We will increase the impact of our energy efficiency efforts through a coordinated energy education, awareness, and training campaign
The cost savings of efficiency strategies are clear. In many cases, the programs and opportunities already exist. But unless the public and building professionals appreciate the urgency, are informed about the choices ahead, and understand the savings they can achieve, we will not meet our goal.

As a result, the New York City Energy Efficiency Authority will undertake extensive education, training, and quality control programs to promote energy efficiency. The City will begin to undertake these efforts through a series of partnerships until the Authority is established.

Education: In partnership with schools, marketing professionals, and non-profit organizations, we will develop customized awareness campaigns tailored to specific sectors of the public, including the press, schoolchildren, and those in the building trades.

Training: The effectiveness of each strategy will depend on its proper implementation. That's why we will also create training programs for building operators, builders, designers, retailers, and energy service providers to ensure that building practices reflect the most energy-efficient strategies.

Quality Control: Building owners must be confident that they will receive the expected energy savings. That's why we will establish a certification process for energy auditors, commissioning agents, and contractors performing retrofits.

We will make energy usage in buildings more transparent by encouraging building owners to file an Environmental Protection Agency Portfolio Manager survey, a web-based energy usage breakdown for buildings. This will enable us to analyze consumption patterns, and adapt our efficiency strategies to have the maximum impact.

Finally, we will establish a process to measure and verify the progress of each demand reduction initiative to establish credibility, facilitate consensus about the most cost-effective procedures, and fine-tune our policies to achieve greater effectiveness over time.

Progress (as of 4/22/08):
On June 25, the City launched GreeNYC, the multimedia marketing campaign of PlaNYC. GreeNYC has begun forging partnerships with non-profit groups, corporations and marketing professionals to develop targeted energy efficiency and carbon reduction awareness campaigns tailored to specific sections of the public. The City will continue to roll-out the GreeNYC media campaign and to develop new education resources. In addition, the City is working with NYSERDA and The City University of New York to begin to develop training programs to support the energy efficiency programs in the city. Specifically, the City is partnering with CUNY in their application to the US Department of Labor for High Growth Job Training Initiative Grants for the Energy Industry and Construction and Skilled Trades in the Energy Industry. The first efforts, to be rolled out the coming months, will include trainings in energy-efficient lighting design and the development of a not-for-profit lighting resource center.