EDF Climate Corps fellow | June 30, 2010
By Stuart DeCew, 2010 EDF Climate Corps fellow at RBS/ Citizens Financial Group, Joint degree MBA/MEM candidate at Yale School of Management and Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University, Member of Net Impact
Consider the following scenario: the office building you sit in is a LEED gold certified building and continuously wins awards from state and local agencies for environmental leadership and design. Owners of low emissions vehicles and carpoolers are given preferential parking spots in the garage. Trees are planted in the interior of the building. The facility is a few hundred feet from a train station and bus depot. The cafeteria composts a majority of its food waste, and every workspace is designed to receive as much natural light as possible. Sounds like a nice place to go to work, right?
In my first two weeks as an EDF Climate Corps fellow at RBS/Citizens Financial Group in Stamford, CT, I've stepped off a train every morning and walked less than two blocks to a sunny, airy, pleasant workplace which includes all of those features. So everyday this summer, I will come to work with a smile on my face (enjoying the extra productivity from working in natural light), open up an Excel workbook, pick up the phone and search for the people and ideas that can help make this vision of workplace transformation a reality. In my (albeit brief) experience, three simple ideas have made the process easier.
1. Mine your organization for expertise.
People with more experience are almost certainly working on solving problems you didn't even know existed. Learn from them and lend a pair of hands whenever you can.
One of the first conversations I had at RBS/Citizens was with the head building engineer at the facility in Stamford. He had been designing and making the business case for implementing efficiency projects for over a decade. A quick cup of coffee with him made two things very clear.
- Even a LEED gold certified building has room to improve
- I will have no shortage of work this summer
In fact, at the time of our conversation, he was evaluating a project that would convert the light fixtures in the parking facility from metal halide to induction lighting. Upon hearing about the project, I offered to help. First, I checked the numbers with the lighting contractor. Then, I called the local utility about rebates for lighting projects and researched federal tax deductions for investments in energy efficiency for commercial buildings. A quick analysis revealed that this conversion could potentially save the company over $170,000 annually in operating costs and result in 220 tons of avoided CO2 emissions. In addition to the project's potential for strong financial and environmental return, it may even qualify for the aforementioned rebates and tax deductions.
With a small amount of research and a quick draft of a financial model, I helped build an even stronger case for the investment. In my short time at RBS/Citizens I have found that the company is filled with people who are asking the right questions about energy efficiency. My job is to get them the right answers.
2. Attach numbers to the hard work and expertise of others.
Not surprisingly, facilities, property and maintenance managers who are trying to keep lights on while maintaining building temperatures at comfortable levels and promptly responding to feedback from customers and management, may not have the time to research utility rebates or put together complex financial models that capture savings and benefits of energy efficiency. That's where I come in.
Luckily in my first week, I was put in touch with a customer operations manager and a maintenance technician who were already making smart investments in energy efficient lighting at a number of bank branches in Pennsylvania. They were, however, lacking a streamlined process to make the financial return on their effort easy to understand– which created another great opportunity for me to learn.
I am now collaborating with both the technician and the operations manager to create an improved process that will allow them to calculate the full financial and environmental impact of smaller capital expenditures for energy efficiency. Simply put, better data on an investment means a stronger case. With these numbers, RBS/Citizens will have the necessary information to determine exactly how future capital expenditures could reduce the operating expenses of a building and give the company a competitive advantage.
3. Always keep the local utility in mind, researching rebates or incentives available for the property.
In both of the situations above, I was able to identify programs with a local utility to bring down the initial costs of investing in energy efficiency. Furthermore, in the case of my work with customer operations and maintenance, I discovered that a previously completed lighting retrofit qualified for almost $2,000 in rebates from the electric company. These rebates were only identified through working on another project, which brought this opportunity to light.
These three simple steps are just a few of the many potential strategies I've come across to help make energy efficiency an institutional priority. In my short time as an EDF Climate Corps fellow, I have been impressed by the environmental commitment and expertise of the people I have met and work with at RBS/Citizens. Over the course of the summer, I look forward to listening to and collaborating with that network of people to develop a few more practical steps to incorporate energy efficiency as a standard management practice.
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This content is cross-posted on Vault.