I will comment on “complexity and customer lack of knowledge on incentives”.
City of Nanaimo has been working on an energy benchmarking program that is working closely with the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board to provide training, tools and incentives for Realtors. to use to encourage their clients to complete home energy assessments and retrofits, around the time of sale for an existing home.
Early in the program, concerns about the technical nature of the topic became an issue. Working with a focus group of realtors and later, during the development of the training course, the use of complex terms was minimized and more effort was placed on “selling energy efficiency” as a method of adding value to a home sale. Getting realtors to complete their own energy audits and asking them to arrange to host training sessions in homes they were selling, helped the realtors more easily relate to the concepts that were taught and allowed the realtors to tell their own stories about completing an energy audit with their clients.
The local Real Estate Board hosted a website that provided background information and financial incentives on energy efficiency written for Realtors and their clients (see http://www.vireb.com/reep).
