The Biggest Loser..
Location
..in terms of Energy & Water use.
"All Sustainability is Local"
RIPE Energy Solutions has developed a unique energy/water usage assessment service and a social rewards framework that aims to achieve passive and active energy & water efficiency by incorporating deep community involvement combined with behavior change. RIPE has already received grant to test its business model in Evanston, IL.
About You
About You
First Name
SWAPNIL
Last Name
CHATURVEDI
Website
Organization
Northwestern University
Country
United States, IL, Lake County
About Your Organization
Organization Name
RIPE Energy Solutions
Organization Website
Organization Phone
8475256132
Organization Address
Organization Country
United States, IL, Lake County
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Your idea
Name Your Project
The Biggest Loser..
Country your work focuses on
United States, IL, Lake County
Describe Your Idea
..in terms of Energy & Water use.
"All Sustainability is Local"
RIPE Energy Solutions has developed a unique energy/water usage assessment service and a social rewards framework that aims to achieve passive and active energy & water efficiency by incorporating deep community involvement combined with behavior change. RIPE has already received grant to test its business model in Evanston, IL.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
"Energy efficiency is the cleanest, fastest energy resource available"
Innovation lies in the manner RIPE gets the community involved to achieve rapid deployment of home energy/water retrofits. RIPE has designed its Audit and Retrofit service that not only removes the market barriers, but also prepares environmental stewards of tomorrow (school students). RIPE's social rewards framework creates healthy competition amongst neighbors in a block to be the biggest loser in terms of Energy and Water use, and rewards them to take actions regarding energy efficiency. RIPE has developed a unique "Group, revolve and perform" Energy efficiency fund that uses principles of crowdsourcing to provide financing for retrofit projects. RIPE aims to improve the lives of college students and low-income people including those with significant barriers to employment (such as: veterans, people with developmental, behavioral, or emotional disabilities, and people with substance abuse issues) by providing them audit/retrofit training and job opportunities.
RIPE is also working on a "appliance swap" framework through which old appliances from high income houses will get fitted into appliances of low income families, if they satisfy energy efficiency threshold. RIPE also enables several homeowners to come together and make their energy efficiency purchases as a group to get maximum discounts. Thus through RIPE's unique approach whole community works together to become the biggest loser and gets rewarded for it !
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Yes
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
RIPE Energy as a Triple Bottom Line Social Enterprise:
We ahve developed a business model for a triple-bottom line Energy Efficiency Enterprise.
Financially, we will operate as a sustainable organization.
Socially we aim to improve the lives of college students and low-income people including those with significant barriers to employment, such as: veterans, people with developmental, behavioral, or emotional disabilities, and people with substance abuse issues.
Environmentally, our work will decreases CO2 emissions which is a beneficial outcome for all to enjoy
Problem
By 2020, 15 percent of all electricity consumed in the U.S. will be generated from clean, sustainable energy sources and five percent will come from energy efficiency savings, required by law per the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. In addition to these new electrical generation standards the ACESA also mandates that new buildings will be 30 percent more efficient by 2012, and 50 percent more efficient in 2016. To address the energy efficiency of existing structures, the Department of Energy (DOE) has called for 10 million homes per year to be retrofitted by 2020, but in 2009 only 250,000 homes were retrofitted. The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act is investing unprecedented resources into programs that subsidize weatherization and energy efficiency retrofits for homeowners and train people from disenfranchised communities in “green collar” jobs. Even with so many incentives very few people have retrofitted their Homes to save energy and water.
Actions
Our Insights:
As per our research, we see three major opportunities:
Shortage of workers certified and ready to provide energy retrofit services based on the expected increase in consumer demand
Insufficient opportunities for transitional employment for current green job training graduates and college students to get more real-world experience;
A Viable but untapped market for moderate income homeowners that would yield a profit margin lower than what is desired by large contractors
Actions: We are piloting the RIPE Energy Solutions social enterprise in the Evanston Area beginning in August 2010. We have developed relations with ComEd and are trying to partner with several student organizations to rapidly get the word out about our efforts. We are also trying to develop relations with Center for Neighborhood Technologies to leverage their expertise in the energy efficiency area. We have conducted customer surveys and are in talks with several local businesses that will take part in our rewards programs. We are also involved in research regarding other energy efficiency programs and would like to develop partnerships if they fit our mission.
Results
We will use learnings from the pilot to refine our Energy Efficiency Enterprise model and develop a ‘business plan in a box’ that can be scaled and replicated in other communities.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
2010 - Name Recognition and Second phase of grant. Development of website and software would be crucial.
2011 - It would be important to reach at least 20000 homeowners in order to create meaningful change and gather important data that would enable us to become "GroupOn" of energy efficiency space
2012 - Deployment into other areas and other states with different business environment and different climates. It would be important to see the performance of software in different climates and how other customers would respond to our rewards.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
- Customer apathy and lack of wide scale customer involvement: Governments rebates and absence there of, would have great impact
- scalability
- Lack of funding
- Low energy prices (price on carbon would increase the value of this project immensely)
How many people will your project serve annually?
1001‐10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
Is your organization a
Not registered
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
Less than a year
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with government?
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Center for Neighborhood technologies will help us develop scalable training model.
Northwestern University has huge brand equity and our involvement with NU would enable us to penetrate our initial customers in Evanston
Citizens for Greener Evanston would help us reach our first customers
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
- Meaningful results from our pilot testing
- Partnership with CNT, NU, CGE and ComED
- Development of Software and readily deploy-able rewards scheme
The Story
What was the defining moment that you led to this innovation?
An article about Robert Cialdini's "six weapons of influence" was a defining moment that led to our innovative active + passive energy efficiency approach
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
The model has been influenced by our Team mates Justin Wear and Swapnil Chaturvedi. Justin is a Senior Design Strategist st GfK Innovations. When we started brainstorming regarding different pain points, Justin applied design thinking to come up RIPE's incremental approach and then Swapnil used Cialdini's "six weapons of influence" to come up with social rewards framework
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
College or university
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
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