Measurement and Top 10 Mistakes

8/8/2019 Measurement and Top 10 Mistakes

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Top 10 mistakes to avoid when measuring your environmental performance

2009 Planet Footprint planetfootprint.com Page 1 of 7

10 mistakes to avoid1. Not setting clear goals.2. Biting off more than you can

chew.3. Sweating the small stuff.4. Confusing campaigns or

engineering projects with ongoingmeasurement.

5. Confusing ownership with 'doingit all yourself'.

6. Not planning for change.7. Inconsistency.8. Treating software as a panacea.9. Compromising on independence.10. Not progressing past

measurement, or diving intoaction.

Environmental reportingbecomes just one more painfuladministrative task for your staffto complete.

Top 10 mistakes to avoid when measuring yourenvironmental performanceEffective ongoing measurement of yourenvironmental performance is the foundation forimproving your bottom line, your reputation andyour environmental impact, regardless ofwhether you're a small company with one or twosites or a large national organisation managinghundreds of facilities. Too often, organisationscome unstuck when trying to reliably measureand report their performance.

The good news is that there are a few keymistakes that cause failure and they can berecognised and avoided. We got together atPlanet Footprint to describe the top 10 mistakesthat we regularly see organisations make.

Mistake 1. Not setting cleargoalsToo often the goal of measurement and reporting becomes just that: measurement and reporting.There is a great risk that your environmental reporting becomes just one more administrative taskfor your staff to complete. The result is that they either won't do it well or won't do it at all. The

best way to ensure against this is to set performance improvement goals and measure only thethings that help you reach those goals.

Examples of business goals include setting improvement targets for individual properties ordivisions, or requiring that managers explain reported anomalies in consumption or charges forenergy and water. Setting goals helps you get and keep the attention of property managers andother staff.

Large organisations, including government, are particularlyprone to making this mistake because they are oftendriven by compliance. Even if your main reason forreporting is compliance, the attentiveness you generate byhaving even a few simple business goals gives you more complete, timely and accuratecompliance reports. If your staff are interested in what is being reported they will make moreeffort and the results will be more complete and accurate.

Some symptoms of not setting goals are:o Meetings devolving into a discussion of 'What does sustainability meananyway?'o Having Key Performance Indicators that are even more vague than those of the Human

Resources department.o Including 'improved environmental performance measurement and reporting' as an outcome

of your project. (Life's a circle).

Lack of goals is a main contributor to the second biggest mistake ...


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Mistake 2. Biting off more than you can chewMany organisations embark on over-ambitious measurement and reporting regimes. The result isusually that the project gets bogged down in the design phase because stakeholders can't agreeon the what, how, when of the measurements. If the system ever gets implemented it often failssoon after because staff don't have the time or confidence to complete their tasks.

It's better to have a simple system that works reliably than a complicated one that doesn'twork at all. That doesn't mean the system will be so simple as to not be useful. There areoutsourced measurement and reporting services that can provide comprehensive and relevantinformation much more efficiently than can be achieved using internal staffing.

Remember, the goal of any reporting system is to alert you to problems and opportunities andmake better and quicker decisions to overcome or capitalise on them. Even if you are ambitious

about the range and depth of issues that you want covered it still pays to start off simple. Peoplein your organisation will accept incremental improvements to a simple system that's alreadyrunning smoothly because they will trust that you aren't wasting their time.

Some symptom of "biting off more than you can chew" are:o Remaining in the 'design' phase, even after several rounds of committee and management

meetings.o Overhearing someone calling you to Kevin Costner and referring to your project as

'Waterworld'.o Requiring daily or weekly data gathering and reporting, when monthly, quarterly or even

yearly data would be just as effectiveo Complex data gathering and reporting templates that no-one completes.o Out-of-date environmental reports on your intranet or internet site.

Mistake 3. Sweating the small stuffNo matter how well you've designed your measurement regime there will be times when you can'tget all the data or you can't get it on time. A common mistake that environmental professionalsmake is to stop everything and dedicate all resources to rectifying the problem. This is akin to acompany refusing to release quarterly profit figures because there's a box of pencilsmissing from the stationery cupboard. The flow of information to decision-makers stops andstakeholders lose confidence in the reporting regime.

A colleague sums it up well, if not too elegantly. "Too many people are hung up on measuringthe greenhouse impact of a cockroach farting in the corner of their office, while ignoring that theirHVAC system is left on all weekend".

If there is a problem, spend a little time considering whether the problem really matters beforeyou hit the panic button. (In compliance speak, they call this materiality). Is it worth missing outon all the other useful outputs of your system just because a few pieces of data are missing? Itis important to address problems but it's vital to understand that, especially when it comes to thecompleteness of large data sets, there are diminishing marginal returns. Trying to collect the last2% of missing data can take a lot of time, has no guaranteed outcome, and probably has littleeffect on the accuracy of your reporting or the soundness of the management decisions you baseon it. It's also useful to keep in mind that some problems are solved more easily with thepassage of time.


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Good environmental scorekeeping means being transparent about completeness andaccuracy, and involves making sensible estimates to cover missing data.

Some symptoms of sweating the small stuff are:o Being told you are solely responsible for holding up the publication of the annual reporto Missing lunch because you haven't finished counting your paper clips.o Perfectly measuring the electricity consumption of your head office but then completely

forgetting to measure your regional offices at all.

Mistake 4. Confusing campaigns or engineering projects withongoing measurementEnergy and water audits, engineering assessments and behavioral campaigns are great ways toimprove environmental performance, but they don't provide fundamental ongoing measurement.

Even small organisations must monitor performance independently of individual campaigns andprojects in order to ensure that equipment is maintained and that improved staff procedures aresustained. Large organisations have the added challenge of understanding the relativeperformance of dozens or hundreds of assets or properties.

Some symptoms of confusing campaigns or engineering projects with ongoing measurement are:o Having interval meter electricity data for your swimming pool, but no information about how

the pool performs overall.o Having data for a few interesting properties over a short period of time but having no idea

what's going on overall.o Not being able to easily ascertain the financial implications of asset performanceo Being told that you're saving $583.67 on your yearly office electricity only to discover by

accident that you're paying $2,500 per year in water due to a leaking pipe.

Mistake 5. Confusing ownership with 'doing it all yourself'Owning and improving your environmental performance does not mean having to do every littlething yourself. Measuring performance in particular can be very time consuming and harrowing,leaving little time or energy for actually improving what you measure. Some organisations hireand manage temporary staff to key in data from reams of paper invoices into software developedby their engineer in his spare time, believing that this helps them keep ownership. In fact, it doesthe opposite. They spend a lot of time managing the temps and the developer, and very rarely doeither leave sufficient documentation for the system to survive in their absence.

In the past you may have done this because the only alternatives were to trust contractors toverify their results or to engage expensive consultants to do one-off 'inventories' of issues such as

energy, water and greenhouse. This has now changed. These days even small organisationscan afford to outsource their environmental scorekeeping. They own the results and havemore time to act on them to improve performance and reduce costs. It's really no differentto outsourcing your book-keeping so you have more time for planning and managing finances.

Some symptoms of confusing ownership with 'doing it all yourself' are:o Archive boxes full of electricity, gas and water invoices under your desko Attending meetings where people talk about 'XML' and 'CSV' with an evangelical look in their

eyeso Humming the on-hold music of your electricity, gas or water retailer during your lunch break.


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Mistake 6. Not planning for changeThese common changes are sure to affect your environmental reporting:

- Staffing changes- Changes of supplier. For example, your organisations changes electricity retailer or

your water authority merges with another one.- System changes by your suppliers. For example, new billing formats for electricity

and gas.- Regulatory compliance changes. For example many greenhouse programs are

changing from Scope 3 to Scope 2 emissions for stationary energy.- Property portfolio. Many organisations open, close and move several branches and

facilities during the course of each year.

A good measurement and reporting regime will tell you when something has changed, forexample, when you've stopped receiving electricity bills for one of your properties. It will alsomake it easy for your staff to adjust to that change, for example, by prompting your Accounts

Payable staff to identify a new account.

Poor handling of change is the biggest failing of in-house and software-only systems. Lacking experience, the in-house project team (or more often than not, sole developer or'champion') bite off too much by building in lots of functionality with scant regard for how the datawill get into the system over the coming years. Too often, managers don't pre-empt what willhappen if the developer or 'champion' loses interest in the project or leaves the organisationaltogether.

Some symptoms of not planning for change are:o Having no information about new properties even though they are the most important ones to

track.o Waiting 3 months to get a report because the guy in IT that wrote the system is on long

service leaveo Reporting system grinds to a halt because Finance have changed half of your electricityaccounts over to a cheaper retailer.

Mistake 7. InconsistencyIn general there are two types of inconsistency: inconsistency over time and inconsistencybetween facilities. Both play havoc with your results, making it hard to confidently report yourperformance or make good decisions about improving it.

Inconsistency over time is caused by either changing your methodology or not following yourmethodology. It happens a lot in organisations that have either not set goals or have bitten off toomuch (see Mistake 2).

One approach that can help achieve consistency over time is to ensure your system can alwaysprovide the 'latest version of history'. Accept that standards and methods will change (for thebetter). Good systems and services can easily recalculate a range of reports using the samebase activity data and an updated set of factors and methods. It means your environmentalperformance reporting can evolve without you having to go back to square one.

Inconsistency between facilities means that you can't put performance in context because youhave nothing to compare it to. It happens largely because there has been a lack of standards. Itpays to ask yourself whether you peers (for example another school, another retirement village oranother local government) would accept your reported performance in comparison to theirs.Look for a standard that applies to your specific property or organisation type (eg a primaryschool or a local council), takes into account other factors such as climate and available


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infrastructure, and compares performance based on a fair measure of utility (eg energyconsumption per student per day). The standard should also apply some rigour as to datacompleteness.

Some symptoms of inconsistency are:o Not having a clear idea about basic performance indicators, such as whether your

greenhouse emissions are going up or down.o Being afraid to add your organisation's water consumption to the annual report because you

can't remember how last year's figures were derived.o Knowing that your office building is a top performer but not having enough confidence in your

numbers to publicise it.o Knowing that your pool and gym needs upgrading but not being able to prove it.

Mistake 8. Treating software as a panaceaSoftware can save time and has some powerful features but it is actually a small part of the

environmental reporting puzzle. A great many organisations get drawn into developing their ownsoftware, adopting so-called 'free' software or paying large amounts for commercial softwarewithout planning other aspects of their system. The result is a failed project. Few softwarepackages remain in use for more than a year and many never provide any benefit at all .This mistake commonly occurs when the organisation has not set goals, is biting off too much, oris confusing engineering with management. Why does this happen?

It happens because people love features. Environmental software demonstrations always showscreen shots of nicely formatted rows of detailed data and dozens of different reporting options,all available at the click of a mouse. Look at all that detail! Look at those lovely pie charts! Itseems as if life will be very comfortable from now on.

Experienced environmental managers and seasoned engineers know that life in the trenches of

environmental management is not so simple. They ask, "Where does the data come from andwhat if we are missing some data?" They know that as soon as they produce a real report theirCEO is going to take one glance at the first pie chart, gently put down his glasses, look them inthe eye, and ask, "So our buildings need new HVAC controllers do they? Are you sure? Ithought your engineer had done that already?"

Like any software, environmental management software does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in aculture. Rather than learning how to generate 27 different types of bar and pie charts (all sayingthe same thing), you are better to spend your time questioning how you will get good clean datainto the system and how you will consistently apply a handful of simple reports to meet thecompliance requirements and improve the environmental performance of your organisation.

Whether it's free, commercial or developed in-house, using environmental reporting software has

real, but often hidden, costs. Organisations typically spend 10% of their IT budget on hardware,20% on software and 70% on services. Services include installation, testing, upgrading,maintenance, support and training. And that's just the IT budget. If you count the time that yourdepartmental staff spend using the software - for example to collect, enter and upload data - thenthe cost of software could easily be as low as 5% of the total budget required to run it.

"No problem", says your software vendor. "Our software can upload data in a range of standardformats." That sounds very good, except that there aren't any standard formats for electricity,gas and water consumption or costs. Every retailer uses a different format, and each individualretailers uses multiple formats depending on your location, account-type and other factors. Inmost cases you will be faced with the cost of adapting the software to manage each format youencounter, or worse, your staff having to regularly key data into the system from paper invoices.


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Many organisations are turning to services that provide an integrated environmental scorekeepingservice, rather than just software. This approach can ensure that data is collected, managed andreported accurately and efficiently and that consistent, relevant reports are produced.

Some symptoms that software is being treated as a panacea:o Attending meetings where people talk about 'XML' and 'CSV' with an evangelical look in their

eyes.o Being told not to worry about data input because it will be 'automatically uploaded' by the

softwareo Believing that you are going to be able to extract and export useful performance information

using the software's 'built-in flexible reporting engine'.o Not seeking a budget for your project because the software is 'free'.o Not spending at least half of your software evaluation time asking about exactly how data

gets into the system and how the resulting reports can be directly applied in yourorganisation.

Mistake 9. Compromising on independenceIncreasingly, funding and compliance programs, whether government funded or not, require ahigher standard of independence in the measurement of energy, water and greenhouseperformance. There is quite rightly contention about whether energy and water contractors, oreven companies that sell carbon offsets, should be authorised to measure energy, water andgreenhouse performance. Even if you do the measurements yourself internally, you may besubject to a verification audit, a process which will be easier and cheaper if you can show thatyour environmental performance is tracked by an independent third party.

Compliance aside, do you really want your energy contractor to verify their ownperformance? If you've entered into an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) for one or more

properties you will be contracted to pay the contractor the first few years of the estimated savings.It makes very good sense to independently verify these claimed savings against what you areactually saving. The difference can be alarming.

In the past your energy contractor was the best alternative to using expensive consultants ortime-consuming software to measure environmental performance. There is a new type ofservice provider: the environmental scorekeeper, that can perform this service efficiently andindependently.

Some symptoms of compromising on independence are:

Mistake 10. Not progressing past measurement, or diving into

action.The culmination of many of the mistakes described here is that nothing really gets done. Herethe organisation measures and measures and measures but never gets around to actuallyimproving performance.

While it's true that this is often the result of generic organisational barriers to improvement (suchas limited resources and resistant management) sometimes the environmental reporting itself isthe barrier. You can't drive change if reporting is sporadic, inaccurate or irrelevant, or if it simplytakes up all of your time, all problems that result from not having goals, biting off too much, andtrying to do it all yourself.


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In any case, there is no reason for not acting. The availability of independent environmentalscorekeeping and a range of no-cost or low-cost improvement measures mean that anyorganisation can improve its environmental performance and save money at the sametime.

Just like non-action, diving into action is really a symptom of other mistakes. Lack of goodenvironmental and financial performance information drives even large organisations to dive intopoorly-considered energy and water savings actions. The return on investment or pay-backperiod differs enormously between different improvement actions, so there is a real risk that theorganisation isn't getting value for money. This is often the result of exuberance by engineers,political pressure, or even the good salesmanship of an energy contractor. If you have noenvironmental performance management in place, or your system is producing irregular,irrelevant or inaccurate results, then senior managers have no choice but to accede to pressurefrom the board or community whenever they demand that 'something' be done.

Symptoms of not progressing past measurement:o Sitting under 16 halogen down-lights in the CEO's office asking for budget for some more

energy audits.

Symptoms of diving into action:o There are solar panels on the roof but no insulation in the ceiling.

About Planet Footprint

Planet Footprint is the world's only full-service independent environmental scorekeeper. PlanetFootprint's Environmental Scorekeeping service:

Continuously measures your energy, water and greenhouse performance - consumption,costs and emissions.

Presents your performance in a simple set of eye-catching reports that are updatedcontinuously and made available to you online 24/7 Provides complete data-sets, should you require them for further analysis of issues. Compares and benchmarks your performance nationally (and soon, internationally). Alerts you to anomalies, such as large increases in electricity or water consumption Supports you with case studies, guides and professional phone and email contact to help

you put information to use to save energy, water and money.

The service is available to any sized organisation based on an affordable annual subscription.For more information, call us on 1300 721 113 or email [email protected]

www.planetfootprint.com

Measurement and Top 10 Mistakes

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