The Issue

One of the world’s largest financial institutions was faced with a problem. How could their corporate facility management team meet public commitments announced by Senior Executives and the Board of Directors involving aggressive carbon emissions and water consumption reduction goals?

The challenge arose when the bank set a commitment of 15% carbon emission reductions and 20% water consumption reduction. Like most businesses, they also wanted to meet these sustainability commitments while reducing expenses and earning an attractive ROI.

What was needed was a comprehensive energy and water benchmarking strategy along with and measurement and verification of initiatives.

The Burton Solution

To start the process, over 15,000 facilities were placed into multiple peer groupings, ranging from ATMs to large office buildings. The utility bills for these sites contained important baseline utility data necessary to track reductions in use and emissions over time. To accurately and efficiently analyze the 50,000+ utility accounts and identity anomalies for investigation, Burton began importing this data into the Burton
Energy Strategy Platform (ESP).

The Burton ESP houses national account utility data in a robust, secure, SQL database that enables powerful queries and quick calculations to support client initiatives. With a dedicated team of software developers, energy analysts, and energy engineers, Burton provides ongoing services related to the importing and scrubbing of all utility
data.

Services provided to the Bank included:

• Anomalies were identified and impacts on cost and energy and water consumption were quantified. Possible
  underlying root causes were identified and variance reports were created and issued to facility management
  partners for site level follow up.
• Sites were ranked for energy efficiency using a customized methodology with some similarities to ENERGY
  STAR® and were prioritized for capital investment programs.
• Available utility rebates were identified, enabling the client to pursue rebates for which they might qualify.
• Monthly performance reports were generated that compared actual savings to projected savings to bolster
  confidence in making additional investments over time.
• Each week, the client and Burton worked through a prioritized list of outstanding action items that assist the
  accurate measurement of carbon emission and water reductions.

Working in conjunction with the client to support their specific sustainability data needs, the Burton ESP has become the tool of record for utility consumption and cost management. It warehouses facility information including notes, pictures, and documents. The achievement of the client’s aggressive sustainability targets is well on track, largely due to the powerful capabilities of the Burton ESP to house and manage utility information on a large scale and produce meaningful reports to assist in decision making.