This post was writ­ten by Christo­pher Rus­sell, Energy Manager.

I just fin­ished read­ing yet another online forum that ques­tions why busi­nesses fail to adopt the obvi­ous ben­e­fits of energy effi­ciency. Energy effi­ciency pro­po­nents across the globe are dis­cov­er­ing the same hur­dle. The real cul­prit here is the threat of change. Orga­ni­za­tions can­not address their energy per­for­mance with­out mak­ing changes to their sta­tus quo. I refer here to changes to cap­i­tal invest­ment pri­or­i­ties, main­te­nance pro­ce­dures, and oper­a­tional behav­ior. An energy effi­ciency upgrade implies change on any or all of these dimen­sions. Remem­ber also that a team of deci­sion mak­ers has a say in the process. Each deci­sion maker has a unique per­cep­tion of the risks that change will bring to their domain. There­fore, these man­agers have vary­ing lev­els of (dis)interest in the solu­tion and its out­come. What’s good for the orga­ni­za­tion as a whole—energy savings—cannot be accom­plished if the pur­suit has dif­fer­en­tial impacts on depart­ments. Sim­ply put, if Depart­ment A pays for it and Depart­ment B books the sav­ings, the energy solu­tion is a non-starter.

The very nature of energy use can make effi­ciency solu­tions dif­fi­cult for an orga­ni­za­tion to adopt. Energy con­sump­tion has impacts that span depart­men­tal bound­aries. No one per­son truly “owns” respon­si­bil­ity for energy con­sump­tion. It reflects daily oper­at­ing deci­sions as well as multi-year cap­i­tal plan­ning cycles. Staff gen­er­ally bear no per­sonal account­abil­ity for the energy they con­sume on the job. All of this begs an expla­na­tion, which I’ll offer here in two parts:

1. “Silos” are an inter­nal prob­lem. Silos man­i­fest around depart­ments in an orga­ni­za­tion. Silos are the con­se­quence of the organization’s long-standing goals, respon­si­bil­i­ties, and cul­tural norms. Man­agers of sep­a­rate depart­ments develop men­tal and emo­tional bar­ri­ers that define their needs, pri­or­i­ties, and will­ing­ness to act. Silos are the rea­son why depart­men­tal man­agers bat­tle each other for bud­get dol­lars and func­tional author­ity. In this inter­nally com­pet­i­tive envi­ron­ment, man­agers focus on their bud­get posi­tion, not the company’s total bot­tom line. The value of energy efficiency—a true enhance­ment of the bot­tom line—is squan­dered by the inter-departmental dynamic of silo vs. silo.

2. Silos are a prob­lem among energy solu­tion providers. Energy solu­tions are so often pre­sented as ENERGY solutions—not as BUSINESS solu­tions. So by def­i­n­i­tion, an energy solu­tion is its own silo rel­a­tive to the larger pop­u­la­tion of busi­ness con­cerns. What exactly is the ben­e­fit of energy effi­ciency? The tra­di­tional answer: “util­ity cost reduc­tion” and “addi­tional cash flow to the bot­tom line.”  These results mean almost noth­ing to man­agers who mea­sure their suc­cess rel­a­tive to the inter­nal bench­marks of author­ity, bud­get resources, and depart­men­tal domain. Energy solu­tion advo­cates need to over­haul their mes­sage accordingly.

Indus­trial energy effi­ciency already has a large and grow­ing inven­tory of proven tech­ni­cal solu­tions. The “gears” are already there. What’s needed is the grease that allows those gears to turn. That “grease” would be the moti­va­tion for man­agers to embrace ini­tia­tives that tran­scend depart­men­tal silos for the entire organization’s bot­tom line benefit.

As for remov­ing the silos: Who will blink first, the providers or the adopters of energy solu­tions? The cul­ture of depart­men­tal silos and bud­get hoard­ing needs to give way to a new par­a­digm. Facil­ity man­age­ment should be per­ceived not as a cost to min­i­mize, but as a source of value. After all, energy is an inescapable ingre­di­ent of busi­ness. As long as an orga­ni­za­tion oper­ates, energy will shape cash flow in one of two ways: sav­ings that accrue or expenses paid for energy waste. Recap­tured energy waste is a cash flow sub­sidy to the core busi­ness agenda. In this par­a­digm, the facil­ity man­ager is an ally and not a com­bat­ant rel­a­tive to other depart­ments in the same orga­ni­za­tion. Show me a facil­ity man­age­ment agenda that pur­sues the recap­ture of energy value, and I’ll show you a facil­ity depart­ment that holds the key to its durable survival.