{"id":1548,"date":"2025-05-15T15:14:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T15:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:24:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:24:41","slug":"ccc-saving-energy-costs-promoting-energy-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/ccc-saving-energy-costs-promoting-energy-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"CCC: Saving energy costs and promoting energy efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vanessa Amasi ’26<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Joy Baker (left) and Vanessa Amasi (right) looking at utility data reports.<\/p><\/div>\n

When it comes to warming hearts and homes, I could not think of a better way to do it than through my fellowship this year. The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities provided me with the opportunity to be the student fellow for the\u00a0 Community Conservation Corps (CCC)<\/a> program in my third academic year at Furman. I worked directly with the CCC program coordinator and my supervisor, Joy Baker, to coordinate the home weatherization program and save costs from high energy bills as well as reduce carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

The CCC is a program made possible by a partnership between the Shi Institute, Piedmont Natural Gas and Habitat for Humanity. The goal is to provide free home weatherization to low-income households within Greenville County. Through this fellowship, I got to practice my passion for sustainable communities which integrates all three aspects of sustainability including: environmental, social and economic spheres by reducing carbon emissions from residential energy use, prioritizing vulnerable communities in the program and saving costs through providing the weatherization free of charge. The CCC program is also an important source of carbon offsets for Furman because any carbon emissions avoided through home weatherization are counted as offsets towards Furman\u2019s own carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

As a CCC fellow, I assisted with finding potential homeowners who are eligible for the program and inviting them to apply for free home weatherization. After processing these applications, we conduct home audits to find out specific features that need repairing or replacement when weatherizing their homes. Weatherization mainly aims to improve insulation, reduce air leakages and replace devices\/systems that require a lot of energy to operate. After weatherizing these homes, we then collect annual utility data which is crucial in observing trends of energy use pre- and post-weatherization to determine home energy savings, carbon savings and cost reductions.<\/p>\n

\"\"As a sustainability major, my fellowship has been an engaging learning experience that has rewarded me with strong skills in data analytics, climate resilience and carbon savings. I also got to work closely with other students in the cohort who are passionate about sustainability and environmental sciences. These fellowships are not limited to students in the Earth, Environmental, and Sustainability Sciences Department. Having discussions with fellows from different majors gave me new perspectives and a great way to act collaboratively in climate action.<\/p>\n

As I approach my senior year in college, this fellowship has truly guided my decision-making regarding the career path I would like to take in the future. It has also equipped me with experience that enabled me to serve the Greenville community as well as put my knowledge to use. I have no doubts that this fellowship will help in my career development post-Furman, and I would encourage anyone who is interested or slightly curious to pursue similar opportunities with the Shi Institute!<\/p>\n

For more information about the CCC program or the Shi Institute Fellows program, please contact Joy Baker<\/a> at joy.baker@furman.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Vanessa Amasi ’26 When it comes to warming hearts and homes, I could not think of a better way to do it than through my fellowship this year. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[15,14],"class_list":["post-1548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-blog","tag-furman-innovation-lab","tag-sustainability"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1548"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1548\/revisions\/1566"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}