Elevating Sustainability Reporting with Advanced Energy and Water Data Collection

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

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


Overview


Each of these areas can benefit from automated data from 3rd party sources.

Solution areas


•  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


Integrating automated data


•  Utility consumption over time

•  High granularity (15 min interval) enables

•  Active monitoring •  Exception reporting •  Alarm setting •  Invoice verification

Charting & Analysis


Data can then aggregate – temporally and through the business structure

Charting & Analysis

•  Automatically updated dashboards

•  Visual interpretation •  Track progress against

targets


Charting & Analysis Identify outliers & areas for improvement


•  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


Multiple data sources enable deeper insight

Higher frequency enables action instead of review

Decision Making


Reliability and presentation enables the data to be presented more elegantly and succinctly

Decision Making


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?

Thank you for attending!

Contact: Erik Becker,

Vice President of Sales [email protected]

Elevating Sustainability Reporting with Advanced Energy and Water Data Collection

Data & Analytics

Transcript of Elevating Sustainability Reporting with Advanced Energy and Water Data Collection