“Every win comes with a concession”: The ups and downs of navigating energy efficiency collectively

Even as his building cele­brates a 27 percent reduc­tion in carbon emis­sions and $24,000 saved for the building per year, Hal Fuchsman, the board pres­i­dent of Inwood Park Apartments acknowl­edges that the process of getting Kelvin radi­ator Cozys installed has been less than seamless.

“Every win comes with a conces­sion,” Fuchsman, lamented when asked about the process of leading the co-op to more energy effi­cient heating.

The Inwood Park Apartments’s co-op board orig­i­nally intended to convert their oil fuel boiler to natural gas in order to reduce the building’s carbon emis­sions. But that initial plan was thwarted when they learned they would need to construct a new high-pres­sure gas line to make it happen — and pay the $3 million cost for it. 

The Inwood Park share­holders found them­selves having to muddle through a middle space. The majority of resi­dents are middle-income or retired elders living in market-rate studio or single-bedroom apart­ments; they couldn’t afford to fund the gas lines outright, but they also encoun­tered few finan­cial incen­tives and prescrip­tive path­ways for LL97 compli­ance that felt work­able for their building. 

So they settled on a compro­mise: Installing Kelvin radi­ator Cozys as an ​“inter­me­diate step” that could help them comply with LL97 and make their boiler more effi­cient. All-in, the project cost a much more reason­able $143,382.

For Fuchsman as board pres­i­dent, it was one thing to realize that they had to change course from their orig­inal plan. But it was another thing to announce this change to his fellow resi­dents. The key, he learned, was constant commu­ni­ca­tion and educa­tion: Representatives from Kelvin came to the building with mock devices, and held a series of infor­ma­tion sessions to demon­strate to resi­dents how the Cozys worked.

While Fuchsman indi­cated that there was already signif­i­cant support for the new plan from other resi­dents at Inwood Park Apartments, the process of engaging with his neigh­bors deeply — listening and responding their concerns, and advo­cating on their behalf to contrac­tors — galva­nized share­holders to not only be more envi­ron­men­tally-oriented, but also more engaged in the civic process of collec­tive deci­sion-making right at their doorstep. 

“For better or for worse, it’s made us want to have more feed­back sessions,” Fuchsman said. ​“People [previ­ously] felt they weren’t heard. We’ve now imple­mented [meet­ings], not specif­i­cally exclu­sive to radi­a­tors, but building oper­a­tions in general. We have quar­terly infor­ma­tion sessions, as opposed to just an annual meeting.”

Fuchsman expects these forums for discus­sion to be impor­tant as his building continues working towards ongoing compli­ance with LL97. He said he’d also like to see compa­nies like Con Edison and others that have a hand in LL97 into fruition take a similar tack; clearer and more detailed commu­ni­ca­tion with their customers throughout the process is para­mount, he said. 

“If they spend a frac­tion of how much money they spend on PR to tell you how green they are actu­ally engaging with build­ings and finding climate-friendly solu­tions… I think it would be a much different picture.”