Will you Thrive or Survive?

1.  What is your level of proficiency?

2.  Where do you need or want to be in the future?

This guide introduces a basic, quite crude model, to help all types of energy user:

It’s meant to be a simple guide based on practical experience and feedback from energy users over the years.
The real value often comes from talking about this with the other people involved. 

 The model has 5 levels:

• Level 0: I don't think about energy efficiency
• Level 1: Foundation Level
• Level 2: Everyday Champion
• Level 3: Smart Savers
• Level 4: Master Practitioner or Leader

We rely too much on just hoping we're efficient

• Many organizations waste at least 20-30% of the energy they buy. (#CarbonTrust)

• In some countries, buildings consume two to three times more energy than their equivalents in other countries. (#BetterBuildingsPartnership)
• We rely too much on others to tell us what is efficient despite them not knowing our operations and having to make assumptions.
• Our fear of making mistakes also means we inevitably overprovide in our facilities and operations.
• Recognize the avoidable energy waste coming from overprovision and take advantage of the opportunity!

Thrive or Survive

Surviving means we carry on as we are i.e. business as usual which often means fear, anxiety and a lack of trust.

Or we can focus on thriving with the courage to try things out – the ultimate aim is to be confident we’re only using what we need.

Thriving relies on both technical and behavioral solutions; behaviors are important as proficiency in energy performance always comes back to the people involved.

This basic 5 level model is based on practical experience from over 25 years of improvement projects. The secret is to connect the technical, behavioral and operational aspects of change.

Logistics Company Achieves ISO 50001 in Record Time

Challenge: Involve, empower and train local everyday champions, doing it for themselves

Result: ISO 50001 certification achieved in less than 6 months with a new continual improvement energy system in place 

“This is a fantastic achievement and demonstrates how a collaborative and focused approach can bring our teams together from different countries and at all levels in our business to gain this certification so quickly. I am impressed with the team’s commitment to energy management and their enthusiasm in meeting the aims of our policy.” Company Chief Operations Officer, 2018 

“It has been a pleasant surprise to audit a company that is doing it not only because it is needed, but also because they are into the subject!” External ISO 50001 Auditor

The 5 Proficiency Levels 

Level 0: I don't think about energy efficiency - it's all on most of the time

At level 0, the behavior tends to leave systems on for maximum levels of service or because there are perceived service or reliability issues. In reality, this practice isn’t adding value, but it is just significantly overproviding
We see this in some areas in at least 50% of the organizations we work with.

Level 1: Foundation Level - I'm active but risk averse

At level 1, individuals and teams are more aware of the drivers, but actions are low risk.
The problem is often that you still see energy & water savings going against other operational (priority) objectives.
Some of our colleagues call this level (a bit tongue in cheek) ‘toeing the line’:
– Some systems and equipment may be switched off, but generally…
– This only happens when risks are considered very low because of our fear of making mistakes.

“We have the water savings technology so surely our toilets must be efficient!?” our Customer Services Manager said, but in practice metered consumption showed the full flush button is still used most of the time.

Example Hospitality Lounge Chart – Visualizing Avoidable Waste

• Red shows typical energy consumption over a day, 24 hours
• In green, the chart plots the number of customers using the space over the same time period
• Comparing the two, through a commercial lens, means the avoidable waste jumps out at you
• Since then, the teams are now making progress and have saved the equivalent of $30,000 per year in reduced energy consumption (to 2019), with much more opportunity to target

Level 2: Everyday Champion - making it work as intended

At level 2, we find ourselves thinking about energy & water performance for 20 minutes or so every day.
Everyday champions can thrive in most cultures, often working by themselves in areas they know well.
This is about doing things right, following well-known operational practices and procedures.
Some measures may require some technical knowledge or input, such as understanding the benefits of upgrading boilers or retuning air-handling units.

Challenge:  Controls service partner to re-tune the air-handling units (AHUs) so they work properly again

Approach: Apply remedial measures and track savings on AHUs for a trial area so the system is controlled by ventilation requirements as intended – rather than being left on at full power, all the time

Savings per year (Electricity use): Low: 700 MWh; High: 650 MWh; Most probable: 600 MWh

See chart below

The 'Before' chart shows electricity consumption for one of the AHUs in the trial area over 7 days; you can see it only switches off overnight otherwise it runs at full speed (and full power) every day. The 'After' chart illustrates 70 to 80% daily reduction in energy consumption for this targeted area of use.

Level 3: Smart Savers – connections for ‘Win Win’ solutions

Level 3 is more sophisticated. We see many champions working effectively at this level. They prioritize projects with multiple benefits: a ‘Win’ for the organization and a ‘Win’ for  the people involved.

Typical Impact

• Bigger wins come about when you collaborate and work closely with colleagues, particularly when you involve others who best understand the levels of service required
• You learn from experience, though you can struggle converting action into on-going continual improvement for long-term savings

Example Key Actions

• Connect strategies and prioritize projects that improve service, occupant comfort. Make maintenance easier, as well as cutting costs and pruning environmental impact
• Apply tools that better connect people and simplify the process e.g. #Pareto80/20

Challenge: Building FM team to upgrade an airport departures lounge lighting system

Approach: Lighting upgrade to reduce energy consumption by 60-80% and also improve the ambiance in the area for passengers

Savings per year (Electricity use): Low: 120 MWh; High: 170 MWh; Most probable: 150 MWh

Level 4: Master Practitioner & Leader - taking pride in only using what you need

Level 4 is the pinnacle – the point when you have the proficiency to be absolutely confident you’re ‘only using what you need’. Some consider this is as the point of utopia to continuously move towards, that delivers overall best value, but one that you never actually reach.

Challenge:  Process performance improvement team were challenged to see how low they could go (in energy consumption) for a trial material handling process

Approach: ‘100-day plan’ of steps to highlight the level of avoidable waste and to apply an on-demand philosophy to the process to demonstrate how low they could go (utopia) by reprogramming the controls

Savings per year (Electricity use): Low: 500 MWh; High: 1000 MWh; Most probable: 750 MWh

See chart below

The left-hand side of the chart shows the (pre) electricity consumption profile over one day; the materials conveyor is switched on in the morning, it turns off for a few times during the day on its existing controls, but generally it is running, consuming energy for most of the time before being switched off at night. The right-hand side shows the results the team managed to achieve during the review; the chart demonstrates a very high 95% saving in energy consumption. This was a much-targeted area of use and, as such, we wouldn’t set this level of saving as a target in reality, but the factor 10 improvement does demonstrate that significant savings could be achieved by challenging current assumptions and so provides the Level 4 utopian target to aim for.

Join the New Age of Energy Leadership

At the beginning of this guide, we posed two questions:

1. What is your level of proficiency?
2. Where do you need or want to be in the future?

Yes, there’s good work going on, but we all know there’s so much more we can be doing – the time to do more is now.

This is a basic model to help champions and teams think about where they are and how they can help improve performance.

It provides a ladder that can be metaphorically climbed; you can’t just jump to the top – this is a process of getting fitter and staying fit.

Think about the opportunities you see, the savings that could be achieved and the actions that would help you deliver lasting change.

What’s important is that you just go for it. Don’t worry about being wrong or making mistakes – it doesn’t have to involve anything fancy or risky, just set up the simple structures to help manage the process and develop your level of energy proficiency and performance.

The everyday champion mindsets don’t change – focus on making it personal, making it focused, making it continual and making it desirable. And most importantly, make it yours.

In recent years, we’ve seen a new drive towards people-led approaches to sustainability in organizations. It's up to you to join in!

Example Sustainability Leadership Ladder for Energy & Water – collaborating for change

In 2018, an airport set about bringing together their business partner energy consumers around a drive for reducing energy & water consumption through better overall efficiency practices. The airport has been doing well in reducing energy & water consumption within its own operations but wanted to work more closely with its business partners, building on good work going on already across the airport.

A key part of the strategy was to co-create the shared vision together: as well as targeting ‘reducing consumption’ and achieving a ‘better utilization of resources’, the team prioritized ‘doing it together’ to influence and make it easy for colleagues and business partners to contribute.

The table below illustrates the summary application of the proficiency model used to help identify current levels of proficiency and  performance, identify the opportunities and input into the developing strategy.

Click to view the table!

Do you know whether you’re only using what you need?

• Most organizations consume much more energy than they need – this adds extra cost and environmental impact.
• Many of us have more energy & sustainability processes than we need – this adds friction & makes it all harder to do.
• Energy is often marginalized within organizations – because it’s seen to be a technical subject, not interesting or not understood.
• Consequently energy is not deemed to be core business or it’s contracted out to service partners and then side-lined.
• The result: strategic decisions are made without considering energy use, its cost or other impacts.

Yes, many of us are taking actions, but there’s so much more we can do.

Experience shows most of us struggle to optimize solutions. We may lack the engagement, alertness, skills, recognition or ability to adapt.

Follow this guide to find out to go to the next level.

Step 1: It starts by highlighting reality

How balanced are your pillars for success?

But in reality they rely on People and Organizational practices to work well

1. How confident are you that you’re only using what you need? 
2. What are your opportunities and priorities to thrive as an Energy Conscious Organization (EnCO)?

This guide uses an illustrative framework to check confidence for only using what you need & the checkpoints to ensure:

• Balance in outcomes – to deliver the 'Win for All’ to lock in benefits long-term
• Balance in skills – for an integrated approach to make it all intuative & easy
• Balance in measures – to check energy performance against goals & activities

Success is not about following any specific framework, but about being able to ask the right questions to the right people at the right time.

We see ultimate performance is the point when you’re absolutely confident you’re only using what you need.

  The 5 Pillars for Success for an Energy Conscious Organisation (EnCO)

 Engagement | Alertness | Skills | |Recognition | Adaption

• Developed by the Energy Services Technology Association (© ESTA).
• EnCO is a simple self-analysis tool to help assess the five people pillars for success.
• These are related and interdependent to define an Energy Conscious Organisation.
• The EnCO Matrix is used to assess the 5 pillars against 5 levels:

           - Level 0 to indicate little or no progress

           - Up to Level 4 to represent best practice

• Use informal conversations with colleagues as the basis to discuss and agree which levels apply to create the ‘current’ position.
• The profile, along with antidotal feedback from colleagues, forms the benchmark & the EnCO confidence score.
• An uneven profile highlights the weaknesses that can undermine the strengths.

Step 2: Win for All Catalyst - Engagement

Is everyone engaged in the right way for the ‘Win for All’?

Engagement is about creating the right conditions so colleagues can contribute:

• to organizational goals,
• in a way that benefits the people involved - the ‘Win Win’.

The ultimate outcome is a ‘Win for All’ – our organizations, our customers, our planet and ourselves.

It needs to involve All of Us

For any given task, we need to bring together the team with different perspectives, and then meet the needs of the individuals.

Asking the Right Questions:

1. Do you fully understand the context & needs/ expectations of your key stakeholders?
2. Is there a good compelling vision/ mission with a set of priorities/values in place?
3. Does everyone understand their role in delivering these?
4. Are you measuring, nurturing and continually improving your engagement?

Step 3: Alertness

Are all colleagues alert to the energy opportunities and measures to take?

Energy management through people is often one of the quickest & most cost effective ways to save energy & enhance sustainability

A collaborative approach means there’s more upfront discussion about opportunities & the questions to ask: 

1. Are goals and objectives realistic?
2. Are (strategic) activities delivering balanced outcomes for key stakeholders?
3. Which dragons of inaction are impacting on levels of alertness & action? (see box)
4. Are there adequate surveillance controls in place to monitor for changes in context & requirements?

The 7 Dragons of Inaction 

According to psychologist, Robert Gifford, there are 7 reasons why colleagues may not fully engage with your catalyst for change: 

1) ‘Limited cognition’: people tend to only have the capacity to think about short-term objectives, e.g. “My priorities are elsewhere.”

2) ‘Discredence’: there’s a natural mistrust or denial to new things, e.g. “I don’t believe people can make a difference.”

3) ‘Comparisons with other people’: to justify why they should do more, e.g. “if other people aren’t doing anything, why should I?”

4) ‘Sunk costs’: it’s usually hard to buy into something that conflicts with previous efforts, e.g. “we’ve tried it before, it didn’t work.”

5) ‘Perceived risks’: could be social, psychological, financial or physical, e.g. “it wouldn’t be normal for me to be green”

6) ‘Ideologies and beliefs’: people set their views to justify why they shouldn’t take action, e.g. “the boss won’t like it.”

7) ‘Limited behaviors’: some people offer tokenism; e.g. “we recycle, isn’t that enough?”

Step 4: Skills

Do your colleagues have the right skills to exploit the opportunities?

The Balance of Skills for Change

Prosci’s ADKAR model illustrates we need skills for an integrated approach:

• It starts with Awareness
• Then comes the decision to get involved; we need to create Desire
• After desire comes Knowledge
• Then Ability to make change
• For change to be sustainable, Reinforcement is needed

Focus efforts on Proficiency 

• Studies have shown that Ability is often a defining factor for successful change.

• It is a common error to think Awareness alone improves performance.

• Awareness increases Knowledge but, for it to be effective, it needs to be part of an integrated skills approach.
• Reinforcement often relies on Desire and the Balance of Skills to deliver success in outcomes.

1. Do top management, practitioners & significant users have the skills to deliver the activities required?
2. Have you absolutely minimized the amount of controls/procedures in use?
3. Are tools in place to make the activities as quick & easy as possible?
4. Can training/coaching/gamification help with developing confidence, skills & performance of those involved?

Step 4: Performance metrics - Recognition

Are you recognizing, measuring and reporting the results?

Typical Problems:

• No recognition of the benefits of energy management, savings achieved or those making savings.

Common Best Practices:

• Data systems in place with capacity to recognize savings achieved against robust targets.
• Recognizing benefits and co-benefits.

• Those making savings are routinely recognized and celebrated.

Link metrics to people & results

• Target measures that energize teams.
• Energy crediting systems can link savings to people and teams to facilitate recognition & reward – bottom-up savings should also be verified top-down.
• Dashboards/ trackers/ apps help people to make quicker/better decisions and reinforce & maintain momentum.
• Whether it be absolute or intensity measures that are better will depend on the situation.

The Balance of Measures

• Primary measures (overall organizational performance)
• Secondary measures (system/process or local performance)
• Indicative measures (which explain why performance has changed)

Measures can be either Lead or Lag:

• Leading (input) indicators offer the opportunity to change, but do not guarantee success
• Lagging (output) measures are used to assess past performance; they’re usually easier to measure but are after the fact

For best results, we need a balance of measures

Are you delivering the right results?

1. Are metrics communicated in a concise way so everyone understands how they contribute to strategic goals?
2. Do evaluation controls adequately monitor progress and provide feedback?
3. How are people rewarded for success?

Step 6: Adaption

Do your policies and practices effectively drive continual improvement and momentum?

ISO 50001 is the international energy management system standard to help us

Apply ISO 50001 in a streamlined fashion for effective continual improvement. Balance strategic thinking & controls with operational management processes

Do you need to adjust your plans?

• Are your goals and objectives realistic in the current (and future) context?
• Are you focusing on the right priority energy management activities?
• Does your team have the required skills and resources to deliver the activities?
• Do you have the right (minimum) checkpoints in place to monitor activities?
• Are your evaluation and feedback processes adequate?
• Are you achieving the right goals? Will you be delivering the right results in the future? 

Most impactful activities + the right checkpoints = confidence you’re only using what you need

What’s next?

Are you always asking the question ‘what’s next’ to drive momentum?

The Challenge

Are you interested in developing your own big green solution for your workplace? 

This makes total sense:

Involving colleagues at work is one of the quickest and cheapest ways of reducing carbon emissions and cutting utility costs for your organization at scale. 

Most organizations typically waste 20-30% of the energy they buy (#CarbonTrust). 

Governments are asking businesses to improve their energy efficiency at least by 20% to help meet our Zero Carbon climate change goals (#CleanGrowthStrategy).

Others say we all need to improve our energy productivity by at least 3% every year (#ThreePercentClub).

We know many organizations struggle with their programs and become disillusioned as energy savings don’t result or because they quickly fall away over time. 

How do you create the green spark and engage colleagues to deliver quick wins, i.e., develop your own big green solution? 

Once you do, how do you generate the momentum and benefits longer-term? 

There aren’t many step by step guides available that help take the mystery out of behavior change.

It’s not as hard as you think!

When we first started with people solutions, we massively surprised ourselves on what we achieved. So we thought we’d share some of our ideas & approaches within courses – hopefully to give you ideas & help you avoid the usual pitfalls & discover benefits for yourself.

A big green solution need to blend technical, strategic & behavior change measures

TECHNOLOGY alone will not solve it all 

Many of us focus 99% of our effort on the technical solutions, but this often requires large investment & only delivers half of the savings.

Best practice STRATEGY tells us: 

1. First focus on lean conservation measures to minimize costs & right-size investments.
2. Then, think about more efficient & clean energy technologies you can invest in.
3. Finally, use green energy supply options to lower the carbon impact of your energy use (#EnergyHiearachy). 

Put PEOPLE first at the heart of success 

Save 5-20%+ energy consumption by involving and engaging people (#EnvironmentAgency).

People approaches yield high ROI (#CDP reports say > 124 kgCO2/$ spent & IRR >72% for behavior change measures).

The ‘Big 3’ Ideas to help you deliver success:

What’s going to drive this for you? What’s going to make it rewarding & fun?

How are we going to deliver continual & sustainable improvements longer-term?

Step 1: Engagement

Center on engagement to get commitment and setup a vision to kick off with

What’s your current utilities bill?

For your organization and metered zones:

• What areas are you targeting? Schedule your local sites, buildings and areas being targeted
• What was your consumption for last year? This is for each utility source and area
• Are there any expected changes that will impact on energy and water use?

What are the needs & expectations?

Talk to local top managers and other stakeholders:

• Are there any energy and environmental policies in place?
• Are there existing plans and budgets for improvement programs?
• Does the organization use management standards? E.g. ISO 50001 for energy
• What are the legal and other stakeholder requirements that apply?

It is essential key top managers are on board:

• To understand opportunities, challenges & priorities
• To ensure plans and roles are joined-up, approved and resources made available
• To communicate the importance of better performance and savings made
• To ensure buy in for performance measures and interest in the results
• To celebrate success and say thank you to the everyday champions involved

We find many organizations still typically rely too much on awareness-raising campaigns and top-down standards & assurance processes, so miss out on potential results.

A starting vision:  Local Ownership

Step 2: Accommodate inspiration

Target the Win for the colleagues and the community through accommodating inspiration 

How good is energy & environmental performance in practice?

Anyone can be an everyday champion by typically spending 20 minutes a day thinking about & working on how to do things better.

Set-up regular Energy Time

Step 3: Coordination for better service

Coordinate your approach on continuing improving service and the Win for Customers

Target avoidable waste that adds no value

Use streamlined ISO 50001 for coordinated continual improvement

Challenge why Energy is Consumed

Heating, ventilating & air-conditioning systems are typically the largest energy consumers in most buildings; many systems run for longer than needed.  A hospital reviewed the operating times of their HVAC systems & found that most could be switched off for 2 to 3 hours a day without affecting comfort, saving 10% in fan running costs >> These quick wins saved $107,000 a year & set up their catalyst for change.

Step 4: Coordination for better returns

Coordinate your approach to also deliver the Win for the business partners involved 

Focus coordination with Pareto 80/20

Coordinate communications to colleagues

Coordination for continually better value 

Too much equipment still runs 24/7. For escalators, the simple thing to do is to turn them off overnight, when not in use, & maximize this “off” time — this generates interest & quick win savings. Only then is it worth investing in run-on-demand controls to slow escalators down during lull periods. A local everyday champion can optimize the controls; savings of $1,000–$2,000 a year per escalator is often possible. Further savings can then be made by making the stairs more attractive to use than the escalator!

Step 5: Collaboration

Connect together teams to generate the Win Win and energize change 

Collaborate using local events

Develop Hearts and Minds that stick

'Win Win' is a Good Thing

Lighting in buildings can still account for 20% of total energy costs. Staff working in a shopping facility targeted poor lighting that was receiving customer complaints. Upgrading the light fittings not only reduced energy consumption by 60%, saving $19,000 a year with a 2½-year payback, but also significantly improved the lighting ambience in that area; a classic “win–win” for those involved.

Step 6: Momentum

Put in place ways to develop momentum for continual improvement

Principles for a Community of practice that sticks

For critical mass, we need at least 2-5% of colleagues to be everyday champions to lock it all in.

• Make it local - develop a strong local team, give everyone a compelling reason to get involved, and help them understand their local energy performance.
• Make it focused - focus and coordinate efforts for the 'Win Win' while also giving it a sense of urgency.
• Make it continual - reinforce and adapt for change, communicate and communicate again, and always ask what’s next?
• Make it desirable - celebrate the ‘Win for All of us’ through benefits for energy and sustainability, the organization and for the people involved.
• Make it theirs – develop and refine the solution so it belongs to everyone involved – follow your instincts; ultimately, you will know what works best for your organization…

Best of luck and enjoy the process!

The “Big Green” concept was born out of success of working with teams at an airport (2007-2010). We surprised ourselves delivering an average of 15% savings across the airport in less than three years; the best areas saving 30%+. Regular workshops and events helped turn discovery into success. Directors reinforced key priorities, celebrated industry awards and were confident in letting everyday champions lead it all up locally for themselves.