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Following the launch of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, the public sector has been drawn into the Government’s commitment to dramatically reduce the UK’s carbon output. As part of the CRC, high energy using organisations in both the public and private sector have been issued with strict targets to deliver carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reductions, with both financial rewards and penalties acting as a ‘carrot or stick’ incentive.

The pressure to meet these targets has caused trepidation among some; however, with a little further investigation and learning from the experience of others in implementing change, the challenge may not be quite as daunting as many first feared. For businesses in the UK to meet these challenges head on, it is worth examining what the Antipodean experience has been and how they have tackled something similar to CRC.

Capturing data
At E.ON, we work closely with CarbonSystems, a global provider of energy and carbon accounting software. The Australia-based company has been helping organisations comply with the Australian government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERS) introduced on 1st July 2008. Working across a range of sectors including education, electricity and gas, government, IT and mining, they’ve helped capture, report and manage a wide selection of environmental data. As a result, there is ample advice to hand which the UK public and private sectors should bear in mind in order to successfully implement CRC:

• data capture: experience shows that the collection of data is a significant and onerous task and organisations tend to underestimate the time it will require. This is an important job so sufficient time must be put aside to manage it properly;

• data knowledge: knowing where the vital data resides is essential, so regardless of whether organisations are using software or spreadsheets to collect or manage data, they still need to do a detailed data mapping exercise. Companies shouldn’t become reliant on a single individual to keep the rest of the organisation in the loop; there must be solid, up-to-date documentation readily available;

• experienced team: a multi- stakeholder team (which ideally should include experience from facilities management, sustainability, procurement, finance and IT) managing the project is by far the most successful way to implement the technology. There will be lots of data drawn from across the organisation, so a broad collection of understanding will be vital to manage it effectively;

• communication: this is very important for success; organisations must communicate early and clearly to other stakeholders about what they are going to require from them.

Get prepared early
Being prepared and organised is definitely the key here. Companies need to work out early on what their reporting outputs need to be so that they can ensure the right data is collected first time. Beyond preparation, a good, solid basis for generating exception reports needs to be in place. This will help organisations identify missing data and data that is unusual or outside of normal thresholds.

The reporting requirements of the CRC are intensive and the collation of an effective evidence pack is already being seen as a tough task by many organisations. Indeed, a survey last autumn from enterprise applications vendor SAP suggested that only a third of businesses were fully prepared to do this. It’s important to remember that compliance is only a short-term objective for energy and carbon management.

Of course it can’t be underestimated, but organisations need to remember that compliance is just the first step. Ultimately, the motivation behind the CRC is to make organisations – either public or private sector - more eco-friendly. For this to happen, the next step will involve leveraging the intelligence to drive energy efficiency and carbon reduction.

Therefore the collection of information provides the insight required to strengthen the organisation and provides a base to acquire added value, so going the extra mile is invaluable. By collecting a small amount of extra data, such as the size of properties (in square metres) or number of employees etc. it is possible to quickly build up benchmarks across properties and business units.

Comparing properties or assets of similar characteristics provides an ideal opportunity to identify the gap between very good and very bad performers. These results may provide the opportunity to introduce simple, cost-effective steps that can be taken to improve performance in various locations of the organisation.

Experience shows that the best short-term wins come through behavioural change driven simply by a clear picture on energy consumption. Some simple programmes to provide people with performance data, some tips on things that can be done to reduce consumption - as well as some friendly competition - can reduce consumption by 10 to 15 per cent.

A longer-term transformation of energy and carbon profiles will come through investment in energy efficiency programmes, so organisations need to ensure these can be tracked and managed to provide accountability for the payback/ROI.

Michael Woodhead is Managing Director at E.ON Sustainable Energy.

This story featured in the June 2010 edition of Energy in Buildings and Industry.