Housing

This section provides an overview of some representative projects we have conducted relating to housing. Using the annotated alphabetical list below, you can select project summaries, and/or link directly to some examples of our work. If you prefer, you can also select projects by service or area of focus

Best Practices in Reducing the Cosmetic Use of Pesticides on Residential Property Researched the relative effectiveness of outreach approaches being used in Canada, USA and Europe for reducing the cosmetic use of pesticides on residential property, both with and without legislative intervention (e.g. pesticide by-laws.)

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.

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 The first characterization study of the Canadian Indoor Environment Industries.

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 provided ongoing planning and implementation assistance. We also conducted the initial public research and strategy recommendations for the Green Community Association's new well stewardship program.

Healthy Housing Helped Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) develop a national communication strategy for its Healthy Housing initiative, and increase awareness of CMHC as an information company.

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.

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.

Voluntary Initiatives 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 housing related behaviours related to energy, indoor air quality, pesticides, waste and water. Available worldwide.

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Tools of Change

Tools of Change Workbook

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: Covers 90 full-length environmental, health and safety topics, many of which are housing-related.
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
Residential 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
	We have 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.