Davide Vassallo is a global practices leader for DuPont's Sustainable Solutions Group. As environmental stewards for a company that is the owner and operator of more than 150 production facilities around the world, his group has found that energy efficiency improvements can often be achieved for little or no cost. After running a large number of workshops on the subject, he has found that moving personnel from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation is key to significant savings.
Davide Vassallo is a global practices leader for DuPont's Sustainable Solutions Group. As environmental stewards for a company that is the owner and operator of more than 150 production facilities around the world, his group has found that energy efficiency improvements can often be achieved for little or no cost. After running a large number of workshops on the subject, he has found that moving personnel from a culture of consumption to a culture of conservation is key to significant savings.
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According to a white paper that Vassallo wrote earlier this year, Industry is the largest consumer of all the end-use sectors, responsible for 50 percent of all end-use consumption. Nearly half of that (42 percent) is concentrated in just a few industries, topped by Chemicals & Petrochemicals (where DuPont lives), Iron & Steel, and Cement.
All manufacturers in these industries are motivated to improve energy efficiency for a variety of reasons, though some are better at it than others. Vasallo claims that efficiency can be improved through core technology replacement, which is capital intensive, energy system improvements, which can often be low-cost, and employee behavior change, which is practically free. Vasallo says the upwards of 40 percent of efficiency reductions can be found in the latter two areas.
But, in order to be successful, the ideas and principles must be deeply embedded in the corporate culture. For example:
- Enabling effective energy management systems by rooting them in clear organizational goals, with effective staffing and training, and specific processes and actions.
- Integrating energy efficiency management into the strategy and execution of ongoing business processes (capital, cost, resources, etc.)
- Designing a practical and enduring energy management process to sustain and build on achieved goals –customized at each level of the organization.
Article continues: http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/sustainability-culture-saves-billions-dupont/
Image credit: Dupont
