The Energy Conscious Organisation is more important than ever!

In this article Jes Rutter, ESTA Lead and MD of JRP Solutions, examines a major solution with significant potential to help tackle climate change and resource efficiency and is a call to action on the often forgotten or misunderstood area: behaviour change. Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA) and The Energy Institute (EI) have developed a new behaviour change initiative Energy Conscious Organisation (EnCO) where the urgency to deliver against its vision is becoming increasingly important.

Why is this initiative necessary?

A significant part of the solution for public sector organisations (as well as the UK Government) to meet the UK’s 2050 net zero target is the – still largely ignored – focus on behaviour change. 

Evidence suggests that behaviour change offers around 50% of the total potential energy efficiency savings available. The other 50% comes from technology and yet, as important as it is, technology currently gets the majority of the focus. A shift in focus is required, and soon, to ensure that the ‘hidden’ and largely untapped savings available from behaviour change are realised.

Behaviour change, in terms of energy consumption, is about eliciting targeted behaviours by framing choices in a way that makes them more environmentally friendly and efficient choices become easier to make.  Creating a dynamic system between technology and behaviour, rather than viewing them as separate entities is an important part of the intervention, and of being an EnCO. For example, organisations need to consider technology optimisation on an ongoing basis rather than just at the commissioning stage. This change will maximise efficiency at relatively low cost. Previous experience has shown us that behaviour change projects require relatively low investment, even including the cost of internal resources. 

One major difference to consider, compared to purely technical projects, is that the savings are not necessarily delivered overnight but instead typically take 4-12 months to be fully adopted and for savings to be measurable.  This requires an adjustment in expectations, as well as ongoing resource input (however low-level) to maintain and improve energy saving opportunities.

Our ambition is to excite people to challenge the norm, and to encourage mass adoption of energy efficiency good practice through more energy efficient behaviours and embracing the delivery of holistic large scale behaviour change programmes.

What is an EnCO?

An Energy Conscious Organisation is one who has employed behaviour change principles to make significant improvements across the following five pillars:

Engagement – Very high levels of engagement at every level of organisation on energy management including top management practices, significant users and all colleagues. All levels enthused and taking positive action.

Alertness – High levels of alertness/awareness across the organisation in eliminating energy waste, mechanisms to register waste with clearly delegated responsibilities and practical responses regularly actioned.

Skills – Top management, practitioners and significant users are fully skilled in their energy management roles. Commitment to continual learning and up-skilling is demonstrated by ongoing investment in education, competency and training.

Recognition – The benefits and co-benefits of energy management are widely recognized, and data systems track savings against robust energy targets. Those making savings are routinely recognised and celebrated.

Adaption – The organisation positively expects and embraces change, adapting and responding to minimise risk and maximise opportunities in a timely way to maintain continual improvement in energy management.

EnCO’s are recognisable with the mark “EnCO Registered Organisation” which has the following advantages:

• The progress achieved is externally verified recognition by experts and approved by ESTA and the Energy Institute
• The EnCO registration and logo (valid for 3 years) demonstrates good practice to shareholders, regulators, stakeholders and employees
• The method and approach sustains and improves energy consumption reductions and brings cost savings
• The programme partners will be engaging proactively to gain greater recognition and subsequent opportunities to gain access to work frameworks as a result of holding the accreditation
• Becoming part of the wider EnCO community to enable sharing of good practice
• Reduction in fees for EnCO courses
• Improved ability to attract new talent to the organisation
• A stimulus for continual improvement

What are the ESTA/EI objectives for EnCO?

The overarching aim of energy behaviour change is to promote and facilitate ‘non-consumption’ – which is the avoidance of consuming unnecessary energy in the first instance. This is in conjunction with the ‘Energy Hierarchy’ of ‘Lean à Clean à Green,’ whereby lean energy use is the most effective method to adopt, as it avoids the necessity for mitigation infrastructure in order to offset unnecessary consumption.

This principle underpins the EnCO vision and objectives, which are:

• To award “EnCO Registered Organisation” status to organisations demonstrating good practice in EnCO principles
• To deliver an initial 50-100 EnCO programmes for different organisations with results proven using the International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) over the next 2 years
• To capture past and existing case studies from all sectors including the public sector in order to create a wealth of evidence into a single open access evidence base on the EnCO web site, where new case studies will continually be added
• To build capacity by substantially increasing the number of skilled practitioners capable of supporting or delivering EnCO programmes
• To provide recognition of such practitioners, namely at Registered EnCO Consultant and the experienced, Approved EnCO Practitioner level
• To provide comprehensive tools, training and resources to practitioners
• To collaborate with government, sponsors and other associations to accelerate adoption
• The medium-term vision is that EnCOs will generate 10% of energy reduction savings through behaviour change by 2030

What is the size of the opportunity? vision?

Hitherto, even the IPMVP proven case studies, (which have demonstrated ~10% savings across an organisation), only covered at most a quarter of the potential areas for behaviour change improvements.  A fully holistic approach has the benefits of joining up all of the elements into one cohesive behaviour change initiative: there are examples where up to 50% savings have been achieved from a systematic review of an organisation.

The benefits of delivering just 100 proven case studies for medium to large energy users, using IPMVP methodologies, is conservatively estimated to be £12.5m/year with an investment of £9.5m.  The larger benefits, once this approach becomes mainstream, is estimated to be at least many hundred times this. 

The key opportunities of delivering local, relatively quick, low-cost energy savings through behaviour change have been consistently demonstrated for the organisations involved. In addition, there is significant added value to be achieved if ‘non-consumption’ is delivered at scale, which also presents a significant opportunity for UK plc to be seen as global leaders in behaviour change and for the export of skills and know-how. 

Progress on key objectives vision?

• There are over 140 different types of intervention that can be designed into people-driven initiatives that characterise EnCO. The methodology and approach for implementation as one single holistic, robust and best practice approach is being shared as part of the Energy Conscious Organisation initiative. This includes deliverables such as a behaviour change gap analysis (the EnCO Matrix), specific guidance on how to apply IPMVP techniques to behaviour change projects and a framework for building a business case.
• The ESTA Accredited training programme, aiming to increase the number of practitioners, commenced in July 2020. This is based on a four-module programme, currently being delivered online, which when combined with course preparation and exercises, now amounts to twelve hours of CPD approved study. A post course examination is taken, and success leads the delegate to becoming a Registered EnCO Consultant. The two full courses completed in 2020 saw the certification of 35 Registered EnCO Consultants. This is just the first step: once the consultant (whether in house or external to an end user organisation) has delivered a single EnCO case study verified by a panel, then the person will be eligible to become an Approved EnCO Practitioner. 
• The basic ESTA/EI tools to deliver or support implementation of behaviour change projects are now in place.  A dedicated EnCO web site has been launched, case studies written, EnCO qualifications defined (at individual and organisational levels), training courses delivered and an EnCO IPMVP approach has been defined.  Four concurrent courses started in January 2021 with 70 delegates and further courses will start in April.  This could see an additional 150 Registered EnCO Consultants by June 2021, but we need more!
• In addition, an EnCO gap analysis tool (the ‘EnCO Matrix’) has been issued in an Excel based system with automated scoring, which shows an organisations current position (‘as is’) and desired position (‘to be’) which may be in progressive stages. The gap analysis is scored in a range of 0 to 4 against the five key attributes of behaviour change.

To enable change to take place at a faster rate, the initial vision includes delivering 50 to 100 proven case studies using IPMVP in the next two years.  This requires 10 to 20 pilot projects in the short term.  Any public sector organisation interested in being involved or becoming an “EnCO Registered Organisation” is asked to contact ESTA.

Starting the journey to becoming an “EnCO Registered Organisation” would mean following a structured approach that future-proofs organisations, creates the required skillsets and gathers evidence to advance towards a Net Zero world powered by people.

If you have a historical case study, whether holistic in approach or not, please make contact and share your experience.  If you work within or for an energy end-user organisation, we are looking for your interest and participation. 

Please visit the EnCO website at www.energyconsciousorganisation.org.uk and get in touch via admin@energyconsciousorganisation.org.uk