Engaging Building Owners For Increased Energy and Water Efficiency Retrofits in NYC

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Sustainability needed to conduct market research to understand small and mid-size multifamily building owner’s barriers and motivators for energy and water efficiency retrofits. Our team developed a grassroots approach to identify building owner segments, pinpoint their challenges, and create calls to action for people to engage in the city program. Based on our findings, we created marketing materials and messaging that resonated with owners to augment Community Retrofit NYC.

Context

How might we engage building owners that have not responded to traditional energy efficiency marketing and programming? Community Retrofit NYC supports communities in scaling up sustainability projects in small and mid-size multifamily buildings to help lower buildings’ utility costs, preserve affordable housing, and improve the quality of life for residents. Yet segments of their target population were difficult to reach or unresponsive to previous outreach.

Approach

Our team developed a multi-phased methodology to review successful marketing programs and analyze building owner data. We conducted interviews with building owners, property managers, and community groups to gauge current program perceptions and survey prospective users on messaging and marketing collateral. The results of our research will inform Community Retrofit NYC future outreach strategies to building owners.

Outcome

Our market research helped understand gaps and opportunities to engage an overlooked segment of building owners in NYC. The targeted messaging we prototyped and developed addressed the values and perceptions of building owner segments and we were able to pinpoint four user personas for the city program. This study is considered the first in the country to focus on the crucial yet underrepresent sector of small to mid-sized building owners.