Conservation Outreach

The depletion of our earth’s natural resources is a worldwide concern.  Soaring costs for fuel and utilities have brought this concern to the forefront.  This issue has impacted the way our organization and countless others carry out their day-to-day operations.

CMHA’s Energy Performance Contract has resulted in a dramatic reduction in our consumption of natural gas, water, and electricity. Now, we must take the next step and reach out to our residents to make them more aware their role in energy conservation.

To accomplish this, the Energy Group has begun a series of onsite resident meetings to talk about how they can play a key role in CMHA’s energy conservation efforts. Our residents are already participating in CMHA’s paper recycling initiative at their buildings.  This is a great start, but now we need to discuss with them the idea that energy conservation has many facets, and like many other things in life, it involves daily choices.

We are reaching out to our residents to ask them to rethink, reduce, reuse, and recycle.  Turning off their lights when not in use, using task lighting, setting thermostats at reasonable temperatures, and making sure their windows are properly closed when heating or cooling their units … these are but a few of the energy conserving choices we are reaching out to them to become habits.

It our goal to help them to make the right choice.  Ultimately, a measure of our success would be to have our residents not only practice conservation choices and habits, but to have our residents talking to their family and friends about this important topic.  At that point, we will know that we have won hearts and minds.