Standards: A Cost Effective Way to Energy Efficiency

2009-10-01

When Jeff Green envisioned opening a convenience store in Fredericton, New Brunswick, he knew he wanted it to be an environmentally conscious business. So when he launched his store in November of last year it was of quality construction and highly energy efficient.

Green carefully built Bishop Drive Convenience in compliance with Efficiency New Brunswick’s energy codes. For insulation, he used thermal technology to detect any heat escape through walls or seams. He uses high-efficiency fluorescent T8 ballasts, organizes his shipment deliveries in one full truck – as opposed to multiple half-full trucks – and uses a high efficiency refrigeration unit. On the shelves, his customers find the usual convenience-store offerings, as well as environmentally certified cleaning products and 100 per cent recycled paper products.

It isn’t surprising then that Green has been a Gold member of Fredericton’s Green Shops program since February 2009. Launched in October 2008, just one month before Green opened Bishop Drive Convenience, Green Shops is Fredericton's latest initiative in the Green Matters campaign. It encourages businesses to reduce their impact on the environment by implementing a series of steps, all aimed at making the business more environmentally friendly and more profitable.

“I have reduced my operation cost by building an energy-efficient building and utilizing energy-efficient equipment,” says Green. “I am promoting a good image to my customers by participating in the Green Matters program and promoting the fact that I am striving to be energy efficient and environmentally conscious.

“I am very pleased and proud to live in a city like Fredericton that is taking a leading role in promoting green initiatives.” Green explains. “I have a young family and I know that the steps that we take today will not only benefit us in the short term but will help future generations in the long term. If everybody does a little bit, the compound effect can be tremendous.”

While Green built his business to be energy efficient, Kathryn Anderson, director of Communications and Marketing with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, says upgrading for energy efficiency can be a challenge for existing small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) that do not have the resources to spend on developing efficiency improvement plans. This is where standardization can greatly assist businesses to make the most of their efficiency efforts.

“By following standards and purchasing products that follow standards, businesses make efficiency improvements without having to spend resources on research or to come up with ways to improve efficiency on their own,” she says. “SMEs tend not to have resources to spend on developing efficiency improvement plans. If they can outsource that effort, their resources are better put to work on their business activities.”

While standards can make the job of becoming more energy-efficient easier, accessing capital for energy efficiency projects can be difficult.

“While large savings can be achieved, they are generally over a period of time, but require upfront capital costs,” says Anderson. “Since payback times tend to be long, company resources are usually put towards projects with a shorter payback period.”

Depending on the type and size of the business, the challenge is usually in the area of devoting the appropriate resources to develop and implement an applicably sound energy efficiency management plan. However, once the plan is implemented, most SMEs will experience a significant difference in their bottom line.

“By obtaining the necessary facts, most organizations will appreciate that energy efficiency can offer savings for consumers, profits for shareholders, improvements in industrial productivity, enhanced international competitiveness and reduced environmental impacts,” says Sam Loggia, program manager of Energy Efficiency and Renewables at CSA Standards (formerly the Canadian Standards Association), a standards development organization accredited by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC).

Michael Burke, director of the Industrial Programs Division of Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency, believes awareness is the first step businesses can take to reduce their carbon footprint.

“If businesses have an interest in reducing their carbon footprint, they should get information where they can do that and get some financial reward,” Burke says.

And while not all communities have a Green Shops program to help guide businesses’ quest for energy efficiency, there is plenty of access to programs and information. The Government of Canada, for example, offers a number of tools and initiatives through the award-winning Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation (CIPEC), a voluntary partnership between the Canadian government and industry that brings together industry associations and companies and represents more than 98 per cent of all industrial energy use in the country.

CIPEC has been helping companies cut costs and increase profits since 1975 by delivering such programs as the Department of Natural Resource’s ecoENERGY for Industry and ecoENERGY Retrofit. These are designed to improve industrial energy intensity and reduce energy-related industrial greenhouse gases and air pollution. It also provides awareness building tools and, since 1997, has delivered four Dollars to $ense workshops – energy management planning, spot the energy savings opportunities, energy monitoring and energy efficiency financing – to over 15,000 representatives of industrial, commercial and institutional organizations across Canada. (More information on CIPEC and its initiatives can be found at www.cipec.ca.)

Recent reports highlight the advantages of using government stimulus funding to help individuals and businesses become more energy efficient. These reports highlight that there is more than a triple bottom-line benefit to energy efficiency. The development and use of these new technologies can help create new jobs; reduce dependence on fossil fuels and improve energy security; reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, common air pollutants and many toxic substances; and, often, reduce the need to build new energy infrastructure.

Pierre Boileau, manager of Climate Change at CSA Standards, says small Canadian companies have many options to help reduce their carbon footprint from using webinar applications to reduce the need for business travel – one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions that a company has control over – to installing energy efficient lighting, heating and appliances to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Finally, reducing waste from production processes or office operations typically has a significant greenhouse gas impact,” says Boileau. “Reducing waste often means reductions in purchasing costs for new materials. Reusing materials can also replace the need to purchase new product. Finally, recycling materials can benefit other organizations or production processes that can use these recycled materials.”

New technologies are essential contributors to the energy efficiency for businesses standards enable new technologies as they help set requirements for design, performance and safety. CSA Standards has been developing energy efficiency standards for the past 30 years – standards that have supported the Energuide™ and ENERGY STAR™ programs, which have influenced the behaviours of manufacturers and consumers with dramatic results.

Businesses can use standards and guides to help identify energy efficiencies, alternative energy options and reduce costs; to support regulatory compliance; to support company risk assessments; to help implement "greener" product design practices and to help meet stakeholder expectations.
The steady influx of efficiency requirements into national and provincial building codes also helps ensure efficiency considerations when undertaking new construction projects.

“Historically, standards have been enablers of new technologies as they help set requirements for design, performance and safety,” says Loggia. “They also help foster market acceptance and adoption through the creation of consistency, uniformity and interchangeability. By creating a framework of consistent rules and applications, standards and related certification programs help encourage innovation while supporting certain levels of safety and performance.”

“The purpose of standards is to keep raising the bar of improving energy efficiency of a product line,” says Burke. “By their very nature, standards remove the lower efficiency models and products out of the market.”

By eliminating the least efficient products from the marketplace, energy savings have translated into lower utility bills for consumers and businesses, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants whether from power plants or from direct combustion home appliances such as oil and gas furnaces or water heaters.

And through mandatory reference of these standards in legislation, such as in provincial energy efficiency acts, or procurement specifications, this process aids market transformation and can help eliminate the possibility of the market digressing to lower energy efficient levels when other incentive based programs cease.

CSA Standards adopted a suite of international greenhouse gas accounting standards (ISO 14064) in 2006, and SCC has since named them National Standards of Canada.

As well, there are a number of international and national standards available that deal with individual aspects of construction and renovation that can improve a business’ energy efficiency. For example, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) has published standards for LED modules for general lighting (IEC 62031) and Self-ballasted LED-lamps (IEC/PAS 62612), and Underwriters’ Laboratories of Canada (ULC) has developed standards for mineral fibre thermal insulation for buildings (CAN/ULC-S702-09) and for the materials and systems of exterior insulation and finish systems (CAN/ULC-S716.1-09).

“These standards continue to help governments and industry develop many of their greenhouse gas programs and regulations,” says Boileau. “For example, the Government of Canada is implementing the ISO 14064 standards in its upcoming offset system.”

Energy-efficiency standards help provide solutions for improved energy conservation which will help to reduce energy use by small and big companies in Canada and allow for an economic use of natural resources and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. After all, energy efficiency is about reducing waste, both of precious resources and of unwanted emissions. And, as Burke says, standards are about ongoing improvements for sustained energy efficiency gains. 

“We see standards as being a cost effective thing government can do to help Canadians become more energy efficient.”

-30-

This article first appeared in Volume 36 of CONSENSUS Magazine, 2009.  The information it contains was accurate at the time of publication but has not been updated or revised since, and may not reflect the latest updates on the topic.  If you have specific questions or concerns about the content, please contact the Standards Council of Canada.

Back