Faith for Green
strong in religious communities
by Daniel Cohan of Georgia Tech; additional
sources: Bill Witherspoon of the Fernbank Science Center
and Carol Bartlett of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light
How did a synagogue of only 180 congregants
mobilize to avert hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide
emissions? Through an innovative campaign called “One
for Each Night” providing valuable lessons for
groups big and small seeking to promote energy conservation.
In the “One for Each Night” campaign,
Congregation Bet Haverim of Atlanta partnered with Georgia
Interfaith Power and Light (GIPL) to sell kits of energy-efficient
compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and accompanying
study guides. For each of the eight nights of the Jewish
Hanukkah celebration, congregants replaced a regular
light bulb with a CFL while reading a light bulb joke,
a blessing and a text on the importance of energy conservation.
Congregants responded with overwhelming
support, purchasing 93 eight-bulb kits. News of success
spread quickly, and organizations from Michigan, New
York, Ottawa, and Israel adopted the Bet Haverim study
guide to launch their own initiatives.
The technology behind “One for Each
Night”—light bulbs with one-quarter the energy
usage and 13 times the lifetime of regular incandescents—has
been widely available for years. Recent advances have
improved the quality of the bulbs while reducing their
size so that they fit a wider array of fixtures.
But for all the innovations in technology,
CFLs still represent a small percentage of the lights
used in American households. It’s clear that the frontier
of energy conservation today lies less within laboratories
and more in homes, businesses and schools where the
adoption of technologies like the CFL will yield substantial
energy savings.
Technological advances have brought us
the hybrid-electric vehicle, the solar-powered water
heater and the ultra-efficient washing machine, but
none have found widespread adoption in our garages or
homes. Some of these technologies are too costly to
be practical. Other times, there is simply the inertia
of old habits that are slow to change. But most often,
the sluggish response comes with the ignorance of the
true, long-term costs of some purchases.
CFLs may be the easiest sell because the
payback time is quite short. Each CFL, widely available
for about $5 retail and in bulk for less, saves about
$45 in electricity while replacing about 13 incandescent
bulbs. That’s a return on investment that’s tough to
beat. And it’s a small enough initial investment to
make CFLs the perfect tool for squeezing energy conservation
into family dialogue.
So the technology is there, and the rationale
is there. The success of “One for Each Night”
offers valuable lessons for secular and religious groups
of all sizes ready to launch their own initiative to
promote energy conservation. Here are just a few of
those lessons:
- Involve the kids.
What’s one of the most common reasons that families
start recycling? Because the kids participate in a
recycling project at school, and they ask the parents
why the family isn’t recycling too. In “One for
Each Night,” the biggest sales boost came by
presenting the campaign at a Bet Haverim “intergenerational
opening,” when parents join their children for the
initial half-hour of religious school. Children were
asked to come up with their own light bulb jokes for
the study guide, they could see and feel an actual
CFL bulb and they called out each cycle of an electric
meter to demonstrate how much more electricity is
used to light an incandescent than a CFL. This appealed
to children’s tactile and participatory nature, and
fueled an interest to see whose jokes would be published
in the study guide.
- Appeal to the pocketbook.
Bet Haverim had a simple slogan: “It doesn’t cost;
it saves.” Each $36 kit saves $360 in electricity
and eliminates the need to buy
dozens of shorter-lived incandescents. This led to
a win-win-win situation for congregants – supporting
their synagogue, saving on their electric bills and
cleaning the air all at once.
- Give everyone a stake.
By soliciting light bulb jokes from children and parents,
everyone could tap their creativity to earn a place
in the guide. As the guide took shape and sales mounted,
there became a collective pride in being “The
Little Congregation That Could” – could write
its own guide, could save many times its weight in
emissions, could establish itself in the vanguard
of energy conservation.
- Partner with existing efforts.
GIPL identified suppliers for the best quality CFLs
and secured discounted bulk supplies. That freed Bet
Haverim to focus on developing the guide and promoting
the initiative within its own congregation.
- Show don’t tell. It’s
an old adage of journalism that for something to really
sink in, we have to see concrete examples of something,
not simply read or hear. Sales of kits were sluggish
when order forms were simply placed outside of services,
or included in a monthly newsletter. But when the
bulbs were actually demonstrated at the Sunday school
and elsewhere, sales took off. As sales grew, favorable
word of mouth supplemented website, email and newsletter
appeals to create a virtual surround sound of promotion
for the project.
- Know your audience. For
many families, sharing a spirit of conservation with
their children is a fitting way to honor the Hanukkah
tradition of long-lasting light. For environmentalists,
there may be personal significance to taking a stand
for the environment. For other people, saving money
on electricity may be a priority.
Energy conservation can appeal to people on many different
levels, and knowing what appeals most to your membership
can lead to a well-tailored campaign.
- Mix learning and fun.
While light bulb jokes and clever graphics will draw
the laughs, there’s also a valuable opportunity to
raise more serious issues of how wasting energy damages
our environment, our health and our national security.
Each nightly reading highlighted a distinct aspect
of these themes. By raising consciousness of these
issues, “One for Each Night” sought to widen
its impact beyond the installation of CFLs to the
potential adoption of other conservation measures
throughout households.
Resource Guide
Building from the “One for Each Night”
literature, GIPL and Bet Haverim are now developing
a flexible resource guide which will be available at
www.gipl.org. Through
the resource guide, organizations wishing to launch
their own energy conservation initiative can access
frequently asked questions about CFLs, readings on the
importance of conservation, information about CFL bulb
suppliers, and listings of web sites and books for additional
information. With this groundwork already laid, project
initiators can focus on logistics and promotion rather
than reinventing the wheel from previous efforts. As
groups share their experiences, individual conservation
efforts will snowball to make major headway against
energy squandering.
The above article was written for
submission to the Southface Journal by Daniel Cohan,
Ph.D. student in atmospheric science at Georgia Tech,
with input from Bill Witherspoon of the Fernbank Science
Center and Carol Bartlett of Georgia Interfaith Power
& Light. Dr. Witherspoon and Mr. Cohan are members of
Congregation Bet Haverim who led the “One for Each
Night” initiative in December 2003.
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About GIPL
Georgia Interfaith Power and Light
(GIPL) seeks to engage communities of faith in
promoting energy conservation, energy efficiency,
renewable energy and related sustainable practices.
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| Only one
year since its inception, GIPL has garnered participation
of 35 congregations in Metro Atlanta, Cartersville,
Covington and Sautee. Member congregations support
energy conservation by improving the efficiency
of their facilities and promoting conservation and
other sustainable practices among congregants. Information
about GIPL is available at gipl.org.
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About Congregation Bet Haverim
Congregation Bet Haverim is a synagogue
in Atlanta, GA. In 2003, CBH became the first synagogue
to join Georgia Interfaith Power & Light. Information
about CBH is available at www.congregationbethaverim.org,
and materials from its One for Each Night campaign are
available at home.earthlink.net/~chai-lighting.
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