6 Steps to Estate Energy Reduction
In the age of net zero and economic crises, finding ways to reduce energy consumption is at the forefront of many organisational agendas.
With buildings accounting for 39% of global energy carbon emissions, finding ways to optimise energy efficiency can be a key strategy in reducing carbon footprint and helping companies hit net zero targets.
When it comes to reduction however, understanding how to get started and implement initiatives that have actual tangible results can be a challenge. How do you measure energy reduction? How do you know what initiatives work, and quickly identify those that don’t?
Here’s a simple 6 step process to help get you on your way.
1. Understand what has a material impact
Before implementing any approach within energy efficiency or reduction, it’s crucial to understand what operations, processes or assets in your business carry impact or double materiality.
What that means is identifying areas within your organisation that have a negative impact on the environment or people from a sustainability or climate lens. Double materiality is then those processes that carry both sustainability and climate risks, but also financial risks in that they are essential parts for commercial viability.
Understanding and conducting a materiality assessment early on can help you cut through the noise and strategise to tackle high priority issues first.
2. Develop an asset register and database
With a materiality assessment conducted, you know where risks lie, and what assets or processes exist as part of those material concerns.
At this stage it may be worth:
- Creating an asset inventory or database, understanding exactly what assets exist, their name, their type and functionality, where they are located and so on.
- Developing a carbon or energy inventory, understanding what assets consume energy and in turn produce carbon.
At LoweConex, we can help to simplify the process of asset mapping. Using combined IoT and Cloud Connectivity, we connect to existing or new property and building infrastructure providing your organisation with accurate operational data on every asset in your estate.
Taking things further, you can observe, analyse and in turn control every asset, giving you energy reduction control at your fingertips.
3. Establish an energy baseline
How can you know where to go if you don’t know where you are today? Setting a baseline is a crucial step for compliance with regulation such as Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR), but also for accurate measurement of improvement in performance.
You’ll want to establish a baseline and monitor continuously against that baseline year-on-year to determine annual reduction.
At LoweConex, the Energy Management team in our Bureau can help support organisations with accurate energy baselining. Ongoing then, we’ll work alongside you to provide accurate energy reporting that monitors improvements year-on-year and suggest further actions to reduce energy consumption of assets within the estate.
4. Create an ongoing measurement methodology
Measuring continuously requires a clear methodology for data collection, analysis and visualisation.
Having a methodology that gathers data and aggregates it in a standardised way across the entire estate is crucial. Without a clear and robust methodology, data will become siloed or lost, or be full of inconsistencies in the capture methodology.
This in turn leads to poor and inaccurate reporting, and inaccurate control. Set a methodology and stick with it to help keep your energy reduction initiatives accountable and reportable.
5. Strategise and implement new initiatives
Often, companies will jump to this stage first without really thinking through the entire energy strategy end-to-end. Doing so can lead to a splintered approach to energy reduction with minimal impact on reducing energy to a tangible enough level that actualises cost reduction and commercial gain.
Only after having your baseline, data in place and complete visibility of assets and standardised control can you truly in turn achieve energy reduction at scale.
When implementing initiatives take them step-by-step and ideally one at a time. You want to understand the impact of each individual action, and having multiple initiatives running at one time can blur your visibility as to what initiatives have a true impact, and those that do not.
If you’re struggling to get to this stage (or see tangible reduction from energy initiatives), arrange a chat with us.
6. Measure, Verify and Improve
Every time you implement a new initiative or approach, ensure that you measure and verify the impact of that initiative to understand if it’s offering a material and viable impact.
You may choose to align your measurement process with the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP), which provides you with a clear and accurate level of visibility as to performance pre-initiative and post-initiative and in turn the energy reduction achieved.
At LoweConex, we provide clients with Measurement & Verification (M&V) reporting, allowing them to visualise the performance of sustainability and energy teams initiatives on generating cuts estate-wide.
Get in touch
If you are struggling with increasing energy costs, a lack of asset visibility and next to no control at scale, arrange a chat with our team today to see how we could help you take your estate control to the next level.