There are three primary ways you can reduce your energy costs:
- equipment upgrades
- buying initiatives (including energy procurement)
- people-based solutions
All are important and potentially valuable. Equipment companies offer solutions that save money while you consume energy. Unfortunately, they also require up-front capital and several years to pay off before any net savings can be realized.
Buying consortiums are helpful and important, but usually offer only limited, single-digit savings.
When building a people-based solution, some organizations believe the free advice available through state and government agencies, equipment manufacturers, and the web are all they need. Others try a formal, do-it-yourself approach.
But only Energy Education offers a solution built on nation-wide experience, extensive expertise, a 24-year reputation, and a highly-refined methodology that produces savings by changing your culture, not your equipment.
That’s what makes our program truly unique.
Buildings don’t consume energy. People do. So our focus is on changing habits and equipment configurations using a proven system that ensures success. No other solution offers a level of savings worthy of the kind of work you do.
How is Energy Education’s program distinct from “free” advice?
It seems everyone is hopping on the energy conservation bandwagon. From Wal-Mart initiatives to state-led savings programs, everyone has a great idea about how to save energy, protect the environment, and save money.
We’re glad to have some company. After all, we’ve been focusing on reducing energy consumption and maximizing savings for more than two decades.
But not all people-based, people-driven, people-sensitive programs are alike. Coming up with a few generic, energy saving ideas is only a fraction of the challenge. Transforming an entire organization into one that embraces an energy conservation culture using a customized program coupled with a comprehensive implementation methodology is another matter entirely.
Anyone can come up with a few tips. But Energy Education is the only firm in the world that combines decades of experience in knowing what to change with decades of experience in knowing how to make those changes stick.
Our experts and specialists look at your unique needs and train your personnel in how to save money.
Our program doesn’t just tell our clients what to do. We show them, and then work together to ensure your savings plan is successfully implemented.
So how is free advice different than what Energy Education offers you? It’s the difference between a few energy saving tips versus a comprehensive and customized implementation program and partner to help put it into place. Generic programs produce minimal savings. Energy Education creates long-term, systemic change that produces maximum savings and impact in the lives of those you exist to serve.
How is Energy Education distinct from in-house, do-it-yourself efforts?
Over the years, Energy Education has watched various organizations attempt to implement a formal energy management program on their own. Here are the kinds of problems we’ve consistently observed in these situations:
Heavy-handedness: Many organizations have no idea how to properly motivate and train people to willingly participate in a transformational energy management program. Eventually, they resort to holding staff accountable in ways that create frustration and even antagonism. The result: their program becomes unpopular and ultimately unsustainable.
Inability to maintain priority focus: All energy management programs begin with good intentions. But over time, important initiatives become burdensome and difficult to maintain, especially as new, competing priorities surface. The result: their program becomes lost amidst a sea of other worthy pursuits.
Unable to secure required expertise: Comprehensive energy conservation programs that yield maximum savings demand enormous expertise. Organizations find it virtually impossible to hire a single expert, much less dozens of experts and specialists equivalent to what Energy Education provides. Conservation and significant savings require tested, refined skill-sets and systems, not simply well-intentioned, intuitive-driven staff. The result: mixed results and single-digit savings, at best.
To make matters worse, when in-house efforts fail, they often leave behind a culture that is predisposed against any kind of energy conservation initiative. In our experience, the cost of an in-house program is not only found in sub-standard savings, but also in a culture that resists future attempts at making energy management a priority.
In our 24 years of experience, we have never seen a single instance where the gross or net savings from an in-house program exceeded the kind of savings Energy Education offers.
For more information, check out our case study on a K-12 school district that attempted to implement its own solution and ultimately hired Energy Education to manage its program.
How is Energy Education distinct from equipment company solutions?
Most equipment companies offer energy savings solutions that focus and depend on buying new, energy-saving equipment. That requires significant up-front capital.
Energy Education’s program, on the other hand, requires no up-front capital, no new budgeted money, and relies on a customized, people-driven program that takes advantage of the equipment you already own, whether it’s 50 years old, or the latest and greatest equipment and control systems available on the market.
So while equipment companies require you to buy new equipment to conserve energy and save money, Energy Education leverages assets you already have — your people and your existing equipment — to drive savings.
And it works. With Energy Education:
- Your ROI (Return On Investment) is measured in months, not years
- We optimize your existing equipment and even extend the useful life of that equipment
- We require no capital investment
The net result is that we conserve more energy and save more money than the best equipment money can buy.