"Pearl Certification is among the most established, respected brands when it comes to energy efficiency and helping push the industry toward a better, greener future," said Bruce Matulich, CEO and executive director of EGIA. "Their experience in this space is a perfect complement to EGIA's mission to help contractors sustainably grow and improve their businesses while bringing more energy-efficient equipment into homes nationwide."

EGIA's Contractor University division is an educational group for home services contractors, delivering powerful training systems on every topic crucial to running a successful contracting business — and doing so via in-person and virtual workshops, comprehensive online on-demand classes and training resources, a live conference, and more. 

With this partnership, Pearl will collaborate on the creation of a variety of new content and topics in line with their own specialization areas, including the Inflation Reduction Act, building sciences, home certification and quality assurance programs, and more. These will be available in the Contractor University member dashboard, the Pearl Network LMS, or both. Plus, Contractor University and Pearl will offer each other's members reciprocal discounted pricing, ensuring contractors across the nation have access to this powerful, industry-shifting content. And it's not only contractors but utilities and their customers that will benefit from the EGIA-Pearl partnership.

"With over 3,000,000 utility and water rebate applications processed, and countless successful programs designed and deployed and successfully completed, EGIA is an undisputed leader in utility rebate program management," said Robin LeBaron, president of Pearl Certification. "Pairing that experience with Pearl's best-in-class reach when it comes to contractors, businesses and homes pursuing greater energy efficiency creates an incredible synergy. Working together we can inspire profound change in how utilities reward and advance energy efficiency."

Pearl and EGIA will also help spread energy efficiency nationwide through their combined pursuit of work with utilities and other rebate programs. EGIA's myriad program management services include: program design, program development, rebate processing, customer service and call center management, database management, program performance reporting, targeted marketing, fraud detection/prevention, and system security. When combined with Pearl's renowned certification programs, as well as its trusted work with homeowners, contractors, builders, real estate professionals and the public sector at large, the two groups are ideally positioned to create utility programs that have lasting change in terms of the proliferation of green and efficient technologies, and benefiting all of the above groups, as well as utilities and their customers.

The EGIA and Pearl Certification partnership officially launched at the beginning of 2023 and will ramp up over the next several months as research is undertaken, content is created and rebate programs are planned and proposed. To learn more about these organizations and their shared missions, or for contractors who would like to sign up and start using both groups' services to grow their businesses, visit egia.org or pearlcertification.com to learn more.