On Tuesday evening, Green Philly hosted our second Beyond the Blog panel.

After 45’s announcement that the US will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, we aptly named the discussion Paris Postmortem: How to Make Philly a Clean & Energy Efficient City.

Panelists included Paul Spiegel (President, Practical Energy Solutions), Alex Dews (Director, Delaware Valley Green Building Council), Andrew Kirchner (Sr. Director of Product, Inspire), Micah Gold-Markel (Solar States) and Amanda Warwood (Energy Analyst, City of Philadelphia Energy Office).

As we opened up with the panel with an important question about what has happened since the Paris announcement, the panelists chose to focus on the positive of renewable energy.

7 Important Takeaways from our Energy panel

1. We need to treat our homes and buildings like we treat our cars. We don’t leave our cars running all day because it’s wasteful, but we leave our homes running all day according to Paul Spiegel. People need to turn off lights and adjust thermostats which tend to be huge energy sucks.

2. Automation is going to help energy efficiency in the future. After all, people don’t want to be wasteful, amirite? Andrew Kirchner focused on how automating tasks like turning off the lights or increasing air temperatures for consumers will be a huge game changer.

3. You can afford solar in Philadelphia! Solarize Philly is coming to Philly in July! This first city-wide Solarize campaign will allow a group of homeowners to install solar together at a reduced price. So the more households in, the lower the cost for everyone. And when you support solar, you’re also increasing demands for solar jobs. (Imagine if there was a demand in central PA for solar…)

4. Educate yourself about energy efficiency. Holding onto an older car or washing machine to get a few more “years” out of it doesn’t always pan out, especially with rebates and other customer incentives.

5. Get involved in a more efficient city! As Micah pointed out, residents should speak up about encouraging parking spots for EVs despite City Council’s recent legislation to stop the program.

6. Philly is here to help! Amanda Warwood reminded us that the city released Philly Environmental Action Guides to fight climate change, including a list of organizations to become involved in. The city is also hosting energy engagement sessions (one yesterday!) to continue to get feedback from residents and stakeholders.

7. Buildings don’t run their own energy. It’s important to educate people who operate commercial and big buildings to get energy efficiency across the board, which is part of the advocacy DVGBC’s Director Alex Dews partakes.

Watch a clip from the Energy Panel

Want to know what you missed? Here’s a snip of the insight from our panelists on Tuesday evening:

Stay tuned – we’ll announce more Beyond the Blog panels after SustainPHL in August!

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Julie Hancher is Editor-in-Chief of Green Philly, sharing her expertise of all things sustainable in the city of brotherly love. She enjoys long walks in the park with local beer and greening her travels, cooking & cat, Sir Floofus Drake. View all posts by Julie Hancher