With soaring energy costs bringing Connecticut consumers to their knees, one visionary Fairfield County home heating oil and HVAC company turned to MAX Communications to help the company develop a strategy that would make “energy conservation” the cornerstone of the 145-year-old company’s corporate mission.

Recognizing that the polar bear had become a living symbol of global warming, and that energy conservation would help conserve the bear’s icy habitat, the PR Team quickly reached out to non-profit Polar Bears International (PBI), the world’s foremost polar bear conservation group.  Within six weeks, the client and PBI had formed a ground-breaking 10-year alliance to inspire Fairfield County residents to change their energy consumption behaviors for the good of their neighborhoods, the planet and, of course, the polar bear’s habitat.  In so doing, residents would not only conserve energy, but also save big in terms of their energy bills.

To drive home the energy conservation message, the alliance hosted a series of Polar Bear Empathy Day events.  Local “green teens” were invited to join their peers from around the world at PBI’s annual Leadership Camp on the Canadian arctic tundra.  Following their Leadership Camp experience, these teens returned to their communities as Arctic Ambassadors, to continue the alliance’s important mission.  Publicity around the alliance’s educational outreach events and activities amplified the energy conservation message, with several hundred news and feature stories appearing in regional magazines, daily and weekly newspapers, local television and radio and online media.