Conservation Consultants, Inc

Louis B. Schwartz, President, China Strategies, LLC 6400 Aylesboro Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217, USA (p) 412.521.1846 (email) lou@chinastrategiesllc.com ____________________________________________________________________ April 16, 2009 Perla Ni, CEO Great*Nonprofits
 PO Box 1133
 Palo Alto, California 94301
 Re: Nomination of Conservation Consultants, Inc. for Great*Nonprofits’ Green Choice Awards 2009 Dear Ms Ni: I am honored to nominate Conservation Consultants, Inc. of Pittsburgh, (“CCI”) for a 2009 Green Choice Award. Over more than 30 years, CCI has been a pioneer in Energy Education, Energy Assistance and Resource Conservation in Western Pennsylvania. CCI’s Energy Education programs foster environmental awareness, enhance knowledge of energy issues and promote resource conservation among the citizens of the Pittsburgh region. This low-key green superstar non-profit also assists utilities in Western Pennsylvania fulfill their obligations under federally-funded Energy Assistance programs by providing energy audits and myriad useful tips on how to conserve energy for low-income households for whom energy costs are a disproportionately high percentage of their income. CCI also offers a robust program of energy audits for households throughout Western Pennsylvania, thus enabling homeowners to take smart, cost-effective measures to conserve resources and lower their household expenses. Though the impressively prodigious work of CCI in Energy Education, Energy Assistance and Resource Conservation alone commends CCI for the Great*Nonprofits’ 2009 Green Choice Awards, there is another more ephemeral, though no less tangible, reason why CCI stands out among the great environmental and energy non-profits working tirelessly to improve our communities: the quiet confidence in the great importance of its work, the unflagging perseverance despite many obstacles and most importantly, the infectious certainty that the work of the environmental, energy efficiency and renewable energy movements are to our times what “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” was to Americans a generation ago. More than the plethora of important things that CCI accomplishes every day for the benefit of the Pittsburgh region, the example it sets and the inspiration it inspires in others makes CCI deserving of the 2009 Green Choice Award. I know this first-hand because I am one who has been so inspired to focus my work in no small measure by CCI’s infectious belief that we all can contribute to a better environment and more secure energy future. Because of an evening CCI fund-raising cruise on Pittsburgh’s three rivers and a captivating and energizing discussion with Katie McGinty, the then Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (facilitated by Ann Gerace, CCI’s Director), I started writing and posting the China Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development Report, my first step towards developing a specialty in the challenges and opportunities of environmental, energy efficiency and renewable energy policy and development in China. Over the ensuing years I have advised for-profit and not-for-profit companies and government departments on China’s energy efficiency and renewable energy sectors, written extensively for Renewable Energy World, spoken on renewable energy at the Wharton China Business Forum and the American Council for Renewable Energy (“ACORE”) RETECH conference and began to serve on the Strategic Advisory Panel of ACORE’s China Programs. And that is only one person’s story; if you were stitch together similar stories of others who have gained inspiration from CCI and are now making a contribution, you would have a gorgeous patchwork quilt as a tribute to the incalculable difference CCI has made. Yours truly, Lou Schwartz