Hi Marc,
Interesting article. I'm in Australia where our national governemnt is giving away $50,000 to every school in the country to install solar electricity generators. Solar is great, don't get me wrong, but the payback period is around 20 years. Simple energy efficiencies like upgraded lighting, etc pay-off in a fraction of that time for less capital cost. wwww.envirotube.blogspot.com
Anthony.

Marc -

Your observations are on target: efficiency isn't sexy. When I'm talking with groups I refer to efficiency as the broccoli that we all know is good for us - and that tastes pretty good - unless there's a big chocolate cake of sexy renewable energy options in the middle of the table, just calling your name. For years we've tried to tell folks to eat the broccoli first - to pursue efficiency before they even think about renewables. But people like cake. So either we make efficiency sexy (via feedback devices that let you brag about your footprint? via benchmarking that motivate businesses to reduce their usage? via some amazing viral marketing campaign where cool people show off their insulation?) OR we figure out how to integrate efficiency with renewables so that efficiency is part of the sexy renewables package. (Here in the Midwest we routinely put zucchini into our chocolate cake, after all.) My own sense is that it's time to stop pretending that we can talk people out of the cake.

Marc,

Wish I could have heard you speak to the group from FMI. Despite the gloom and doom forecasts for the industry, retailers are still investing in energy efficiency projects. My company works almost exclusively with the retail industry and our business is actually growing this year. They key reason is that retailers understand energy efficiency isn't just good for the environment - it also saves money. Even companies with no formal sustainability strategy are looking for ways to reduce energy consumption.

If efficiency were that easy, wouldn't everyone be doing it already? There are considerable market and organizational barriers, and hidden costs - who pays the utility bills vs. who pays for efficiency investment; and is anyone paid to watch the bills and rewarded for reducing them? Check out http://climateinc.org/2009/08/whacking-the-mac/ and my more optimistic response: http://climateinc.org/2009/08/how-to-get-free-mac-lunches/
Professor David Levy, Boston