Elevating Sustainability Reporting with
Advanced Energy and Water Data
Collection
WEBINAR
Date: June 17, 2015
Meet your presenters
Alisdair McDougall
Senior Manager Advisory Services,
Verdantix
Alistair Blackmore
Head of Implementation, CRedit360
Erik Becker
VP of Sales, Urjanet
What will we cover today?
1 | Importance of quality data in corporate sustainability
2 | Today’s energy and water data collection and management challenges
3 | How automation can alleviate energy and water data collection issues
4 | How to use software for data visualization, sustainability reporting, and performance management 5 | Live Q&A
Type your questions here at anytime during the webinar
Use #energydata to share your thoughts on Twitter
How to interact today
The importance of quality data in corporate sustainability & today’s energy and water data collection
and management challenges
Presented by Alisdair McDougall
Elevating Sustainability Reporting with Advanced Energy and Water Data Collection
Alisdair McDougall Senior Manager Advisory Services | Verdantix
● Leads Verdantix research on energy management software and industrial
technologies ● Previous experience working for the energy and sustainability team at Peter Brett
Associates, a development and infrastructure consultancy ● Masters in Energy and Environmental Engineering from the University of
Cambridge
About Verdantix
Founded 2007 London & New York www.verdantix.com
Independent analyst firm focused on energy, environment, health & safety and sustainability
Firms’ attitudes towards sustainability are changing
Source: Verdantix Sustainability Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2012 & 2014
12%
38%
30%
21%
3%
30%
39%
28%
Sustainability is a new concept for our organization and we are still grappling
with what it means
Sustainability describes the long-term viability of our organization in the context
of natural resource scarcity
Sustainability describes our organization's medium-term performance on non-financial metrics such as energy,
EH&S and social responsibility
Sustainability describes energy, EH&S and sustainability factors that already impact our organization's annual and
quarterly financial performance
Which statement best describes your perspective on what sustainability means for your CEO? (select one)
2014 (n=260)
2012 (n=250)
Firms are increasingly communicating sustainability strategy and performance through sustainability reports
Source: Verdantix Sustainability Reporting Frameworks Gain Global Traction, GRI
Region
Africa
Oceania
North America
Latin America
Asia
Europe
CAGR 2004-2014
35%
23%
29%
48%
40%
27%
Total 32%
11 43 124 146 164 285 385
535 732
1,161
1,543
2,019
2,638
3,019
4,355 4,490
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Num
ber o
f Rep
orts
A number of different reporting frameworks have been developed in an attempt to help firms report non-financial data
Firms are also electing to participate in an increasing number of voluntary disclosures and certifications
Firms appreciate that they need to improve their data collection and management
Source: Verdantix: EH&S Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2014, Sustainability Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2014, Energy Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2015
45%
38%
15%
2%
Very Important Important Neutral Unimportant
29%
53%
15%
3%
Very Important Important Neutral Unimportant
41%
43%
14%
2% 0%
Very Important Important Neutral Unimportant Don't Know
260 Sustainability Leaders 250 EH&S Leaders 286 Energy Leaders
83% see improving corporate sustainability reporting as very
important or important
82% see improving sustainability data collection & reporting as very important or important
84% see improving energy data collection & reporting as very
important or important
Why?
Data should be the foundation of all successful strategies and sustainability is no exception
Source: Verdantix
Collect and centralize sustainability data
Analyse, report and communicate on
sustainability performance
Increase scope of database across business units, countries and
processes
Manage a portfolio of sustainability targets
and initiatives
Enhance analytical capabilities based on richer data set and higher confidence
Integrate greater number of data streams
Transform business operations that are aligned with firms
sustainability strategy
Benchmark operational and financial and
benefits of sustainable business investments
Incorporate sustainability within
procurement
Integrate sustainability with internal operations
systems
Collect
Monitor
Manage
Optimize
Data plays a central role in driving sustainability performance
Source: Verdantix
Role Of Data In
Continuous Improvement
Strategy and Planning
Data Acquisition
Software Analytics
Data Interpretation and Analysis
Managing sustainability data is challenging though because of the 3 V’s of BIG DATA
Volume Velocity Variety
The three most common methods of data collection are not fit for purpose at a corporate level
Manual Data Entry OCR EDI
Time Intensive Error Prone
Expensive
Low Granularity
Inconsistent
Unsophisticated
Information Delay Gaps
Key Takeaways
1 | Data is the foundation of all critical sustainability decisions
2 | Aggregating and organizing energy and water data can be very difficult
3 | The most common methods of data collection are not suitable at the corporate level
How automation can alleviate energy and water data
collection issues
Technology is changing the world
...and now the world’s information is a click away
Accessing information in the 80’s...
Technology is enabling automation
...and today Automobile manufacturing circa 1950...
Opportunities for automation in the utility industry
Utility data collection over the past century...
OCR
manual data entry
Antiquated manual approach is inefficient and does not scale
● Slow ● Error prone ● Incomplete
- 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
1,000
Peop
le n
eede
d to
del
iver
dat
a
Monthly data sources
Disparate Utility Bills
Weeks
Manual Data Entry Low Quality Utility Data
Why is utility data so hard to collect and organize?
Collecting and delivering data from a very large number of disparate sources is a massive combinatorial problem.
What makes automation possible today?
Automation
Automation brings scale and cost savings
● Delivered faster ● Higher quality ● More detailed
- 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
1,000
Peop
le n
eede
d to
del
iver
dat
a
Monthly data sources
Utilities
High Quality Utility Data
Minutes
Why does automation matter for sustainability reporting and management?
Operational efficiency
Cost
Timing
Accuracy
Reliability
Consistency
Visibility
Transparency
Key Takeaways
1 | Until recently, collecting utility data was incredibly complex and an impediment to sustainability reporting 2 | Industry changes and advances in technology have created the opportunity to bring automation to the process 3 | Automation will improve sustainability reporting processes and allow new organizations to report on sustainability for the first time
How to use software for data visualization, sustainability
reporting, and performance management
● > 10 years experience working with Sustainability Reporting and Utility
Management ● 8 years Implementation experience with CRedit360 working with strategic clients
including H&M, Deutsche Bank, Heineken, SAB Miller, Philips & Barclays ● MSc in Environmental Science and Sustainability from Lund University, Sweden
Alistair Blackmore Head of Implementation | CRedit360
[email protected] www.credit360.com
• Sustainability & EHS specialists • Over a decade of experience
• In-house development • Hosted, managed software solution with installed option
• Existing integrations with numerous automated data sources
• Key partnerships and accreditations:
About us
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Overview
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Each of these areas can benefit from automated data from 3rd party sources.
Solution areas
[email protected] www.credit360.com
• Increasingly easy due to experience and expectation
• A range of different protocols
• Push – Post via https:// – Email – EDIEL
• Pull – Listen to sFTP/FTPs site – Via API
Integrating automated data
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Integrating automated data
[email protected] www.credit360.com
• Utility consumption over time
• High granularity (15 min interval) enables
• Active monitoring • Exception reporting • Alarm setting • Invoice verification
Charting & Analysis
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Data can then aggregate – temporally and through the business structure
Charting & Analysis
• Automatically updated dashboards
• Visual interpretation • Track progress against
targets
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Charting & Analysis Identify outliers & areas for improvement
[email protected] www.credit360.com
• Using standard emissions calculation tools enables
• Consistent Carbon reporting • Pre-approved data sources • Audit-ready exports • Fully automated saving time • Increase frequency • Manage, not just measure
Emissions calculations
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Multiple data sources enable deeper insight
Higher frequency enables action instead of review
Decision Making
[email protected] www.credit360.com
Reliability and presentation enables the data to be presented more elegantly and succinctly
Decision Making
[email protected] www.credit360.com
London 2012
• 31 Projects • 7 Themes • Monthly collection
540 hrs per month
$600,000 p.a.
Cost saving
Key Takeaways
1 | Storing data in one central source enables powerful insight
2 | The increase in frequency enabled by automated data collection can move you from just reporting to managing your impacts
3 | Embedding advanced energy and water data collection can save money
Questions?