Through energy efficiency, local businesses lower their bills and increase their profits. The money from the savings remains in the local economy and circulates among local merchants. Wes Birdsall knows how to convince people to save energy. Wes recently retired from managing the Osage Municipal Utilities for the last 20 years. The principal beneficiary has been the town's economy.
Unemployment is half the national average.
While most of this country's rural and small-town economies have been struggling, firms are moving to Osage. And according to an economist from the University of Iowa, downtown stores are healthy. Like Osage, your town can use energy efficiency as part of a program to stimulate local economic development. Energy efficiency affects economic growth because energy is used by every part of a community's economy, including producers, distributors, and marketers of good and services. But the all-encompassing effects of energy on your local economy are not always obvious.