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2011 Energy Efficiency Indicator Highlights

Johnson Controls has just published their 2011 Energy Efficiency Indicator, which is a survey that asks executives about their management practices, investment plans, technology integration, and financing approaches as they relate to energy use and real estate decisions. The survey covers everyone from CEOs to facility managers to sustainability executives in sectors such as government, education, finance, retail, engineering, construction, healthcare, and more.

Shannon Quinn of Johnson Controls Building Efficiency recently published a run-down of some of the most salient findings of this year’s report via Greenbuild:

1. Technology is key to tracking and reviewing energy performance. Across the globe, monitoring and analyzing performance data is essential to actual improvements in energy efficiency.
2. Markets are moving toward energy efficiency. Energy continues to be a strong priority for organizations around the world, driven by cost savings, incentives and public image.
3. Decision makers continue to face barriers to pursuing energy efficiency, including:
• Organizational barriers, such as lack of awareness of savings opportunities and lack of technical expertise to evaluate opportunities.
• Technical challenges, like difficulty assessing whether projects’ promised savings will be achieved.
• Financial barriers, including projects’ inability to meet internal “hurdle rates” and not having capital to invest in projects
4. Common success factors exist among organizations more likely to invest in energy efficiency projects. Organizations that established goals, analyzed energy data more frequently, deployed more internal/external personnel resources and leveraged external capital implemented more energy efficiency improvement measures than organizations without those characteristics

Some statistics were particularly interesting:

• The importance of energy management went up 14% with US and Canadian respondents and 6% with European respondents.
• Respondents from the US and Canada rank energy cost savings, government incentives and rebates, and enhanced brand image as the most important factors in energy efficiency decisions.
• European respondents ranked energy cost savings, government incentives and rebates, and increasing energy security as their top three most important factors in energy efficiency decisions.

With ever increasing energy costs, it is not surprising to see an increased interest in energy efficiency and the tools and technologies to achieve that.