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Healthier Indoor Environments / Green Buildings/ Healthy Housing

Cullbridge™ has been promoting healthier, more sustainable buildings since 1992. We work from both the business (supply) and social marketing (demand) perspectives, integrating the two wherever possible.

Cullbridge™ has helped pioneer the Canadian market for healthier indoor environments. We wrote the groundbreaking Characterization of the Canadian Indoor Environment Industries, and co-authored The State of the Indoor Environment in Canada: a Review of Voluntary Initiatives to Achieve Healthy Indoor Environments. The later evolved into Canada's national NGO focused on indoor environments, Healthy Indoors, which we co-manage. We also helped develop the marketing strategy for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's (CMHC's) Healthy Housing initiative, and launch the Envirodesic™ Certification Program.

On the energy conservation side, we also contributed to the still flourishing Green Communities, CMHC's Healthy Housing Initiative, The City of Toronto's 20/20 Campaign, and Natural Resources Canada's Energy Innovators Program.

Representative Projects

City of Toronto 20/20 Conducted a best practice and market research literature review for 20/20 The Way to Clean Air – a campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from homes and personal vehicles in Greater Toronto. Our project report summarized, for each of twelve high potential opportunities: target audiences and their current perceptions, motivators, barriers, and best practices. Helped pilot test the campaign. Updated and revised the “Connector” section of the participants’ Planner to increase its ease of use and impact, and to extend its reach to cover all of the Greater Toronto Area.

Climate Change Public Education and Outreach. Developed various research and strategy papers for the Public Education and Outreach (PEO) and Municipalities Issue Tables of Canada's National Climate Change Process, including a number of green building case studies.

Community-Based Social Marketing Tool Kit Developed, tested and disseminated practical information on community-based social marketing tools for promoting environmental citizenship, including residential water efficiency and reductions in residential waste and pesticide use.

Domestic (Canadian) Markets for Indoor Environment Products and Services Conducted the first characterization study of the Canadian Indoor Environment Industries.

Energy Innovators Survey Provided recommendations on how to better support member school boards in making energy efficiency improvements through the Energy Innovators Program.

Envirodesic™ Certification Program Provided a variety of market research, strategic alliance development, and media relations services for a certification program for buildings, products and services that reduce indoor emissions.

Export Markets Prioritized export markets for clean air technologies, including building technologies that produce cleaner indoor air.

Green Communities Served as a social marketing advisor and trainer, developed a social marketing toolkit for use by the communities in their home visit programs, and provide ongoing planning and implementation assistance.

Healthy Indoors Cullbridge helped birth and provides ongoing Executive Director services to the Healthy Indoors Partnership, a not-for-profit organization that promotes healthier indoor environments in Canada through multi-stakeholder collaboration.

Indoor Environment Workshops Organized full day multi-stakeholder workshops in six cities across Canada to communicate recent and upcoming advances in the indoor environment marketplace, and to strengthen working relationships among its stakeholders.

Sustainable Community Planning Developed a national strategy for our client to use, in cooperation with its partners, to engage consumers in adopting more sustainable community planning alternatives. Five product concepts were tested, and strategic directions for each were recommended.

Tools of Change Web site Founded on the principles of community-based social marketing, this site links a growing bank of case studies and ‘lessons learned’ with planning guides and worksheets, to help program planners and implementers learn more quickly from their collective experience. It highlights approaches that have been particularly successful so that they can be replicated and built upon, as well as "turnkey" programs that have been ‘pre-packaged’ for use by others. The site is full of examples that are presented to each user in a customized manner, according to his or her interest profile. Users can save their planning work between sessions, and can download the resulting draft plans and work summaries to common word processors for further refinement. The site contains many case studies focused on residential water efficiency, and reductions in residential waste and pesticide use.

UNEP OzonAction Clearinghouse Service Conducted an Independent evaluation of the global OzonAction clearinghouse operated by the United Nations Environment Program to support reductions in the use and release of certain refrigerants and other ozone-depleting substances banned under the Montreal Protocol.

Viability Study for Icynene Insulation in Central America Helped Icynene Insulation (a Canadian-based firm) apply for and obtain a CIDA grant to study the potential for manufacturing and selling Icynene insulation in Central America. This full viability study included market studies of selected promising countries; environmental and physical viability studies; potential impacts on minimizing the purchase and use of air conditioners, and increasing energy conservation; liaison with potential partners; and an assessment of social impacts and equal opportunity employment. In collaboration with Small and Flemming.

Voluntary Approaches Co-authored a report covering the legal aspects of indoor air quality in Canada, market drivers and barriers, reviews of selected voluntary initiatives, expert interviews, an analysis of barriers and key elements for success, and a proposal for a national strategy emphasizing voluntary initiatives.


Workshops
In collaboration with the Tools of Change Educational Institute, Cullbridge offers popular talks and workshops on planning and evaluating social marketing programs covering a wide range of building / housing related behaviours related to energy, indoor air quality, pesticides, waste and water. Available worldwide. More ...
Tools of Change
	Workbook: View or order it on-line from Renouf Publishing. After entering the bookstore, use the Search button at the top to search for the title 'Tools of Change'. Website: Contains many case studies focused on residential water efficiency, and reductions in residential waste and pesticide use. www.toolsofchange.com
Outreach Best Practices
Why re-invent the wheel? One of the best ways of giving your program a head start, is to begin with best practice research or benchmarking. Cullbridge is routinely carrying out this sort of research so we are set up to do it cost-effectively; we may already have found and documented many of the best programs in your area of interest. We have on-file recent best practice reviews covering outreach programs in the following topic areas: Home energy conservation / efficiency Residential pesticide reduction Water conservation / efficiency
Highlights
Healthy Indoors Partnership
	Cullbridge helped birth and provides ongoing Executive Director services to the Healthy Indoors Partnership, a not-for-profit organization that promotes healthier indoor environments in Canada through multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Green Communities
	Cullbridge has contributed to the growth and effectiveness of Canada's Green Communities initiatives.
Pesticide Reduction Best Practices
	We researched the relative effectiveness of outreach approaches being used in Canada, USA and Europe for reducing the cosmetic use of pesticides on residential property.
City of Toronto
	We conducted a best practice and market research literature review for 20/20, a campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from homes and personal vehicles.