Energy Exchange

As any energy manager knows, it’s one thing to find energy-saving projects that are worth doing, and quite another to get them implemented.  Over the last three years, EDF Climate Corps fellows have uncovered almost a billion kilowatt hours of potential energy savings, representing $439 million in net operating savings.  But our biggest question has always been, “Will the companies move forward with those energy-saving investments after the fellows leave?”  Thankfully, the answer is yes:  so far, companies report that they are implementing projects accounting for 86 percentof the savings identified by EDF Climate Corps fellows.

This year, as we looked back on three years of results, we noticed that many of the projects that got implemented first were lighting projects.  For example, Hospital Corporation of America will roll out a lighting retrofit program across the organization, and eBay recently upgraded the lighting in a 60,000-square foot building on its San Jose campus.  Other companies are employing devices to make sure the lights are on only when people need them:  AT&T will installoccupancy sensors in its 250 largest central offices, and Sungard is optimizing the lighting timers in its New York City office.

This is no surprise if you’ve ever looked at the ROI on lighting projects.  The upfront costs tend to be relatively low – zero in the case of delamping or switching timer settings – so payback time is short.  And lighting projects are pretty straightforward to identify.  You can often spot ways to cut lighting costs just by walking through a building, and use a $50 light logger to document when the lights are on and don’t need to be, as our fellow at AT&T did.

Beyond lighting, EDF Climate Corps companies are also implementing upgrades to HVAC systems, office equipment, and data centers.  Eaton is moving forward with an air circulation improvement in a North Carolina plant that could yield an annual electricity reduction of 2.5 million kWh.  eBay is currently installing power management software for all of its PCs.  And Cisco has raised temperatures in some of its research labs, which could save the company about $1.8 million and 18 million kWh of electricity annually.

But if we’ve learned anything about energy efficiency over the last three years, it’s that it has as much to do with changing behavior as changing lightbulbs.  And EDF Climate Corps fellows have contributed to several projects that integrate energy and environmental data into a range of business decisions.

For example, Compass Group North America created a web-based toolkit for its food service clients, illuminating choices they can make to cut their carbon emissions.  And Diversey has introduced several decision-support tools with the help of its EDF Climate Corps fellow, including one that factors energy and carbon emissions into capital expenditures, and another that tracks savings from avoided travel.  As the firm’s global travel is 10 percent of its carbon footprint, Diversey estimates $6 million in annual savings from reduced travel that can be invested in other energy projects.

Putting the facts about energy use and greenhouse gas emissions into decision-makers’ hands is a powerful way to spotlight the business and environmental benefits of energy efficiency, and move energy-saving projects forward.  Another bright idea brought to you by EDF Climate Corps.

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By: Jeff Crystal, COO of Voltaic Systems

In 2007, EDF Climate Corps helped launch me into my career at the intersection of business and the environment. When the opportunity came to work with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) on an innovative new program called Climate Corps, I jumped at the chance. The team at the time was small, and the program wasn’t yet clearly defined yet, just filled with unknowns. Having been at four startups prior, this felt just like home to me.

As the unofficial first Climate Corps fellow, I spent that summer working on a financial model, while running EDF’s own energy audit and implementing changes to reduce the NGO’s energy consumption.

The next summer, EDF brought 7 official Climate Corps fellows on board to search for energy efficiency opportunities at leading companies on the West coast. Now here we are, three years later, and the program has expanded seven-fold – with more than 80 total Climate Corps fellows working at Fortune 1000’s around the country to identify projects that could avoid more than 557,000 metric tons of GHG emissions. Though it’s seen its share of tweaks, the financial model I developed that first summer has been used to analyze all of these projects along the way.

Climate Corps confirmed my love for “hands dirty” operational work, and almost immediately after I completed my fellowship, I joined a startup that focuses on producing small scale energy systems, Voltaic Systems. Voltaic designssolar chargers and solar backpacks for powering electronics from cell phones to laptops and will soon introduce solar lighting.

Longer term, the Climate Corps experience has opened up a network of technical resources, a framework for thinking about sustainability and the knowledge to talk intelligently about this topic with a broad range of people in the industry. This fellowship has also given me a whole new vocabulary supported by a background of training and hands-on experience. I love being able to talk about the need for proper ballast settings on a T5 bulb or about the payback period of an HVAC tuning session.

The appreciation I maintain for sustainability is evident, not only in my company’s end-products but in all aspects of our business. Voltaic is constantly looking at ways to make our products more environmental friendly. We try to use fabrics and materials that use less energy to produce and require fewer (or no) toxic materials in their production process. I’ve kept in touch with former colleagues at EDF who have advised me on packaging providers that are doing interesting things with recycled PET, the limits of a Material Safety Data Sheet and emerging standards on phthalates.

When discussing my job opportunity with Voltaic, one question  that came up was whether that team could have a big enough environmental impact. EDF’s staff tends to think in terms of policies and programs that can remove millions of tons of carbon. Could a startup producing solar products make a dent? When we think about introducing new products that could have a negative carbon impact and potential ways to pressure our suppliers to use more recycled materials, EDF is in the back of my head, urging me to do more.