-- Quote of the Day --

“To me the written and spoken word is the new view point, it is the broom that sweeps clean, it is the idea you have never thought of before, it’s the other persons moccasins that you’ve never worn before, it’s the traveling across the world from your arm chair…” 

~ Lucinda Crosby 

Today's quote originated from the Honoring Storytellers interview that aired back on Feb 15 via the Conscious Discussions Talk Radio show. Click on the hyper-linked title (above) to access this interview, or look to the sidebar of this blog to find recently aired episodes.

 -- Energy Retrofits --

Today's guest - Shel Horowitz - is offering an article with his thoughts on renewable energy retrofits, showing us how to “reach green, socially conscious consumers with marketing that has THEM calling YOU.” He writes the Green And Profitable/Green and Practical columns and is the primary author of Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. Shel can be found @ GreenAndProfitable.com

Could Energy Retrofits be the Best Performing Investment?

Okay, we all know the usual places to put money are performing pretty badly right now. But get this: the Empire State Building is embarking on a massive energy retrofit that will return nearly 28 percent a year! The project will cost $13.2 million, not exactly chump change–but will slash energy consumption by 35 to 40 percent, and save $3.8 million a year (considerably more, if energy costs spike back up again). After the third year, that’s nearly $4 million going directly to the bottom line. If the improvements have even a 20-year lifespan, that $13.2 million investment would return $176 million, and that’s with stable energy prices. The number is much, much higher if you factor in average energy cost increases of 5 percent a year. (I’m not going to do the math here, because I don’t know all the factors we’d need to compute–but it’s sure to be at least $200 million, maybe much more).

Too bad we can’t put our Roth IRAs into renewable-energy retrofits .

Meanwhile, we can all learn from the creative thinking at Rocky Mountain Institute, which is doing the heavy lifting on this project–for example, re-manufacturing the windows on-site to reduce trucking costs in fuel and money. For years, RMI has been generating this kind of holistic, big-picture energy planning that saves many times the cost, and quickly. 

RMI's founder, Amory Lovins, likes to talk about the idea of "negawatts"—the energy you don't consume by building (or retrofitting) for efficiency in the first place. And Lovins walks his talk. Even as far back as 1983, when he built his own super-efficient 4000-square-foot house in the cold and snowy Colorado Rockies—Snowmass, CO, just outside Aspen—he was able to build a house warm and comfortable enough to grow bananas inside, that doesn't need a furnace. And even though back then, solar and insulation technology were far more primitive than they are today, the extra money he spent building compared to a conventional house was paid back in savings within just ten months—wow!

Incidentally, I profile Amory Lovins in my award-winning eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

* Lillian's Note: RMI can be found at: www.rmi.org - their aim is to free the world from fossil fuel dependency. 

Find Dave and Lillian Brummet, excerpts from their books, information about their radio program, newsletter, blogs, and more at: www.brummet.ca

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