Sustainability Solutions

FSG and its partners provide organization's know-how and technology for planning, implementing, measuring, and ongoing monitoring and transparency of sustainable and "green" requirements from regulations and certifications to help them achieve compliance, reduce costs, optimize efforts throughout the organization, improve performance and meet or exceed mission goals.

FSG's proven methodologies are delivered in terms of both cost savings and return on investment and based on delivering value to the organization through long-and short-view strategic planning, analytics approach to measurement, and years of expertise integrating automated facilities management, procurement, and sustainability strategic planning and implementation.

FSG's Turnkey Sustainability Services include:

• Sustainability strategic planning
• Sustainability management system design, delivery, and support
• Organizational development and behavior change 
• Energy efficiency design/build and architecture/engineering
• Meeting regulatory compliance requirements
• Energy measurement and validation 
• Certification training
• Value analytics
• Green procurement
• Audits and commissioning

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Project Overview:

TITLE: Energy Cost Savings vs. Performance Benefits: Re-Lamping Study for Brokerage Firm Offices 

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT:
With the new demands to reduce energy costs, this study investigated the cost benefit and return on investment of switching from the more energy-intensive incandescent bulbs to energy efficient fluorescent bulbs in a high-rise office building.  Some employees complained of headaches, dizziness, sleepiness, and in general, distraction from the fluorescent tubes.  Since the complaints had been increasing in recent years, the facilities management team investigated alternatives that might solve the problems, determine the real causes, and explored cost-effective options to recommend for budget approval.  Four floors of employees at the company were studied, floors 10-11 as the intervention group (daylight bulbs installed) and floors 14-15 as the control group (fluorescent bulbs installed).  Metrics were collected for all floors simultaneously over three months as well as similar metrics from the year before during the same period. 

Computing the value of the light bulb program had to ensure certainty that the group of employees receiving the Daylight bulbs do not differ in any important respect from those under the fluorescent lighting.  There is a statistically significant relationship between fluorescent lighting and Daylight or Natural lighting in the workplace on the satisfaction, health, attrition, productivity, and financial outcomes of company’s employees.   Results from the study included the following: 

• Cost Savings to the organization over 3 years equal to $1.2M
• No impact to productivity during changing of bulbs,
• ROI on daylight bulbs:  95%; Optimization:  400% ROI for new employees and lower achievers. 

RECOMENDATIONS:

• Daylight bulbs and desk lamps for new employees (less than one year) and lower achievers.

Project Overview:

TITLE: Implementing Energy Efficiency Initiatives by Cash Flow Calibration

DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT:

An initial energy assessment conducted by a local power company recommended an auto parts facility spend $800K to execute change to the facility with a payback period from energy savings of three years.   The auto parts manufacturer was at half-time, had laid off a third of its workforce, and were not in the financial position to invest.  Meanwhile, they needed to be compliant with a new energy efficiency index within 3 years by their only client, the auto company.   As an alternative, a review of the potential energy savings from one line of production out of forty to establish energy costs per unit of production.  The data collected was then used to create energy management targets and identify energy savings opportunities for all forty lines of production

Following the onsite assessment, five processes were found to have cost savings with various levels of investment that included the following: 

• Power Management – Cut Power to Dust Collectors when welding units are off.  $14K/yr
• Power Management – Cut Power to Robotic Controllers When Welders are not Running.  $800/yr
• Compressed Air System Management – Repair Leaks in Air lines.  $27k - $50k/yr
• Waste Heat Recovery on Brazing Ovens.  $8k - $20K/yr
• Process Equipment Efficiency Management.  (e.g., heater management on washing machine)  $5k -$100K

Through application of calibrating the cash flow of spending from the production line energy savings established an initial investment of $25,000.  Through the retention of energy savings for two years, the total investment for energy efficiency was $100,000, far better than the original investment of $800,000. Payback would be within two years and compliance for the auto company’s energy requirement would be met ahead of schedule.