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10 Comments
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Re: Community engagement with climate change
2008-07-01 20:57:16 UTC
Hi Kate,
Have a look at the organisation I work for, Moreland Energy Foundation: www.mefl.com.au Also check out Sustainability Street: http://www.voxbandicoot.com.au/sustainability_street.html
Hope thats helpful,
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Limited ABN
72 095 439 160 Level 1, 233 Sydney Road,
Postal Address: PO Box 276 Brunswick
Victoria 3056 Phone: 03-9381 1722
Fax: 03-9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au -
Re: Seeking high-impact low-barrier actions to reduce energy
2007-09-18 21:22:24 UTC
Hi Bart,
We've been operating a showerhead exchange program for the last couple of months in cooperation with one of Melbourne's water retailers, Yarra Valley Water. The program invites people to either drop in to our office or turn up to a showerhead exchange event at a local community centre to swap their existing showerhead for a new water efficient model. The events have been very well attended - we ran out of showerheads last time - and the savings in both water and energy are significant (people are generally swapping showerheads with flow rates of 15-23litres/minute for 9litre/min models). Participants are required to hand in their old showerheads to make sure the new ones actually get installed, and are provided with instruction leaflets with diagrams and simple text eplaining how to remove the old showerhead and install the new one.
Best regards,
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au
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Re: link between household audits and change in behaviour
2007-08-24 02:03:35 UTC
Hi David,
The Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd (MEFL) delivered free home energy audits in our patch for a few years, and the results were quite mixed. Some of our early evaluation showed that a significant proportion of households reduced their energy use by around 15-30% following the audit, usually just by implementing the most simple behavioural and low-cost actions. The mix of people who actually requested audits was really quite diverse - some of the most common groups were:
- "Green" households who were already quite engaged in energy efficiency and just wanted to know that they were on the right track
- People who were relatively new to the idea of climate change and energy efficiency and were keen to make changes but didn't know where to start
- People who weren't necessarily interested in climate change but wanted to save money - usually following a large winter heating bill - or improve comfort
- People who were about to undergo renovations and wanted specific advice
- People who were experiencing a major lifestyle change, e.g. bringing home a new baby, and had noticed subsequent changes in their energy bills. Ability and willingness to change behaviour varied a lot between different types of households, and it was often quite difficult to gather follow-up info. The most reliable data is a mix of qualitative and quantitative, and we struggled to find the human resources to collect, collate and analyse a useful amount of info. I can tell you more about this if you like. We have since switched to a workshop approach
- auditing households gave us a strong understanding of the common barriers and opportunities to energy efficiency encountered in our municipality, and the workshops are a way for us to take that knowledge to a much larger group of people with much less use of staff time. All workshop participants receive basic retrofit kits and we're currently conducting phone and email surveys to find out whether people have actually made behavioural or structural changes since the workshops. Remind me in a month or two and I'll let you know the results.
More than happy to chat further off-list.
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au
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Re: Be the Change program to train the trainers
2007-07-08 21:32:18 UTC
Hi Steve,
A similar program is being delivered in Australian communities, called Sustainability Streets. This project brings people together to get to know their neighbours and learn about living sustainably; after participating in a range of workshops covering topics like energy, water, waste, sustainable gardening etc, SS groups develop and implement their own projects. The overall aim is to build up sustainable communities at a very local level, and the project has had some great outcomes. For more info check out http://www.voxbandicoot.com.au/sustainability_street.html
Cheers,
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au -
Re: Demonstrations of Carbon Dioxide Quanties and Related Issues
2007-02-07 14:33:03 UTC
Hi Stephen,
You could check out the State Government of Victoria's "You Have the Power - Save Energy" campaign http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/1525-you-have-the-power-save-energy.asp?intSiteID=4, which uses black balloons as a visual prop that represents emissions. Anecdotally, it seems to have been quite successful in communicating the link between energy use and emissions, and in enabling people to understand the concept of emissions a little more easily.
Regards,
Anna Strempel
Household Program Coordinator
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au -
Re: Looking for CFL barrier research and successful CFL programs
2006-06-19 03:56:50 UTC
Hi all,
A few years ago the Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd (MEFL) worked with a local kindergarten to help them implement a passive cooling plan for their facilities; to fund the retrofits we developed a fundraising campaign similar to a chocolate drive, but using CFLs instead of choccies. One of our staff members set up a stall at the kinder at pick-up time, to explain the benefits of CFLs to parents whilst selling them directly, or getting parents to onsell to friends and family. We took a small fee from each CFL sold to cover admin costs, and the rest of the profits went straight to the kinder to fund retrofits (such as installing ceiling fans). The campaign raised about AUD$1200, and was successful partly due to the high retail price of CFLs at the time (the price has since come down considerably). The CFL drive had the double benefit of helping to fund energy efficiency retrofits while also distributing CFLs among the kindergarten community and promoting the technology. Unfortunately there was no evaluation done to assess how many of the CFLs sold were actually installed, but this approach could be useful for others and it would be interesting to see some evaluation results. In working with community groups and householders on energy efficiency, the anecdotal evidence I often come across is that people are more than happy to continue using CFLs once they've tried them and found that they work; often they need a "first contact" with the technology to encourage take up. I regularly talk to New Mothers Groups about home energy efficiency and often give out CFLs as an incentive for mums to sign up for our more intensive behaviour change programs, such as free home audit programs and Green Power plans (see www.mefl.com.au or www.communitypower.org for more info). Those that are skeptical about CFLs have usually had a bad experience with them when they were very new to the market and not as refined as they are now, or through buying very cheap, low quality products. They may also have been unaware of the distinction between "warm" and "cool" colour temperatures, and used the wrong type of CFL for a particular application (e.g. used warm white in a study lamp and didn't get a bright enough light). Happy to chat further about any of this off-list.
Anna Strempel
Household Program Specialist
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
www.mefl.com.au -
Re: City of Kingston - employee energy conservation program
2006-05-05 00:47:25 UTC
Hi Gay and Tim,
Are you interested in training staff to reduce their home energy use as a staff development exercise, or are you looking for energy use reductions in the workplace? I work on Community Projects and the Household Program at Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd (MEFL), a community based not-for-profit organisation that delivers energy efficiency programs for householders, community groups and businesses. Most of the work we do is based in Moreland and free for Moreland residents/businesses, however we also do some external consultancy and fee for service work, including delivering training for other organisations. In the past we have delivered our Home Energy Action training, which provides participants with practical skills for improving the energy efficiency of their own homes, to employees of various councils and to corporations like Toyota; the training consists of two x 2-hour workshops, materials and follow up assistance. We also do more general talks and workshops, and run a one-day course called Introduction to Energy Management (more appropriate for project officers who will be conducting audits themselves - useful if you want to audit Council/company facilities etc.
For more info see http://www.mefl.com.au/documents/Training_brochure.doc). If you would like more info on any of this, or have general energy-related questions, feel free to drop me an email or give me a buzz on 9381 1722.
Good luck with your in-reach efforts!
Regards,
Anna Strempel
Community Project Worker
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733 -
Urban Stormwater Education Programmes
2006-02-12 22:26:37 UTC
Hi Donna,
You should check out the Clearwater website, which is an information exchange for sustainable urban water management www.clearwater.asn.au. The Clearwater program is a joint initiative of the Municipal Association of Victoria and the Stormwater Industry Association of Victoria, and they've got plenty of useful info on their website, which basically consists of three databases.
Best regards,
Anna Strempel
Community Project Worker
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733 -
Comparing Intervention with Control in Travel Behaviour Change Programs
2005-10-26 22:23:17 UTC
Hi,
I'm currently designing an evaluation brief for a travel behaviour change project at the local government (Council/County) level, based on CBSM principles. The project will aim to increase the uptake of sustainable modes among users of a local 'activity centre' - defined as areas that "Provide the focus for services, employment and social interaction in cities and towns. They are where people shop, work, meet, relax and often live. Usually well-served by public transport, they range in size and intensity of use from local neighbourhood strip shopping centres to traditional universities and major regional malls." http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/melbourne2030online/content/appendix/02_glossa ry.html The project will use a range of methods to influence behaviour change, including small changes to infrastructure, information campaigns, safety improvements and incentive programs, based upon the feedback obtained in the initial consultation stage. I am interested in hearing suggestions on how to measure the influence of this particular set of interventions as separate from external, broader influences such as rising petrol prices and other travel-based programs being delivered throughout metropolitan Melbourne. It will be difficult to identify control groups, as the proposed methods will potentially impact upon all users of the activity centre, and because the target groups are very diffuse (e.g, persons who currently drive to/from the activity centre). I had considered selecting a control group from a different activity centre with a similar demographic, accessibility and availability of services but I'm not sure how useful that would actually be, as the most appropriate examples that I can think of are also being targeted by various travel-related programs. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted, feel free to email me off-list.
Anna Strempel
Community Project Worker
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
[email protected]
www.mefl.com.au
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Seeking Examples of Energy Efficiency Programs for New Mothers
2005-10-13 02:59:57 UTC
Hi all,
I have been delivering talks to new mother's groups in our local government area for some time on how to ensure that energy use does not increase dramatically when new babies arrive; the talks focus on simple, cheap and practical ways to keep energy use down and as part of the service, we provide "Energy Smart Babies" kits, with fact sheets and other info, along with "Energy Smart Thermometers", to the mums free of charge. As there is a large number of continually renewing new mother's groups in the area, the talks have become very time intensive without having measurable outcomes in terms of greenhouse reduction/abatement. I'm now looking at ways to expand the outcomes of the project and would welcome suggestions, ideas, or examples of similar projects or research in Australia or internationally.
Anna Strempel
Community Project Worker
Moreland Energy Foundation Ltd
PO Box 276 Brunswick VIC 3056
Ph: (03) 9381 1722
Fax: (03) 9381 1733
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