george

 On August 3rd, I had the good fortune of serving as the speaker at a monthly meeting of the Green Chamber of the South at the Five Seasons Brewing Company in Atlanta.  The Green Chamber is a non-profit focused on helping organizations understand and reduce their environmental impact.  About 30 professionals in energy and sustainability were there, and it was nice to meet them and interact with them over lunch.

The session was informal, with a number of good questions and post-session dialogue.  My topic was the design and execution of an energy efficiency program for a portfolio of buildings.  It ranged from setting goals and obtaining stakeholder commitment to gathering all of the data necessary to baseline current conditions so that you can measure success on your journey.

Green CS

From there we discussed benchmarking, taking advantage of information in the public domain including the great wealth of content at ENERGYSTAR.gov, identifying outliers.  That led to a discussion of energy audits and retro-commissioning investigations, taking advantage of utility rebates and tax credits, and measuring and verifying savings.  Finally we discussed having a common reporting tool and website like the Burton Energy Strategy Platform (BurtonESP) to serve as the central data collection, communication, and success tracking platform.

Thank you to Marty Tomlinson, the Executive Director of the Green Chamber, and the Board for inviting us to speak.  We encourage everyone in the south and in the metro Atlanta area in particular with an interest in energy efficiency and sustainability to join the Green Chamber, and to become involved in the meetings and activities they sponsor.  Find out more at www.greencs.org.