An Operational Excellence Approach to Sustainable Energy Management

Abstract

With the advent of persistently high energy costs, many organizations have renewed efforts to reduce energy use. Historically, energy cost reduction efforts have been run on a campaign basis, receiving priority in times of high energy prices, while interest wanes when energy prices are lower. With today’s high energy prices and growing interest in reducing CO2 emissions, energy management must become a core business activity and be implemented in a sustainable fashion as an embedded work process at all levels in an organization. This paper discusses the use of the structured KBC energy management process, ENgage, to affect a fundamental change in the way an organization implements and sustains energy management activities. In particular the role of organizational behavior in achieving sustainability is discussed.