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Articles by Jon Coifman

Jon Coifman is a strategist on energy, climate, and clean technology communications and author of the PR blog PositioningGreen.com.

Featured Article

Image: Positioning GreenCross-posted from Positioning Green.

Billionaire conservative financier David Koch doesn’t know it, but the cutting-edge energy-saving technologies included in a brand new $211 million research lab that bears his name were partly funded through a government program to reduce global warming pollution. It happens to be the very same program under a blistering attack by one of Koch’s biggest political beneficiaries, the group Americans for Prosperity (AFP).

Here’s the story, which is cross-posted at Climate Progress, but has not otherwise been publicly reported:

The David H. Koch Institute, dedicated earlier this month at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will use almost a third less energy than comparable facilities. Everything in the building is designed to maximize efficiency, from lighting and climate controls to the laboratory systems — even the floorplan.

Money for all those extras came through MIT’s $14 million campus-wide partnership with their utility, NSTAR. In just 36 months, they plan to cut the university’s energy use 15 percent — enough to power 4,500 Massa... Read more