Discussing community options

In general, there are three different ways that London can make changes happen:

• Encourage action, through education and awareness programs
• Provide Incentives, in the form of cash rebates or grants, low-interest loans, or “front of the line” privileges
• Mandate changes, in the form of by-laws or standards that need to be followed and/or control activities

There is no “one size fits all” approach we can use.  Fortunately, most of these actions will save energy, which means that we will see a payback in the form of lower energy bills. There are also jobs created when we do things like retrofit old buildings, install green roofs, and replace old appliances.

For the community component of the sustainable energy consultation process, potential actions have been broken down into sixteen topics grouped into four themes:

Rather than trying to run a consultation process that addresses each topic simultaneously, the consultation process will be staged over a twelve month period so that each theme is introduced on a quarterly basis.

As each theme is introduced, topic summaries will be made available that outline all of the existing incentives and resources, the proposed actions for discussion, estimates of the costs of benefits of these proposed actions, and a summary of what other cities are doing.

In addition, questions related to the current theme and topics will be posted on an on-line survey as well as the discussion forum.

London’s sustainable energy plan will contain a mix of education programs, financial incentives, and mandatory actions – let the City of London know what you think the best mix would be through our consultation process.  Come join London's Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy .