Build Your Energy Strategy
With the right tools, you can create a successful energy management strategy for your business.
There are six fundamental steps to follow when you are looking to start or improve your energy strategy.
1. Make a Corporate Commitment to Energy.
The foundation of your strategy starts with an executive-level commitment to make energy an integral part of your mission and operations. This commitment signals your dedication to energy management to the rest of the organization, investors, customers, and other key stakeholders. From here, choose a dedicated energy leader and create a cross-functional team to develop, implement, and manage your energy strategy.
Learn more about making a corporate commitment and dedicated energy teams.
2. Understand Your Energy Use and Establish Goals.
By understanding your energy performance, you can set achievable energy saving goals. Collect and analyze current and historical energy data to form a baseline of your business’s energy use. Consider benchmarking and comparing your performance to that of similar organizations. For each goal, determine how to measure and track success by establishing key performance indicators (KPIs).
Learn more about assessing your energy performance and setting goals.
3. Identify Energy Saving Opportunities.
Determine opportunities and solutions to help you meet each goal. Opportunities can range from sourcing and choosing clean energy to power your business, to upgrading equipment and systems (e.g., replacing inefficient lighting), to capitalizing on emerging technologies (e.g., fault detection and diagnostic technologies). Each opportunity should have an associated timeline, key milestones, and expected outcomes.
Discover and learn more about available technologies and solutions.
4. Review Financial Incentives and Programs.
There are numerous programs and financial incentives to help you start saving energy and money—including one-on-one technical support with energy specialists, and incentives and rebates for energy-efficient equipment upgrades.
Find energy programs and incentives you may qualify for.
5. Engage Employees.
An energy strategy is more successful if the entire organization is fully committed. This commitment involves communicating and raising employee awareness of your energy performance goals, offering trainings on energy management best practices, and rewarding those who identify or contribute to energy saving opportunities.
Learn more about employee engagement.
6. Continuously Monitor Performance and Reassess Strategy.
Evaluating your energy performance is a continuous process. Measure how you are performing against your goals and KPIs and identify which energy saving opportunities are working and whether any adjustments need to be made. Make sure to document and share your successes both internally and externally.
