By Tristan Hiegler

Cascade Natural Gas brought together local housing contractors and local advertisers on April 29 in order to promote its Conservation Incentive and Cooperative Marketing programs.

Local advertisers, such as the Bellingham Herald, the Bellingham Business Journal, Bellingham Alive, Cascade Radio Group and Valpak, gathered at the Bellingham Cruise Terminal to act as resources for contractors looking to take advantage of Cascade Natural Gas’s offer to help fund their advertising.

Christine Kautzman, conservation program administrator for Cascade Natural Gas, said “trade allies” to Cascade can have up to 33 percent of an advertising project covered by Cascade, or they can receive a total of $2,000 per quarter and a total of $8,000 per year.

Kautzman said Cascade Natural Gas promotes energy efficiency by offering economic incentives to customers that choose  to install products and systems that cut down on energy consumption. The Trade Ally companies install these systems  and the customers get a certain amount of money back based on what was installed. The benefit to the ally companies is that they see an increase in business since they allow their customers to get some money back.

Supporting ally companies’ advertising allows for a expanded customer base, Kautzman said, and offering the incentives passes on the savings of being energy efficient in both the short term and the long term. The short term comes in the form of the rebates customers receive for installing energy efficient features, the long term from cutting down on their energy bill by improving their efficiency.