By Emily Artale and Hillary Dobos

One of the first steps of any successful energy management program should be an analysis and review of your building’s utility data. This is one way in which your building tells a story of its performance. We, as Energy Managers, use this story to verify personal narratives of your building’s operation, evaluate opportunities for improvement, identify patterns and trends of energy consumption, and benchmark against similar facilities. And, sometimes we can use this data to identify immediate solutions for cost savings.

How can such a seemingly simple resource provide so much valuable information? Utility data is objective and accurate; it documents actual consumption values and actual costs with an infallible memory. It can tell us when the building becomes occupied, when the building is reaching its peak demand, and when abnormalities in use and costs occur.

BlogEmily and HillaryNovember 18, 2014Goal Setting, Quantitative Goal Setting, Utility Data, Sustainability goals, CommunicationComment

Setting Reduction Targets with Limited Information

By Hillary Dobos and Emily Artale

Setting sustainability targets can be one of the most intimidating and invaluable steps in creating a robust sustainability program. Goals need to be measurable and have real appeal to constituents and decision makers, but most importantly, goals need to be credible. We define a credible goal as one that can be realized while pushing the organization to make meaningful, aggressive changes where real benefits accumulate. But, how can an organization identify quantifiable, credible targets with limited information? How can they ensure that their goals are achievable so they do not miss their targets, while ensuring that they are not so easy that they are perceived as pointless?