Town of Cary – Madhura Karnik – 2014

Goals

Madhura Karnik spent her summer at the Town of Cary, North Carolina supporting the Chief’s Energy Challenge (CEC) as an Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps fellow. CEC is a program that helps fire departments from municipal governments across the US work towards being more energy efficient while also recognizing leading fire stations for their commitment to decreased energy consumption.

Solutions

 Karnik specifically worked on website improvements, compilation of success stories from existing CEC participants and developing other communication material such as newsletter articles in addition to program promotion. A large portion of Karnik’s work entailed crafting behavior change programs for Cary’s fire stations. Based on her fire stations visit findings, and also as a response to Cary fire department’s energy conservation needs, Karnik scoped detailed engagement programs like the station-to-station energy competition. Additionally, Karnik devised smart communication strategies along with implementation frameworks that could later be shared with nation-wide fire stations through the Chief’s Energy Challenge program as guidelines to help them structure their energy conservation behavior programs.

Potential Impact

Karnik’s behavior change programs could cause significant energy savings over time, and her comparative analyses of energy appliances and equipment could influence the purchase of more energy efficient choices.