A NEWLY ELECTED JIMMY CARTER APPEARED ON
national television 30 years ago in a beige sweater and declared
that energy issues would call from us a level of effort that was
“the moral equivalent of war.” He strongly urged the nation to
“learn to live thriftily” and adopt “strict conservation.”
Wags called him “Sweater Jimmy” to make fun of his plea to
turn down our thermostats. And when real energy prices
declined in proceeding years, they looked at his comments with
nostalgic ridicule.
Today, when energy prices are hitting historic highs, many
fear that “strict conservation” will mean draconian deprivation.
Sweaters required in winter, clothing optional in summer. Stop
driving, wind down your thermostat, quit taking showers, and
turn off your television.
Americans, famously independent, hate being told what to
do. So there is, at times, a polarizing effect of two opposing
camps: “greenies” installing double-flush toilets, and defiant
“skeptics” driving Hummers.
The irony is that both camps miss the real point.
If we want to reduce fossil fuel use, become energy
independent, and cut carbon emissions—the first thing we have
to do is improve the efficiency of the way we use energy in the
first place. To reduce your miles driven by 20 percent in a
vehicle that gets nine miles to the gallon is progress, but it’s
missing the point. It’s also somewhat futile to set your air
conditioning thermostat up two degrees in a building with
single-pane windows and poor insulation.
Between 75 and 90 percent of the energy we consume is
wasted due to bad design and poor choices. We live in a world
where energy has been so cheap for so long that very few people
have paid attention to it, and most of our energy services are
delivered in a sloppy, inefficient manner.
Architects don’t buy the energy their buildings consume, car
companies don’t pump gas for their SUVs, and landlords don’t
want to make energy improvements that will only benefit their
tenants. Throughout this entire system, most of the key
players—oil companies, utilities, manufacturers—make more
money if we buy bigger machines and use more fuel. In fact,
the metrics we use to measure growth and success generally
register efficiency gains as a negative trend!
Consider the legions of smart, dedicated, and
fundamentally reasonable people who make their living in
the current morass of mixed signals, dysfunctional policies,
and ineffective incentives. Sometimes it almost seems as if
our economic systems were designed to encourage the
wasteful and destructive use of resources. If we wait for
market forces to correct these imbalances, we will be waiting
for a long, long time.
Enter RMI. On these pages you will see examples of our
quest to see across boundaries, to confront “whole systems,”
and to collaborate with leaders who are committed to
transformational change.
We use philanthropic support to identify radical resource
efficiency solutions and to bust the barriers that hold them back.
We convene key players and thought leaders from industries
that are target-rich in efficiency opportunities to examine
standards and establish new visions. Then we identify
organizations that are committed to transformation and work
with them to execute client-funded demonstration projects.
These projects multiply the impact of the philanthropy we
receive and prove that the solutions are “ready for prime-time.”
We can then communicate the concepts and benefits of these
solutions to a wider audience and pass them on to our for-profit
colleagues who can bring them to scale.
It’s cheaper to save fuel than it is to go find more of it. And
it’s ineffective to put our efforts into developing biofuels or
renewable energy if we pump it into an inefficient system that
fritters most of it away.
“Conservation,” in the sense of being conscious and careful
about consumption, should be encouraged, and will most likely
be part of our final solution. But I think Jimmy Carter would
agree, hopefully along with every “greenie” and every “skeptic,”
that efficiency—the elimination of waste—is our first priority
and our major opportunity.
