The City of Madison has been chosen as one of the 50 semifinalists for the Georgetown University Energy Prize. This is a national competition to promote energy efficiency by local governments and their community with a $5 million prize. To engage city residents, businesses, staff and organizations in helping the city to save energy, Cool Choices was rolled out citywide. Cool Choices is a game-based approach to behavior change that promotes sustainability and reduces carbon emissions. It is played in teams, tracked online and creates competition to take action related to sustainable choices, More than 40 Madison businesses and organizations (with 865 people) completed from American Family Insurance and the Chamber of Commerce to UW Health and Capital Newspaper. The energy, water, carbon and financial savings achieved: 849,086 kWh of electricity, 36,537 therms, 2.54 million gallons of water, 2.64 million pounds of carbon dioxide, and $245,186. Madison will hold another Cool Choices challenge in the spring. The final Georgetown University Energy prize winners will be announced June of 2017. Read more