By John Otterbein | Mon, September 30, 13
October presents the opportunity to enjoy the changing foliage, dress-up as Miley Cyrus (Disney version, please) and collect enough brick-sized candy bars to construct a fortress to house your favorite Halloween nightmares while you slip into your hard earned, sugar-induced slumbers.
Exciting, indeed, but what about those of us who aren’t teenagers anymore and still want to mark October as a particularly special time of year? Well you, my curious virtual friend, have stumbled into the correct cyber-space.
October marks the time to support various movements, initiatives and issues. For instance, be ready to bust out your coveted fossils because it’s Raptor Awareness month! Dinosaurs don’t keep you up at night? That’s fine because it also happens to be national Bat Appreciation month. Fortunately, I’ve recently forgiven the bat I escorted out of my house a few weeks back, even though the umbrella I opened as a shield bestowed an undefined amount of badluck unto me.
Surprisingly (or not) these celebrations might attract a limited audience so, we present to you Energy Action Month, which has something for everyone.
The Federal Energy Management Program, a subset of the U.S. Department of Energy, has deemed October as the official ‘Energy Action Month’. This month-long recognition of energy, water, and resource usage awareness provides businesses of all sorts and the general public with usable knowledge and resources from a large pool of experts from around the industry.
NEEP, regardless of the season, looks at energy efficiency and its benefits through a wide lens. Efficiency is the demand side resource measured in dollars saved and the avoided use of additional kWh while energy consumers enjoy the same, or enhanced, levels of utility. Through advocacy, collaboration and education we focus on three areas where we believe energy efficiency can have the greatest impact: buildings, high efficiency products & best practices.
Energy efficiency marks one of many crucial avenues to address our collective growing energy needs. However, Energy Action Month encompasses more than energy efficiency; it serves as a poignant reminder that there is no cure-all solution to the nation’s energy challenges. One solution is only as strong as its clean counterparts.
Energy Action Month presents NEEP with an ideal platform to draw on our extensive resources as well as those of our diverse coalition of partners and sponsors. Over the course of the month be sure to keep an eye on NEEP’s Facebook, Twitter and blog channels – we’ll be sharing fun facts, helpful hints, useful resources and much more.
Energy matters, efficiency matters, but most importantly, YOU make the difference.