• Energy efficiency tips reflecting the saving generated hit the streets of Lebanon
"Did you know that if every household in Lebanon turns off one incandescent lamp of 100 watts for eight hours only, a national saving of energy worth 29 million dollars will be achieved?"
"Did you know that a small size office can save 235USD per year by turning off all office equipment outside office hours, instead of keeping them on a stand- by mode all night long?"
The above mentioned tips are two of a series of energy efficiency tips communicated in various means and which generated an impressive public impact and reaction. Based on a research done by STAT IPSOS, 85% of the sample is willing to adopt energy efficiency tips because they give a saving value to each and every tip being stated.
LCECP developed the energy efficiency tips which are very simple and can be done by each and every individual in his home or at the office, and if done the saving will reflect on his energy bill; therefore this would be the incentive and added value to the consumer to adopt these tips.
The tips were marketed in a multitude of means in order to appeal to the largest possible target audience as follows:
- A partnership was done with the Lebanese courier company "Libanpost" to print each and every tip on a different sticker and post them on 90,000 outgoing mails
- A similar partnership was done with "Electricite du Liban", who printed 1 million energy efficiency tips 'brochure and distributed them along with their electricity bill
- The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, LBC, the number one TV station in Lebanon, accepted to air energy efficiency tips everyday for one consecutive month during the weather forecast. This section is considered the highest reach section of all LBC programs.
The right message with the right tools of communication proved to be very successful namely in terms of people’s reaction and adoption of the energy saving tips.
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• An innovative way of communicating energy efficiency to students
LCECP prepared a marketing strategy to promote the energy efficiency concept throughout Lebanon. Two campaigns were launched, one umbrella campaign for energy conservation and the other for the use of solar energy to heat water.
There was a need to focus on a very important target audience, the youth, which represents the future generations of Lebanon, and hence the future energy consumers; therefore LCECP decided to extend the campaigning to the classrooms around Lebanon.
By targeting the youth, LCECP ensures future generations of Lebanese are aware of the cost of energy waste, and are encouraged to take action, be it by pulling the plug on wasting energy or urging their parents to adopt energy saving tips themselves.
The innovative communication to students
A partnership was done with "Paramount Pictures" the agents of Al Gore movie "Inconvenient Truth", "Circuit Empire", the owners of the largest movie theatre network in Lebanon, and students around the country were invited to watch the movie at the circuit empire movie theatres free of charge. This activity was restricted to secondary students because of the complexity of the movie.
DVDs of "Inconvenient Truth" were sent as well to schools that were reluctant to send their students outside campuses for security reasons.
As to the primary and complementary students, a cartoon movie related to energy efficiency named "Albert says" was dubbed in the Arabic language and sent to respective schools.
While screening both movies students were handed flyers, notepads, and calendars, under the headline: "save energy and help stop global warming", and the promotional material included very simple things each and every student can do to save energy and help stop global warming.
This campaign was adopted by the majority of Lebanese schools who found the subject interesting and performed exams to the students related to the subject to make sure it was grasped.
The schools which were excluded for logistics reason have urged LCECP to provide them at least with the material.
A kids' website was adapted and translated to Arabic, it was placed as a link to LCECP's website and was distributed to schools' with no internet connection.
Energy efficiency concept, potential to be officially included in student's curriculum
The school promotion was launched in a PR event under the auspices of the Lebanese Prime Minister, the UNDP resident representative and in the presence of the Minister of energy and water and the Minister of higher education.
The presence of the latter and the partnership done with the Ministry of higher education is considered a passport to introduce officially energy efficiency in students' curriculum so that this material is taught to Lebanese students on a mandatory basis
Even though the primary target is the youth, it is not just the students who are encouraged to actively participate in this Endeavour. Every single individual in the country can benefit from energy efficiency; it secures a better future for Lebanese by helping stave off the effects of the past decades of CO2 emissions. And students definitely model their behavior to adults.
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• Mitigation of Climate Change - Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions
To effectively promote energy efficiency on a national scale and change consumer behavior for better energy management, it was crucial mobilizing proper human and financial resources, a good advertising agency and sufficient media airtime. These three ingredients were brought together through a partnership with Saatchi and Saatchi -- one of the top advertising agencies in Lebanon. Saatchi and Saatchi developed the creative concept "Some Turn-offs do save," and supervised the production of all media and advertising material, including: TV and radio spots and interviews, billboard posters and other print material advertised in major magazines and newspapers. All of Saatchi and Saatchi's work towards to the campaign was provided free of charge.
In addition, UNDP and the project's executing agency, the Ministry of Energy and Water, successfully mobilized the national broadcast and print media to grant free airtime and media space for this campaign, to ensure nation-wide coverage with maximum outreach to all areas.
The media campaign was launched as follows:
- 7 TV stations with a total of 821 TV spots
- 14 radio stations with a total of 2,200 spots
- 800 billboards on a national level
- All magazines and newspapers available in the country published the ad
- 7 dailies with 60 insertions in Black and white
- 28 full pages in color in 28 different magazines
The media campaign was followed by an intensive information campaign on TV and radio stations and in the press, detailing the potential out-of-pocket savings to each household and dollar-value savings to the national economy if simple steps were taken in people's daily routines to conserve energy.
The campaign had a significant impact as evidenced by an increased level of public awareness on energy efficiency; the keen interest from the media, including a large number of requests for interviews and updates from the project; a rise in the public's civic engagement with the government, including complaints to the municipalities for keeping the lights on during daytime hours; and major public awareness spin-off effects as highly popular and widely viewed comedy shows, using the basic concept of "some turn-offs do save" added their own humorous take on existing energy inefficiencies and waste. The campaign won the prestigious Pikasso Citizen's Award for the most innovative and creative public service advertising at its annual awards ceremony in 2006
The project created a proper partnership between the private and public sectors, coupled with UNDP flagship practice areas and support yielded amazing results. Beyond all expectations, the mere 43,000 USD originally allocated by the project, turned into a nation-wide multi-media campaign worth 1,440,000 USD of free production and media coverage and, of course, the rise in public awareness and citizen action in support of energy savings is priceless!
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• Scaling Up Demonstration Project to National Strategy
The Environment and Energy Programme of UNDP in Lebanon manages nineteen on-going projects with diverse thematic interventions, hosted in six different institutions namely; Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Energy and Water, Ministry of Agriculture, Lebanese Agriculture Research Institute, Directorate General of Urban Planning and Electricite du Liban.
Given the large number of projects, themes, and implementing agencies, it has always been a challenge to ensure overall strategic and programmatic coherence, proper visibility, networking, and coordination among them. In order to maximize capacity to profit from each other's practices, experiences, and resources, the programme created the Project Managers Club (PM Club).
The PM Club is a forum that gathers all Project Managers of the Energy & Environment Programme, enabling them to promote effective project management and administration, enhance communication and networking, strengthen knowledge creation and sharing, increase projects' complementarities, and share technical and financial resources. In addition, the PMs contribute to UNDP's planning and programming processes to set the annual strategy and workplan, as well as the CCA, CCF, and UNDAF.
The members of the PM Club meet periodically, once every three months, in the country office premises for a whole day, where fixed and variable activities take place. Additional meetings may be convened if found necessary by at least 50% of the members.
Fixed activities include:
- Presentation of a selected topic by a Resource Person. Topics are selected based on the actual request and needs of the PMs.
- Presentation by two PMs of their projects, focusing on lessons learned, difficulties and mitigation measures taken;
- Presentation by the Programme on the vision, strategy and plans of the programme, with special focus on ways to sustain projects beyond their termination date, on new opportunities and on developing new project pipelines;
- Open floor discussion about generic problems related to administrative and financial operations, monitoring and evaluation, and UNDP rules and regulations.
Variable activities include:
- Undertaking visits to project sites;
- Organizing social activities and outings;
- Promoting charity and voluntary activities.
The club was created in January 2005, and even within this short time, tremendous benefits have been gained and closer collaboration among the PMs (sharing experiences, lessons learned, etc.) has resulted in savings of time and resources for all. In addition, the family spirit of the club has played a major role in reducing the crisis of identity that the PMs used to grapple with (are they or are they not UNDP staff?). A new intra-project website is now under preparation by the programme to be used as a tool for proper and efficient communication among the PMs and UNDP Environment and Energy Progamme.
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• Administrator's Annual Awards - Global Staff Forum 2007
CO: UNDP - Lebanon
Unit: Energy & Environment
Team Members: Jihan Seoud - Programme Associate ;
Edgard Chehab - Programme Manager;
Greening Award Criteria: Substantive work
Title: Scaling Up Demonstration Project to National Strategy
Although there is no specific MDG relating to energy, there is an intimate link between how we extract, generate, and manage our energy resources, and how we ensure that our environment, which provides these important benefits, does not come at unacceptable cost. How we meet our energy needs is thus intimately related to how we ensure a sustainable environment and our targets under MDG 7.
For developed and many middle-income countries, it is important to not only improve both the quality and quantity of energy services, but also find alternative sources of energy. Access to energy services affects practically all aspects of sustainable development, including access to water, agricultural productivity, health care, education, and job creation, and climate change. Managing our energy and our environment is central to the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals.
In its deliberations on how to find a win-win solution between energy generation and environmental sustainability, the Energy and Environment Programme in UNDP Lebanon assisted the Government of Lebanon in developing a pilot programme that was eventually to grow into a national policy priority. read more
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Lebanon
