President Obama s Plans for Sustainability Executive Order 13514: Verisae s Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) Platform for Federal Agencies

Transcription

1 President Obama s Plans for Sustainability Executive Order 13514: Verisae s Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) Platform for Federal Agencies From Verisae, Inc. November 2009

2 INTRODUCTION As world leaders gather in Copenhagen to debate a successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol, it is no overstatement to say that all eyes will be on the United States. Executive 0rder is President Obama s most significant call to environmental action. The order request plans and accurate tracking of each agency s greenhouse gases. The process of making sustainability actionable begins with radical levels of detail across agencies and a level of collaboration not yet experienced by large organizations. Verisae recognizes the difficulties faced by each federal agency. We offer a proven and extensible environmental management system. Our integrated Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) platform enables each agency to identify and plan initiatives, track emissions, energy, & assets, and bring to bear efficiency programs to ensure successful EO13514 implementation and reporting. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 2

3 A Solution to Executive Order Challenges Executive Order was recently signed by President Obama against a backdrop of political tension and significant challenges for the new administration. Advocates and activists around the world have been eagerly waiting with anticipation for the promises of change under Mr. Obama. Overview the Federal Agencies Sustainability Plans The neutral response to the growing problems of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change taken by the previous administration left many wanting more action. President Obama himself received low ratings when he appeared before the recent United Nations meeting in New York. He was criticized for bringing nothing new to the sustainability table, while emerging giant China unveiled tangible plans to reduce their carbon footprint. There has been much focus, from a political viewpoint, on climate change during As it is common, U.S. political progress is slow. The Waxman-Markey bill, entitled The American Clean Energy and Security Act, is basically treading water, as the Senate deliberates its own version, revisions, and modifications. As Congressmen continues to discuss the finer points of a market-driven approach to greenhouse gas reductions, the British government have already introduced a similar emissions and energy reduction mandate requiring major corporate contributors to the greenhouse gas issue to begin compliance reporting in Implications of Executive 0rder Executive 0rder has considerable implications for many governmental branches, local authorities, and federal agencies. Even though its passing has not received mainstream publicity, the executive order signed by President Obama has far-reaching consequences. The federal government is the largest consumer of energy in the United States, occupying more than 500,000 buildings, operating more than 600,000 vehicles and purchasing more than $500 billion per year in goods and services. The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) puts in place much of the funding to kick-start effort toward a low carbon economy but it lacks detailed For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 3

4 planning around how sustainability will be achieved. The US still remains reliant on the goodwill of major corporations around the country when it comes to a concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move to more sustainable business operations. However, the contents of Executive Order will make a difference. The federal government s large carbon footprint will be reduced, greenhouse gas emissions will be tracked, and sustainability plans will be written and executed. Mr. Obama has put his name and credibility against the initiative with the stamp of an executive order. Supporters highlight the intangible effects that are likely to be caused by forcing the federal government s 1.8 million civilian employees to focus on sustainability. A focus effort could spread beyond public servants, into their communities, and beyond. Requirements for Inclusive Sustainable Operations Management As opposed to previous executive orders, this freshly minted version requires all federal agencies to accurately measure their greenhouse gas inventory and to provide, within 90 days, a goal measured in percentage terms to reduce these emissions over the next 10 years. The previous such order, issued by President Bush (EO13423) translated greenhouse gas reductions into an effective by product of other energy-saving initiatives and as such this new order is entirely focused and actionable. In addition to the primary requirements to set tangible goals for greenhouse gas reduction, agencies must also set other energy, water, and waste reduction targets: 50% reduction in vehicle fleet petroleum usage, 36% improvement in water efficiency, 50% recycling and waste diversion, assurance that 95% of all new procurement contracts will be sustainable, implementation of net zero energy building programs by 2030, implementation of storm water provisions as detailed previously, and establishment of sustainable management practices in federal buildings. Compliance Challenges & Sustainable Solutions While these are admirable goals, federal agencies are likely to realize significant challenges due to the highly diverse and disparate nature of their very composition, site structure, performance requirements and asset usage. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 4

5 Government agencies as a whole and departments within are not geared up to undertake these sustainability based projects and the very nature of government bureaucracy and multi-layered organizational strata will likely pose the biggest challenge of all. Verisae is ideally enabled to provide sustainability solutions to government agencies to help them comply with the requirements of EO Our Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) platform provides assets, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions management products, integrated into a single technology platform. The SRP platform is optimized to meet the unique needs of distributed enterprises with assets spanning a large geographic footprint. It is well implemented in the corporate The struggle to save the global environment is in one way much more difficult than the struggle to vanquish Hitler, for this time the war is with ourselves. We are the enemy, just as we have only ourselves as allies. Al Gore world with 40 global clients and over 20,000 facilities under management. Verisae s offerings provide the most complex of government agencies the ability to take action against energy, carbon, operations, water and waste management objectives, all of which are fundamental to the requirements of Executive Order An Integrated Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan President Obama requires each agency to develop and implement an Integrated Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan, which must be overseen by a Senior Sustainability Officer. Each officer from each agency will report back to the steering committee, made up of each agency and chaired by a representative of the Council on Environmental Quality. The CEQ and the Office of Management and Budget will be ultimately responsible for the implementation of the order. Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and ISO Standard & Government agencies must now pay particular attention to requirements and needs for an environmental management systems (EMS) which set out and record the principal standards maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The critical standards outlined by the ISO & series have been adopted worldwide by organizations seeking full certification and recognition of their environmental management efforts towards overall corporate sustainability. Environmental management systems (EMS) require the organization to address environmental issues from a systematic and comprehensive perspective. The EMS system must be a core part of an organization s For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 5

6 overall management set up and must be able to oversee complete lifecycle analysis (LCA) and every element of the organization s construction and operation. In this way, immediate and long-term implications of all strategic actions, processes, and services are assessed and controlled from an environmental perspective. The environmental management system is applicable to any organization from the private sector and specific to this executive order to government agencies. It must be stressed that ISO and ISO 14004, originally published in late 1996 but updated in 2004, define a highly structured approach to help an organization understand the environmental issues, plan sustainability initiatives, implement programs, achieve measureable Key Performance Indicators (KPI), report and check performance. While ISO standards are voluntary, they represent a time-tested approach to the issue of achieving sustainability. By widespread consensus, the ISO standards are felt to represent the best approach and have been accepted around the world. United States government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), actively participated in the development and finalization of ISO standards. For an organization to achieve certification under ISO 14001, it must fully understand the basic need for participation, understand the environmental laws relevant to its organization and determine the impacts of its actions. A comprehensive policy statement must be accompanied by procedural manuals and adequate recordkeeping documents all of which depend upon detailed environmental related data, integrated reporting solutions, and enterprise-wide workflow solutions. On an ongoing basis, environmental performance must then be gauged against set objectives and realtime corrections and improvements made as appropriate. Registration signifying compliance with these primary goals will be issued following independent assessment. Executive Order 13514: The Goals and Objectives A key provision of Executive Order requires each federal agency to develop an Integrated Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan within 90 days. A sustainability plan across many different government facilities makes the need for an environmental management system clear. Every element, asset, or piece of equipment from an agency s operation must now be tracked, monitored, and assessed on the basis of a positive lifecycle return on investment (ROI). The end goal is to gain visibility into true cost of ownership and to make the most efficient use of all owned assets and resources. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 6

7 The Executive Order calls for each agency head to come up with a figure representing a goal, measured in percentage terms, by which greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced through the year Compliance with this goal will be measured against a greenhouse gas inventory and performance benchmarks relating to 2008 emissions data. Organizational boundary definitions across the federal government s 500,000 facilities will be a daunting task without an integrated environmental management platform. The agency must first focus on scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions, over which it has ultimate control. Order specific actions that will reduce emissions include: reducing energy intensity in agency buildings, increasing an agency use of renewable energy, implementing renewable energy generation projects on agency property, reducing the use of fossil fuels by using alternative fuel vehicles, optimizing the number of vehicles across the entire fleet, and reducing total consumption of petroleum by a minimum of 2% per year. Additionally, the Strategic Sustainability Performance Plans must also include targets for reducing agency wide scope three carbon emissions, although the agency will have eight months to assess and come up with their findings in this respect. Supply chain emissions manage will require each agency to interact with vendors and contractors to establish best practices. It will require integrated measures to reduce the use of supplemental or related greenhouse gas emissions. Supply chain emissions represent a significant portion of the federal government s overall carbon liability. Government Agency s Sustainability Solutions It will be interesting to see what sustainability goals set by each agency. How an agency will determine the overall size of the federal government s carbon footprint will be a complex challenge. Measures may not be in place to accurately gauge emission inventories down to the asset level. It will be very difficult, at the commencement of this program, to understand the performance of each government facility and the resources they contain. It seems clear that each agency will have to ensure that it has a highly functional environmental management system in place and that it conforms clearly to the standards set out in the ISO series. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 7

8 Verisae has considerable experience, working within major and diversified corporate environments worldwide and has perfected its Sustainability Resource Planning platform. This platform can be of significant use to each federal agency, as an integral part of its strategic Sustainability Performance Plan. Greenhouse gases will now impact the daily operation of each agency and will take on additional importance in terms of accountability, risk mitigation, and agency credibility. Especially for President Obama as he has promised to publicize each agency s performance and conformance with EO Verisae Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) platform includes the ability to track greenhouse gas emissions down to asset level and to help achieve waste reduction and water conservation. Tracking will be an essential part of compliance. Verisae s Carbon Emissions Manager significantly simplifies this procedure. Each federal agency must measure, monitor and manage its carbon emissions from now on through what may well be a complicated infrastructure. Verisae is able to help the agency achieve these goals through a process of automated capture of information. The company s platform is designed to track emissions as specified by the World Resources Institute, the Climate Registry and the World Business Council for Sustainable Through a process of lifecycle analysis as part of an environmental management system and in recognition of the ISO series standards, it is likely that each agency will have to significantly retool its operations and procedures. Development, as well as the ISO series standards. In addition to environmental management, it will now be necessary for agencies to engage in proactive energy management programs. This will involve setting operational targets and tactics and the introduction of energy efficiency strategy as the overall goal of reducing emissions and costs. There may be little control of assets, sites and building performance within each agency in this respect, thus far. Different management strategies may be in place, budgetary controls may not be engineered efficiently and multilayered bureaucratic levels may further complicate the picture. While some specific areas may be highlighted in the executive order in relation to greenhouse gas emission reduction, it will only be through a comprehensive analysis and understanding of an agency s entire operational platform that thorough compliance will be realized. As the devil will be in the details in no uncertain terms, Verisae is keen to point out that it has, as part of its Sustainability Resource Planning platform, an asset management system which is For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 8

9 designed to identify the performance of each asset, unveil problem areas, suggest alternative courses, help to initiate repair processes and generally strive to achieve maximum efficiency. As indicated, it may well be difficult to reach overall targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 10 years without a comprehensive overview, from the top of the agency all the way down to its lowest asset. By striving to achieve optimum efficiency from each asset and procedure, a lifecycle return on investment may be optimized. Optimization of asset performance and a streamlining of all agency operations with particular reference to environmental management systems will result in a net decrease in cost, a perfect lifecycle return on investment and a lowering of the burden on the investor, in this case the taxpayer. In accounting terms, the agency will now be fully focused on the Triple Bottom Line, returning full value in terms of fiscal, environmental, and social results. Summary of Executive 0rder As the countries of the world prepare to gather in Copenhagen to debate a successor to the landmark Kyoto Protocol, it is no overstatement to say that all eyes will be on the United States. As the previous administration refused to fully engage with the principles of Kyoto, there is considerable optimism that the Obama administration will be much more proactive. Critics point to stalled legislation in Congress, noting that other countries have codified their versions of meaningful legislation and are moving forward to force a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. E is President Obama s most significant step so far towards assuaging the fears of the international community, a worry that the new administration will be more of the same. While traditional layers of government bureaucracy and organizational red tape may have been known to constrain the efficiency of federal agencies, the new executive order requires a complete refocus to enable an agency to fully comply. The Kyoto Protocol Meeting There will undoubtedly be repercussions throughout an agency should it fail to move forward toward the goals specified in the order or under-perform as indicated through the publication of an efficiency scoring table, something along the lines of the corporate carbon emission league table promised in the United Kingdom. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 9

10 One of the first tasks mandated by the Executive Order is to accurately gauge the size of each agency s carbon footprint. The process of emissions understanding must begin with radical levels of detail for each asset or piece of equipment under an agencies control. All agency resources must be discovered, measures, and managed before an accurate overall assessment may be made and target goals set for onward ratification by the chairman of the steering committee and ultimately by the president. Verisae recognizes the difficulties faced by each federal agency and stands ready and able to provide a comprehensive raft of solutions within its Sustainability Resource Planning platform. The platform will enable each agency to identify and understand the issues, track emissions, the viability of sustainability projects and other efficiency initiatives and provide reports and results detailing each success. For more information: Call us or sales@verisae.com Page 10

11 About VeriSae Verisae ( develops, markets, and licenses Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP), an enterprise solution that empowers organizations to make sustainability actionable. Verisae helps measure, manage and monetize energy costs and carbon emissions. SRP covers the core functions of sustainability needs by combining multiple business processes and systems into one database to use across the enterprise. Our platform improve operational efficiency, make sustainability initiatives actionable, and reduce energy costs carbon emissions for distributed enterprises and energy companies. Environmental Management Carbon Emissions Manager Scope 1 & 2 Emissions Scope 3 Emissions Sustainability Project Manager Water Manager Waste Manager Energy Management Energy Supply Manager Utility Bill Processing Active Energy Response Utility Contracts Management Energy Spend Manager Energy Demand Manager Real-Time Energy Management Active EE Dispatch Energy Efficiency Projects Asset Management Service Manager Service Provider Management Financial Management Asset Manager Facilities Management Equipment Management Asset Monitoring & Alarming Parts & Inventory Management Procurement Manager Rebates & Incentives Management Total Capital Planning Equipment Procurement Given the heightened priority of corporate sustainability, Verisae is positioned right now to enable organizations to establish a carbon footprint baseline, outline energy management options, and provide a comprehensive corporate sustainability action plans in a manner of months. All of which can be implemented with metrics in place to highlight bottom-line cost savings and return on investment timelines. Today, Verisae delivers a broad range of sustainability solutions to over 40 global clients with a service network of 7,500 third party service providers consisting of 60,000 application users. Our integrated sustainability platform actively tracks over 2,100,000 million assets across 20,000 sites. We help measure, manage and monetize energy costs and carbon emissions. We are uniquely position to help organizations prove return on investment (ROI) for sustainability initiatives. VERISAE WORLDWIDE HEADQUARTERS 100 North First Street, Suite 701A MAIN WEB Minneapolis, MN USA sales@verisae.com SRP and Sustainability Resource Planning are trademarks of Verisae Inc Verisae Inc. All rights reserved. e White Paper 2_Version1.0