Cascade has a fantastic client success story to share from our ongoing work with Energy Smart Industrial (ESI), demonstrating why we put Cascade’s core values first and foremost in everything we do. By seeking shared success, we were able to help our clients both reach their goals and celebrate those accomplishments with their customers.
Austin Rogers, in his role as an Energy Smart Industrial Partner (ESIP), collaborated with one of our wastewater utility customers, Benton REA, to showcase a tally of energy efficiency projects at the City of West Richland Wastewater Treatment Plant. Working with their marketing team to document and write a newsletter story, they highlighted the wastewater plant’s efforts in saving 1.7M kWh/year, which is equivalent to the energy use of 140 homes!
This newsletter, which is included with utility mailers to their customers, also featured a promotion of the energy efficiency program to drum up interest in accessing incentive support. It went on to educate readers about a project that the site chose not to pursue and the resulting energy savings and capital cost reductions. To top it off, the article included a photo of a big check delivery, in which a utility board member handed off a big check to the City’s mayor.
Austin commented, “My favorite part about the article though was mentioning and giving credit to the wastewater Operations Supervisor (and Energy Champion). For these end-users, it is sometimes difficult for them to toot their own horn. Marketing collateral and stories like this can help put the spotlight on these key contributors so they get the credit the deserve for the projects they completed.”
Though it wasn’t mentioned in the article, the overall success from this customer engagement began back in 2016 when ESI and Cascade launched the first-ever Wastewater Strategic Energy Management (SEM) cohort. Folks that spearheaded that effort included Layne McWilliams, Pam Birkel, Dawn Lesley (now at Resource Innovations), and the ESI Energy Management (EM) Team. We wouldn’t have gotten these relationships, projects, and future water and wastewater cohorts built without that. Now that’s what we call Seeking Shared Success!
