ReEnergize Community Action Plans
Program Area: ReEnergize
Topic: Community Engagement, Energy Efficiency
Year: 2014
Neighborhood: Bloomfield, Hazelwood, Homestead, Homewood, Larimer, Lawrenceville, Marshall-Shadeland, Millvale, Mt. Lebanon, Mt. Washington, Oakland, Scott Township, Squirrel Hill, Wilkinsburg
ReEnergize Community Action Plans (ReCAPs)
Overview
The ReEnergize Community Action Plans (ReCAPs) are being developed as a working document in order to help guide ReEnergize Pgh partner communities in an effort towards an intentional, well-defined and sustainable energy-efficiency vision. Although timelines for implementation can vary due to community dynamics, it is the goal of this action plan to help communities be proactive, comprehensive, structured and enduring in terms of their energy visioning.
It became evident through the course of our Ambassador Program that CBO partners, often times already saturated with numerous other projects and goals, do not always have the capacity to be able to incorporate energy efficiency into community planning. With a ReCAP, communities can have their own platform from which to set energy efficiency goals as a part of their future planning activities, as opposed to starting from the ground up. Some suggested actions include:
- Hosting Energy Efficiency Ambassadors
- Holding community outreach and education events
- Hosting landlord/property owner workshops
- Performing energy efficiency upgrades on redevelopment properties
- Incentivizing home performance retrofits to go along with façade improvement programs
- Encouraging Healthy Homes Incentive Program Participation
- Encouraging sharing of residential utility information to create energy baseline
- Creating an information kiosk as a source of energy efficiency information
- Creating youth-based energy reduction competitions
Goals:
- Increase energy efficiency education and outreach activities
- Identify opportunities, funding, and resources for sustained project engagement
- Facilitate increased access to available energy efficiency services
- Promote community energy efficiency goals
