• Generate a significant source of finance to fund sustainable development; if the model were widely replicated it could free up, potentially up to US$ 200-400 billion per year, globally.

• Make the process self-financing: some efficiency gains are passed on to consumers so that their costs go down by e.g. 5%, but actual costs go down by 25+ %. The difference finances the needed changes, compensates investors at an attractive rate, and a portion goes to local health care, or micro-credit, or low-cost housing, social insurance, etc.

• Thus, a direct link is made between more sustainable resource consumption and protecting the poor.

• Achieve rapid progress - any metropolitan region could do this within 3-5 years. No complex international agreements, no difficult price changes, no massive bureaucracies, and no unproven technologies are needed.

• Greatly improve the quality of local governance, municipal finance, and reduce tax burdens, as local businesses and citizens see the potential for managing resource flows themselves in a coherent strategic fashion. By making these resource flows more transparent, local democracy is strengthened.

• Make changes politically acceptable, as this involves redirecting funds already being spent. This allows a transfer of resources from rich to poor that is almost unnoticed-or at least seen as a good bargain.

• By just implementing "good housekeeping" methods, we can create large permanent reductions in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Energy Efficiency work in
sugarcane mill, Costa Rica,
with Biomass Users Network