It’s your house, stupid. Energy efficiency helps you.

Truly, when it comes to efficiency and sustainability right now, it is about the economy. Fewer consumers are willing to spend more on efficient and green products, regardless of the ROI, for fear they should probably hang on to that money.

However, 63% of Americans in Shelton Group’s Energy Pulse® 2007 study say they’re concerned to very concerned about global warming, and EEI’s Q4 2007 Power Poll reveals that 75% of Americans believe global warming is happening and 72% say it demands immediate, drastic efforts. So, it seems logical that the right marketing message now is about the environment, right?

Here’s the problem: only 1/3 of the population can name coal as our primary source for electricity and less than 4% name coal-fired power plants as one of the leading causes of climate change. The number one cause of global warming in consumer’s minds? Their cars and trucks.

Thus, most Americans pull out of their driveways every day feeling guilty about what they think their cars are doing to the environment, meanwhile they left their thermostats set to 70 degrees and all the lights in their houses on. They are clueless that their electricity consumption in any way contributes to climate problems, therefore they feel no compelling urgency to change their behaviors. So telling them they’ll “save the environment” by decreasing their energy use is just a giant disconnect.

To make this point, Shelton Group is working on an ad campaign (see below) to quickly get across that, in fact, it’s your house, stupid. In the nicest sense of the word.

We think more education like this is needed to help consumers feel a more compelling reason to curb their electricity consumption. We think once they “get it” we’ll see a much greater willingness to participate in energy efficient activities and buy energy efficient products.