What motivates someone to conserve energy? Certainly necessity can – if you don’t have enough money to pay your electricity bills, you’ll be highly motivated to reduce the electricity you use. According to Michelle Singletary writing in the Washington Post last Sunday, that’s exactly what got her grandmother, “Big Mama,” to become the energy efficiency maven she was. Ms. Singletary grew up without a clothes dryer, turning off all the lights, and unplugging her appliances. She makes a convincing argument that times have changed.

How many people unplug their appliances? Go without a dryer? A dishwasher? Multiple television sets? In this day and age, despite tightening household budgets due to the recession, it seems like the answer is: not many. Are people getting lazier or is wealth making the energy bill less important? Ms. Singletary argues that we need to change the way we talk about saving energy – create a Groupon-type craze about saving money to make sure you get the cheapest energy bill on the block.

Here at Savenia Labs, we think one of the largest impediments keeping people from saving money on energy is the fact that nobody knows how much they’re spending to power the appliances and electronics in their houses in the first place. How can you buy an energy efficient appliance if there is no information available as to that product’s energy efficiency? Now, that’s changed. At least in Montgomery County, Maryland where consumers can buy energy efficient appliances with the help of Savenia Labs Energy Ratings labels at Strosniders True Value Hardware Stores. Here we’ve noticed that when people know how much energy their appliances will use and how much that costs, they buy more energy efficient appliances. And this results in a win-win-win. People save money, innovative manufacturers are incentivized to come out with better energy saving products, and all of this translates into less air pollution so a win for the environment.

So what motivates you to save energy?