement strategies outlined earlier in this document. Perhaps
most notably, NStar will ultimately have to be on board with any financing mechanism we
propose, so we will have to proactively work with them to determine whether alternative
financing mechanisms are viable and whether potential barriers can be overcome. (For
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Community Energy Innovations: Program Design
Ryan Cook, Caroline Howe, Adi Nochur, Yue Pan and Dara Yaskil.
example, NStar has expressed reluctance to implement on-bill tariffs in Cambridge in the past
because they would have to upgrade their billing systems.) A high-level meeting with NStar will
be critical to achieving this objective in the next few weeks.
We should also consider market research into how building owners and tenants respond to
particular financing options and get their feedback to inform potential program design. This can
be easily integrated with our planned outreach to organizations that represent these
constituencies. Finally, we should do an additional layer of stakeholder mapping to identify
players in the financial community (banks, CDFI’s, foundations, etc.) who could provide
additional sources of financing and develop an outreach strategy to engage them as well as we
develop the pilot.
Timeline:
Meeting with NStar and refining our understanding of the various financial mechanisms will be
critical priorities in the near term. Based upon the reaction from NStar, we may then consider
taking certain options off the table and/or exploring others more in depth. Throughout the month
of April, in coordination with our broader stakeholder outreach and engagement strategy, we will
reach out to constituencies like building owners and tenants to get more information about what
they are looking for in an energy efficiency financing package and whether particular financing
mechanisms are particularly attractive to them. (This will require presenting them with concise
and easily-digestible information about on-bill financing, green leases and other relevant
policies.) Based upon this feedback, we will further hone in on the key financial elements of our
pilot program, and this process will also be informed by our concurrent outreach to stakeholders
in the financial community. We will aim to have a concrete proposal for a particular financing
mechanism and fund structure by April 26, when we present to the larger group of stakeholders.
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