(This is the Table of Contents, Executive Summary, and Introduction to From Shop Floor to Top Floor: Best Business Practices in Energy Efficiency, available from the PEW Center on Global Climate Change)

From Shop Floor to Top Floor: Best Business Practices in Energy Efficiency

by
William R. Prindle
ICF InternatIonal

Foreword Eileen Claussen, President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change

Driven by rising energy prices and growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, companies are implementing aggressive, corporate-wide energy efficiency strategies. Leading companies are not only setting ambitious energy savings targets, they are reaching out to suppliers and customers, and engaging employees at all levels of the organization to advance an ethic of energy efficiency.

The results are impressive. Some companies reported billions of dollars of cost savings and millions of tons of avoided greenhouse gas emissions from their efficiency efforts. These businesses are leading the way in demonstrating that the climate challenge can be met in a way that allows for continued, robust economic growth. The companies that have achieved these successes share several key attributes. In this Pew Center report, author William R. Prindle of ICF International, catalogues and describes these attributes, which include:

• A commitment to energy efficiency must start at the top. Strong leadership from senior managers, including the CEO, is essential to getting an energy efficiency strategy started and sustaining it over time.
• Data management matters a great deal. Today’s best efficiency programs strike a delicate balance: they collect voluminous data, without inundating decision makers with an overwhelming volume of information.
• Results can be maximized by expanding efficiency efforts to suppliers and customers. Many companies have found that much of their energy use and greenhouse gas emissions occur outside of their own direct operations. As a result, companies are reaching out across their value chain to tap into even larger energy savings opportunities.
• An emphasis on energy efficiency can lead to broader innovation and process improvements within a company. As companies in this study have found, the benefits of energy efficiency go beyond dollars saved and carbon emissions reduced; it can also lead to product quality and productivity improvements.

The Pew Center would like to thank Dr. Marilyn Brown, Matthew Cox, Adam Hinge, and Christopher Russell for their comments on an earlier draft of the report, and the many member companies of our Business Environmental Leadership Council that provided comments and guidance throughout the research process.

Contents