Guest blog from Silver Donald Cameron
Silver Donald Cameron is well-known as one of Canada’s most versatile and experienced professional authors. While his non-fiction subjects range from history to travel, literature to politics, nature and the environment to community development and education to public affairs, Cameron has become one of Canada’s leaders in grassroots sustainability education. He is the host of TheGreenInterview.com, a subscription website that offers extended interviews between various thinkers, writers, and observers whose ideas and perceptions are leading the way to a new era of sustainability. Cameron presents on topics relating to the environment, employment, adventure, sailing, Canadian maritime history, and sustainability.
….I say to audiences all over Nova Scotia.
If you’re a householder, I’m going to show you how to save money, improve comfort, increase the value of your home and future-proof your budget. If you run a business, I’m going to show you how to do all those same things – and also increase your competitiveness, learn new skills, and endear yourself to consumers and investors. Furthermore, the things you do will improve Nova Scotia’s economy, create numerous local green jobs, and help to alleviate global warming.
And there’s free money available to help you do it.
Do I have your attention yet?
I’m a shameless shill for a good idea, an evangelist for energy efficiency, a fervent believer in the old Scottish proverb that money is flat, and is meant to be piled up. And I’m enjoying a dream assignment.
When Efficiency Nova Scotia Corporation wanted to publicize its electricity-saving programs, its managers didn’t just hire an advertising agency, buy spots and space, and do traditional public relations. Instead, they engaged a speaker to do public presentations in eight communities around the province – and they promoted the tour vigorously, creating news stories that brought a torrent of media attention.
And I’m the lucky lad who gets to tour the province selling ideas that I passionately believe in.
A decade ago, Nova Scotia became the only province in Canada to meet the national goal of diverting 50% of its solid waste from the landfill by the year 2000. That spectacular achievement created hundreds of jobs, saved millions of dollars, and made Nova Scotia a world leader in recycling and recovery.
Efficiency Nova Scotia is out to help Nova Scotians slash their energy use the same way – and gain the same kinds of benefits. Funded by a small charge on Nova Scotians’ power bills, ENSC has developed a suite of incentives, grants and rebates to induce the province’s power consumers to upgrade their homes and offices in order to use electricity more strategically and frugally. Now it needs people to take up those offers.
It’s not exactly a difficult sell. Energy efficiency is cheap, and its benefits are enormous. Nova Scotia’s electricity comes almost entirely from fossil fuels, chiefly coal. As energy becomes scarce, expensive and difficult to obtain – and it is, which is why we’re fracking, drilling in the deep ocean, and boiling bitumen in Fort McMurray – isn’t it obvious that the very first thing to do is to stop wasting the stuff?
In each town, I do a half-hour presentation about practical steps that all of us can take. Insulate, caulk, upgrade light bulbs and furnaces and appliances. I rely heavily on visuals – and on the wit of Hughie and Allan, the iconic Cape Breton comedians. Then we hold a question-and-answer session that generally goes about 45 minutes. I answer the easy questions and punt the hard ones to a program officer from ENSC. We hand out literature. I autograph books.
Does it work? The ENSC switchboard reports “dozens of calls from people who were at your talks, or heard that you were doing this, in the media. The people who have been at your talks were overwhelmingly positive and are following up to see what THEY can do in their own homes to make a difference. The people who are following up just because they heard about the tour in the media are also overwhelmingly positive. They want us to know they think it’s great and some of them wonder whether we’ll be going to their hometowns with the tour.”
Does it work? After just three of the eight scheduled appearances, ENSC was preparing to extend the tour to at least one more community and possibly more.
It works.
In today’s beeping, flashing world, businesses and organizations have tons of ways to reach customers, clients and the public. Facebook, Twitter, the Web, email, television, radio, flyers, print publications, you name it. They’re not all cheap, but they all work. But the human voice is the original medium of communication – and there’s still nothing more powerful than a flesh-and-blood person standing before a crowd, saying, Hey! You’re gonna love this….
