Young adults raised on a nearly endless variety of gadgets for their entertainment needs may not seem like the most receptive audience for messages about energy conservation. But non-profit group SmartPower is using the power of social networks to encourage the "Echo Boomers" to cut back on needlessly wasting energy.

Echo Boomers are the sons and daughters of baby boomers, who have matured alongside iPods and the Internet to become an intensely “plugged-in” energy-demanding generation. These conspicuous energy consumers are adding to the “Phantom load" of energy demand from electronics that are turned off, but are still plugged in.

It was with this mission of reducing phantom load that the Let’s Get Energy Smart marketing campaign was launched in February. With the mass appeal of social networking and the allure of a point-based system, SmartPower is working with the Climate Culture website to convert the “biggest wasters of energy in the country” to “a generation of energy efficiency ambassadors,” according to Brian F. Keane, president of SmartPower. Climate Culture allows individuals to create profiles, calculate their carbon footprint off their information and connect to others locally.

Climate Culture's website has a "reduction center" island, which lists ways individuals can save energy. Depending on your environmental dedication, whether investing in a solar backpack to using a non-electric toothbrush, you can visibly reduce your own footprint and attain points that represent one percent of carbon footprint reduced. Climate Culture allows for people to see the changes they’ve made since joining and plan how to better conserve by using the ‘commitment’ feature when selecting an action.

How does hunting down bothersome emissions bring about a desire to conserve in young adults? SmartPower concluded from a study involving 81 New England adults and teens several vital facts: young adults were impressed by positive correlations between their actions and the “big picture,” unplugging devices was by far the most popular act of conservation, and that there is an emotional benefit to energy efficiency.

SmartPower’s campaign will be extended when America’s Greenest Campus and Climate Culture team up to recognize schools with the highest total carbon reduction. Together the organizations will start a campaign on March 31 using YouTube videos to promote the SmartPower Energy Smart Online Ad Challenge. The contest offers the incentive of a $10,000 prize and the chance that a submission will be used in SmartPower’s national advertising.

The final stage of the campaign will be field marketing in Connecticut and North Carolina, which will involve SmartTerns, interns working as ambassadors for SmartPower’s message, communicating to their communities directly and to a wider audience through YouTube and other social networking sites.

By engaging Echo Boomers through several venues, SmartPower is looking to overcome one of its findings: that individuals are unimpressed with messages and images that focused on the environment in regards to energy efficient activities. The organization's campaign is working to transform what could be construed as tedious energy efficient practices or simple afterthoughts into a form of positive social currency, as perhaps highlighted by YouTube videos, and definitively note them through visible means through Climate Culture. As each effort is available to the public through various social networking means, individuals are encouraged to actively participate, extending the positive recognition of reducing carbon footprints through, even the simple task of toeing the glowing end of a power strip.

The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund and a group of private foundations founded SmartPower in 2001, as part of an effort to market renewable energy,. Since its inception, SmartPower has expanded its goals to encompass energy efficiency and conservation.

See also: Climate Culture Unleashes Power of Individual Efficiency