Reducing energy waste  is a cornerstone of the BlueGreen Alliance's Jobs21! plan — our effort to create and keep jobs in the industries of the 21st century, including energy efficiency, manufacturing, transporation, renewable energy, broadband Internet, smart grid, recycling, and producing greener and safer chemicals and products.  

It’s often said making the homes we live in is one of the “low hanging fruit” to building a more sustainable America. To try to move the needle on home energy efficiency, the BlueGreen Alliance Apollo Alliance Project — along with CalCef and the UC Berkeley Labor Center — released a report outlining new strategies for uniting private and public investment to unlock savings (and jobs) making homes more energy efficient. The report, entitled Pulling the Trigger: Increasing Home Energy Savings, recommends a set of initiatives the public and private sectors can take to help homeowners take advantage of home update opportunities that will make their domiciles more energy efficient, saving them money.

These “triggers” can be taken advantage of by increasing perspective buyers’  awareness of the energy costs and efficiency of their perspective home; customizing existing energy efficiency incentive programs to better serve homeowners; enforcing stricter standards and permitting requirements; having utilities include warnings on the long-term costs of high-tier rates and offering consumers that remain in upper energy rate tier rates energy efficiency upgrades to reduce their consumption; and developing modification to mortgage financing that incentivize and incorporate energy efficiency efforts.

The report focuses on California, but provides a roadmap that can be used throughout the country  to increase energy efficiency, reducing costs for homeowners and creating jobs for workers.