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Guidelines for building an Energy Management Strategy

ENERGY STAR^® Guidelines for Energy Management

Based on the successful practices of ENERGY STAR partners, the U.S. EPA has developed guidelines for establishing and running an effective energy management program. The EPA has seen that organizations that adopt a comprehensive approach to energy management achieve significantly greater results than those without formal energy management programs.

Step One: Make a Commitment
Form a dedicated team to set goals, track progress and be the on-site "Energy Champion" for your business.  Senior management should have a written policy to drive the organization's culture and operational behaviors.

Become an ENERGY STAR Partner. A partnership with ENERGY STAR is a commitment to continuously improve your energy management, which saves your organization money and reduces air pollution.

Step Two: Assess Performance
Collect energy use data and document it over time.  Determine the starting point from which to measure progress.  Take Nicor's Navigator Energy Assessment questionnaire to compare your performance against other facilities, peers, and competitors to help you focus on areas for improvement.

According to the U.S. EPA, using a strategy that looks at the performance of a whole building increases your return on investments in energy efficiency in commercial buildings. The ENERGY STAR program provides tools and resources including the U.S. EPA's energy performance rating system for buildings delivered online through Portfolio Manager.

Step Three: Set Goals
The "Energy Champion" and senior management should develop the organization's goals.  Goals should be realistic, timely, attainable, measurable, and a little bit of a stretch.  The Energy Team should determine the scope and the parameters of the goals. 

Reviewing your benchmark in Nicor's Navigator Energy Assessment will help your team determine the potential order of upgrades.  Goals should be set for the entire organization and then incorporated into each department's operational plan.

Step Four: Create an Action Plan
Nicor's Navigator Energy Assessment tool helps you chart a course for savings and more effective use of your energy resources.  The key first step in an action plan is to be certain senior management has accepted and endorses the plan. 

Action plans should encourage an inclusive strategy that establishes the roles and processes throughout the business.  Some suggestions include:

Brainstorm with various departments to identify ways each can contribute. Hold an "Energy Awareness Day" competition to gather ideas from all areas of the business. The Energy Champion and the Energy Team should contribute to the ideation process as well.

Step Five: Implement the Action Plan
"Together everyone achieves more" is the best way to spell TEAM.  Executing your action plan is dependent on the acceptance, awareness and commitment of your peers.  Every employee plays a role and impacts the programs success. Be certain that your action plan includes a strong internal communications plan to raise awareness and motivate everyone. 

Post the organization's performance in lunchrooms and other key locations throughout the company.  Track and monitor how well your organization is doing.

Step Six: Evaluate your Progress
Evaluation results and information gathered during the formal review process is used by many organizations to create new action plans, identify best practices, and set new performance targets.

Step Seven: Recognize Achievements
Making the most effective use of your energy resources is a team effort and recognizing the people in your organization that significantly contributed to the progress is very important.  While this step is last in the list, it really should be executed at every available opportunity along the way in order to keep the team motivated and focused on the goals.

Get Recognition through ENERGY STAR  - You can get the recognition you deserve, with many opportunities to highlight achievements to the public and within your own organization, including earning the ENERGY STAR Label for your commercial buildings. Recognition from EPA provides external validation of your energy program and can enhance your organization's public reputation, making you more attractive to customers, students, current and future employees, business partners and other stakeholders.

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