Saving Money by Going Green with EarthKind Energy Consulting’s Ron Kamen

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0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Stick around to the end of the show; we'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

And with us right now we've got the CEO of Earth Kind Energy Consulting, Ron Kaman. Ron, thank you so much for joining us.

0:45
Thanks so much for having me on your show, Josh. I love thoughtful entrepreneur and up my influence. You're an amazing host. And boy, what a tremendous entrepreneur. Yes, sir. So it's a pleasure to be here.

0:58
We're out of the gate with flattery, that's not gonna hurt. To run, what I like about what you're doing is, is that, you know, I think we all have a desire to at least most I would hold. Like, we believe that, you know, listen, we live on the earth, we don't want to trash it up, like, you know, we want to make sure that, you know, we can have a sustainable living, we're not going to, you know, ruin their for future generations. That said, um, you know, at times, or maybe historically, we've looked at, well, what can I do? And then we look at the investment that it's that's required, or the trouble or, you know, whatever it may be, and we go, oh, man, I mean, I like the earth and all, but I'm not sure I love it that much. I don't know, it's like, it's, it's easy to get a little freaked out when you look at the cost associated with sustainability. Um, but but go ahead and share your approach to all of that.

1:59
Yeah, so a couple things, Josh, so so one, that was true. And what's happened now is just like with every other piece of technology, the costs have been coming down and evolving. So now it's the case that actually solar, solar and wind, the renewables are the cheapest source of power on the planet. And our mindset, and our culture hasn't quite caught up to that. But I'll tell you, a lot of people are catching up to that in a significant way across the country, just to give you a sense of the industry, which most people don't realize, but on one of our last shows, we had an environmental entrepreneur, actually, you should have them on your show, too, at some point. But basically talking about how there's 3.4 million jobs in clean energy. Now, that's three and a half times more than the auto fuel industry. And we just haven't really realized it. So we see certain things that are starting to affect us some people have seen solar, some people have seen heat pumps in our in our buildings to heat and cool our buildings are the people driving electric vehicles. And that technology is just advancing and the costs are coming down. And just like these little things that we've have now that all of us have in our pocket that we couldn't, can't live without, that used to be multimillion dollar supercomputers that couldn't be in an in an office building. Now, a couple of hundred dollars worth, we have more power than actually in one of those smartphones more power than what took us to the moon with the Apollo astronauts. So the technology is evolving, the costs are coming down to financing is their innovative is incentives from governments across the board, both on grants as well as tax credits, there's just a tremendous opportunity to have a fantastic return on your investment. And people haven't realized that yet. But that's part of my mission. And my job is to help get that word out that there is a way for us to have a tremendous impact and save a pile of money, do it.

3:38
You know, and again, we want to we're gonna tread very cautiously here. But we are in in an election year. Have you looked at the two candidates for United States president's platform as it as it relates to renewables? And again, let's be very careful here.

3:55
Yeah, absolutely.

3:56
Be respectful of everybody here. Absolutely. No, Tony, if you have any observations about either of the two candidates,

4:04
well, no matter which candidate gets elected, Josh, I think it's really up to all of us as Americans and as individuals on this planet. Look, there's 7 billion of us now, right? And you know, all of us are starting to feel the effects of these dramatic climate impacts, right? Everything from the Hurricanes or tornadoes, flooding this last week in the in the south, fires out in the West, across the globe, temperatures reaching 120 130 140 degrees, where it's almost impossible for humanity to live. So the question really is what can we as individuals do to have an impact ourselves? What can we do in our communities in our localities, and that's a second phase. And then third, they're absolutely on a national level, people should take a look and see, look, do you believe in a fossil fuel generated future or do you believe in a clean energy future and if you believe as I do, that clean energy is the place to be that we can not only have a dramatic environmental impact, but also create a tremendous number of jobs. To boost the economy, save ourselves money. The last analysis that I saw said that if we move to 100%, clean energy, it's $5 trillion that Americans will save by making that transition. And I don't care which side of the aisle you're standing on $5 trillion, is a lot of money. And it speaks to the consumers. And it speaks to jobs. And again, we're looking at three and a half times the amount of fossil fuel jobs today, in clean energy. Imagine if we have that shift. And we all as a society decided that we want to do this, both individually collectively across the board, but we can absolutely make a tremendous impact and save a pile of money.

5:38
Yeah, and I don't think it takes, you know, much guesswork to to figure out, you know, if we were to close our eyes for a moment, and imagine, what is the world going to look like 10 years from now from a where do we get our energy from? I don't see him building too many more coal plants.

5:57
Yeah, you know, the whole coal industry right now is 60,000 people, right? So compare that to the 3.4 million and clean energy. And you know, one of the devastating impacts of the pandemic was 100,000, clean energy workers were laid off. So there's a way that we can absolutely the coal industry, and the fossil industry is on the decline. And I think if you look at any of the trillions of dollars worth in investments, now going into energy, 75% of it is going into clean energy and the low amount of generation that's come online, and this last couple of years have been in solar and wind and in renewables. So there is no doubt that the trend is clear, the costs are coming down. And we should embrace it because we can save money. I mean, again, jobs, the economy, save money have a positive impact on the environment, all across the board.

6:48
For a business owner, who has a team are all working remote right now. You know, everyone's kind of working at their computers. What should we do? I mean, how what you mean, what should we be paying attention to? Are there any actions, any steps that we could be taking to kind of future proof our business are kind of adapt?

7:09
Yeah, I think in this day and age, especially with all the impacts of COVID, on all businesses, there's no doubt that everybody is cost conscious. And so the first thing that we do at Earth, clean energy, and an awesome Earth kind is ask people to take a look and just add up your bills, look at how much you're spending on electricity. Look at how much you're spending on your fuels for your heating and cooling. And look at how much you're spending on your fuel and your transportation costs, get those bills, that is your energy budget, that's what you're currently spending on energy. And that really also is your carbon budget. So your greenhouse gas budget as well, because 90% of the greenhouse gases comes from the energy we consume. So the first thing to look at is how much money you spend, and where is your pain. And then at each of those sectors, there are things that you can do with electricity, there's things you can do with heating and cooling. And essentially, you can do with with electric vehicles and transportation that can have a dramatic impact, at the very least take 10% off of those numbers.

8:02
Oh, easily,

8:04
easily, easily. And I've worked with people that take off 30 to 50%. And some people, you know, if you have an opportunity, you're building a new building these days, you have the opportunity to zero out your energy costs for your electricity, for your heating and cooling. And even for your transportation, if you oversize the solar system and the solar with storage system, you can actually come down to zero cost on your energy. And that's really where we're going to be heading is this whole trend is towards that decentralization of energy, reduction in costs, and the ability for all of us to become not just consumers of energy, but also produce our own energy on site with solar, solar and battery storage, and then generate electricity and become prosumers. So as a business owner, I always ask people look, the first thing to do is take a look at your costs. Know that in each of those sectors, there are things you can do. One of the things that we run at awesome, Erskine now is a demonstration class where if people come to the website, and sign on, there's a chance to sign up for a free 90 minute class. And in 90 minutes, we'll give people three quick things that they can do to reduce their energy costs and all those three sectors. And when you take a look at it, it's really dramatic. I mean, it really is unbelievable, and people just haven't realized that yet.

9:15
Yeah, for this for a company now that has a distributed workforce. I mean, what's what's one thing that they can encourage or one thing that they could do is like so for example, you know, I'm running my business out of my home right now and you know, I keep I keep the I'm in Orlando. So I keep the AC going, you know, throughout the day, and I'll just tell you from you know, my other business so savings Angel for so for 13 and a half years now, I've been a consumer expert, so I'm really big on easy ways to save money. And I'll tell you that, you know, if you were to if all you did was took a couple of hours, and you just research all the different things you can do from just heating and cooling more intelligently? Uh, you know, not, you know, being a lot smarter about you know, Okay, listen, everyone's not in the home right now. So you don't need to keep the AC cranked down to like 65. You know, when no one's in the home, stuff like that better insulation, better windows. Um, you know, just being mindful about, you know, what's consuming electricity? And how can you do that smart? Listen, just again, a couple of hours of research, it can absolutely save you $100 a month or more 1200 dollars a year. That pays for a nice vacation. That's a free vacation you just earned.

10:39
You're absolutely right, Josh, you got it right there as a thoughtful entrepreneur printer, you absolutely are there and you're saving Angel program is amazing. So you know, first thing, just the simplest thing is take a look at your light bulbs. If you still have incandescent light bulbs, 90% of the energy for those light bulbs is producing heat, that's why you burn your height. So get an LED light bulb, an LED light bulb has the same amount of light, but with 80 or 90%, less energy. So that's the first thing just take a look at your lighting. That's a simple, easy thing. Second thing on your heating and cooling system, take a look at your filters. Most people don't even realize that they have filters. And by changing them regularly, two things happen. One is reduce the amount of pathogens that are in those filters, which are really not a good thing. But also with let's see of air flow more freely. And by doing that as let your system work better and faster. And actually, it also keeps it from breaking down. Because when those filters getting built up, what happens is the system gets overloaded. And then it's more likely to basically shut down and just blow up which is a bad thing not blow up literally blow up in terms of blowing the coils on an air conditioning system. So those are two simple things. Third thing is get a smart thermostat so that when you are going to sleep, you change the temperature to make it a little less energy consuming. So during the during the winter, during the winter, you know you don't have it quite so hot, or the summers not so cool. When you go to sleep, right, and you just let the temperature go a few degrees. And that'll save you a couple couple percent on your bill right there just getting a smart thermostat, lots of simple things you can do. And then one of the things that we do it awesome Earth client is we run these intensives, first 90 minutes just to let people know some simple things. But then we have programs that work with individuals and businesses and nonprofits and government to help them step by step look at each of these sectors, identify ways come up with a plan and put those plans in place. One of the great things these days is not only their government incentives and grants from either the utility or sometimes the state government, not only their federal tax credits, which is great for many people, most people, but nowadays, there's also third parties that will put up those funds, they'll take the incentives, they'll give you those benefits, and then you just pay them out of the savings, which is you know, pretty sweet, right? So no cash out. And almost anywhere in the country these days, you can do a deal like that with solar where you don't even put it up, you don't put up any capital, you let somebody else put it up, they own it, they maintain it, and you just get a discount on your electric bill. Nice, is that, right? I mean, if you're a smart businessperson, you would look at that and say, you know, I'd really rather have the tax credits, and I'll have the incentives. And I'd rather have a 20 or 25% return on my investment. Thank you very much third party person, and I appreciate the 10%. But I'd rather have 25% savings and get all my money back in four or five years and then just have 100% of the savings come to me. So you got to look at that. And there's all different ways of making that happen. And that's part of what we do at Earth identity is help people figure that out.

13:22
Yeah, yeah. So your website again, is awesome. Earth kind.com. And so now you've got a podcast is awesome Earth kind energy. What do you talk about on the podcast?

13:33
Right? So the first thing to realize is awesome, right? So what is awesome, right? Well, awesome. If you spell it out, it's a W e S. And when we realized that the loss the oil is that is there is the air, the water, the earth, and the sun, the four forces of nature that astound us that every day offers us with its power, we live in a sea of energy, and we can tap into that energy. The last part of awesome is m II, you and me. And the fact that all of us 7 billion of us on this planet now are really having an impact. We're having a dramatic impact on our climate and our life support systems. And there's something that we can do about us all men and women kind or Earth kind all of us awesome. Earth kind can have a dramatic impact. So what we do with the podcast is we first give hope, because a lot of people are really feeling just there's so much going on. It's just so overwhelming. What can I do? I'm just one individual, I can't even handle what I can do with how can I have an impact on this massive thing called climate? Well, you can you can as an individual, you can, as in family, you can look at it and many of the kids are actually rising up now and asking their parents to do something with it. So there's a way for you to first have hope. It's there. The energy is around us. The technology is here. And that's the amazing thing. The technology has evolved dramatically. And then the third piece of this the best news is that we can save money doing it so not only is there free energy Not only is the technology here to capture it, but there's a way to save money doing it and that's what we do with awesome Earth kindness. We get that word out. We show people about the technologies we give them hope that about the Future. And then we also help them with one on one with this customized clean energy demonstration and this customized program for every individual because everybody comes from a different place, right? You live in Florida, I live in New York, someone else lives in California, we have different needs, we've done certain things with lighting, we've done certain things with our heating and air conditioning, we may drive a more efficient vehicle. But whatever that is, wherever we are, we can always do a little bit more. And doing that a little bit more has a dramatic impact. And it's something that we can feel good about for ourselves was good for the pocketbook. And when we look at our kids and our grandkids, we can actually have them be proud of us, which is a wonderful thing, right?

15:35
Yeah, for sure. All right, Ron. So again, your website, awesome Earth kind.com, anything else that folks should look for when they go there.

15:43
So when they go, there's a few different things that people can do one, they could sign up for this free class, which will give them some free energy saving tips, too. There's a contest that we're running right now for people who have been experiencing weather extreme weather events. So it's weather time fudge or weather time fun contest. And if they want to enter that is the ability for them to potentially win some prizes. We're also offering a free sweepstakes for anybody from your podcast who actually comes to our web landing site, which we haven't discussed the name but we would like to have it be AwesomeEarthKind.com slash Thoughtful Entrepreneur or UpMyInfluence or Josh, what would you like it to be?

16:25
What do Josh, J O S H,

16:27
J O S H So that's what would go so you come to AwesomeEarthKind.com slash Josh. There'll be a special offer they have for all of your followers. And it will be the opportunity to win $150 LED light fixture and also the opportunity for some free consulting if that's of interest to people an hour's worth of free consulting about your particular situation. And what you can do wherever you are in the country or world what you can do that can make a significant step and save yourself some money at the same time.

16:53
All right, Ron Kaman, you are the founder of again, Awesome Earth Kind on the web at, AwesomeEarthKind.com. Ron, thank you so much for joining us.

17:05
Thank you so much, Josh. It's a real pleasure and an honor and Gosh, keep up the great work.

17:11

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