Sustainability and "going green" are increasingly becoming high priority topics on the agenda of C-level executives and public officials. More organizations are looking into sustainability management and view reporting as an opportunity to build brand trust, satisfy key stakeholders, and identify areas for improvement. Yet, many organizations struggle to collect and organize the data they need to power their reports and management systems. This webinar dives into why high quality data is critical for sustainability reporting and sheds light upon the energy and water data collection challenges organizations are facing today. Our expert panel discusses advanced energy and water data collection and standardization methods and explains how this data can be leveraged in software to provide actionable insights. This session features Alisdair McDougall from Verdantix, Erik Becker from Urjanet, and Alistair Blackmore from CRedit360.

1. Elevating
Sustainability
Reporting with
Advanced Energy
and Water Data
Collection
WEBINAR
Date: June 17, 2015

2. Meet your presenters
Alisdair McDougall
Senior Manager
Advisory Services,
Verdantix
Alistair Blackmore
Head of Implementation,
CRedit360
Erik Becker
VP of Sales,
Urjanet

3. What will we cover today?
1 | Importance of quality data in corporate sustainability
2 | Today’s energy and water data collection and management challenges
3 | How automation can alleviate energy and water data collection issues
4 | How to use software for data visualization, sustainability
reporting, and performance management
5 | Live Q&A

4. Type your questions here
at anytime during the webinar
Use #energydata to share
your thoughts on Twitter
How to interact today

5. The importance of quality data in
corporate sustainability & today’s
energy and water data collection
and management challenges

6. Presented by Alisdair McDougall
Elevating Sustainability Reporting with
Advanced Energy and Water Data Collection

7. Alisdair McDougall
Senior Manager Advisory Services | Verdantix
● Leads Verdantix research on energy management software and industrial
technologies
● Previous experience working for the energy and sustainability team at Peter Brett
Associates, a development and infrastructure consultancy
● Masters in Energy and Environmental Engineering from the University of
Cambridge

8. About Verdantix
Founded 2007
London
& New York
www.verdantix.com
Independent analyst firm focused on
energy, environment, health & safety and sustainability

9. Firms’ attitudes towards sustainability are changing
Source: Verdantix Sustainability Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2012 & 2014
12%
38%
30%
21%
3%
30%
39%
28%
Sustainability is a new concept for our
organization and we are still grappling
with what it means
Sustainability describes the long-term
viability of our organization in the context
of natural resource scarcity
Sustainability describes our
organization's medium-term performance
on non-financial metrics such as energy,
EH&S and social responsibility
Sustainability describes energy, EH&S
and sustainability factors that already
impact our organization's annual and
quarterly financial performance
Which statement best describes your perspective on what
sustainability means for your CEO? (select one)
2014 (n=260)
2012 (n=250)

10. Firms are increasingly communicating sustainability strategy and
performance through sustainability reports
Source: Verdantix Sustainability Reporting Frameworks Gain Global Traction, GRI
Region
Africa
Oceania
North America
Latin America
Asia
Europe
CAGR
2004-2014
35%
23%
29%
48%
40%
27%
Total 32%
11
43
124
146
164
285
385
535
732
1,161
1,543
2,019
2,638
3,019
4,355
4,490
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
Number
of
Reports

11. A number of different reporting frameworks have been developed in an
attempt to help firms report non-financial data

12. Firms are also electing to participate in an increasing number of
voluntary disclosures and certifications

13. Firms appreciate that they need to improve their data collection and
management
Source: Verdantix: EH&S Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2014, Sustainability Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2014,
Energy Leaders Survey Budgets & Priorities 2015
45%
38%
15%
2%
Very Important Important
Neutral Unimportant
29%
53%
15%
3%
Very Important Important
Neutral Unimportant
41%
43%
14%
2% 0%
Very Important Important
Neutral Unimportant
Don't Know
260 Sustainability Leaders 250 EH&S Leaders 286 Energy Leaders
83% see improving corporate
sustainability reporting as very
important or important
82% see improving sustainability
data collection & reporting as
very important or important
84% see improving energy data
collection & reporting as very
important or important

14. Why?

15. Data should be the foundation of all successful strategies and
sustainability is no exception
Source: Verdantix
Collect and centralize
sustainability data
Analyse, report and
communicate on
sustainability
performance
Increase scope of
database across
business units,
countries and
processes
Manage a portfolio of
sustainability targets
and initiatives
Enhance analytical
capabilities based on
richer data set and
higher confidence
Integrate greater
number of data streams
Transform business
operations that are
aligned with firms
sustainability strategy
Benchmark operational
and financial and
benefits of sustainable
business investments
Incorporate
sustainability within
procurement
Integrate sustainability
with internal operations
systems
Collect
Monitor
Manage
Optimize

16. Data plays a central role in driving sustainability performance
Source: Verdantix
Role Of
Data In
Continuous
Improvement
Strategy and
Planning
Data
Acquisition
Software
Analytics
Data
Interpretation
and Analysis

17. Managing sustainability data is challenging though because of the 3 V’s
of BIG DATA
Volume Velocity Variety

18. The three most common methods of data collection are not fit for
purpose at a corporate level
Manual Data Entry OCR EDI
Time Intensive Error Prone
Expensive
Low Granularity
Inconsistent
Unsophisticated
Information
Delay
Gaps

19. Key Takeaways
1 | Data is the foundation of all critical sustainability decisions
2 | Aggregating and organizing energy and water data can be very difficult
3 | The most common methods of data collection are not suitable at the
corporate level

20. How automation can alleviate
energy and water data
collection issues

21. Technology is changing the world
...and now the world’s
information is a click away
Accessing information in
the 80’s...

22. Technology is enabling automation
...and todayAutomobile manufacturing
circa 1950...

23. Opportunities for automation in the utility industry
Utility data collection
over the past century...
OCR
manual data entry

24. Antiquated manual approach is inefficient and does not scale
● Slow
● Error prone
● Incomplete
-
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1,000
Peopleneededtodeliverdata
Monthly data sources
Disparate Utility Bills
Weeks
Manual Data Entry
Low Quality
Utility Data

25. Why is utility data so hard to collect and organize?
Collecting and delivering data from a very large number of
disparate sources is a massive combinatorial problem.

26. What makes automation possible today?
Automation

27. Automation brings scale and cost savings
● Delivered faster
● Higher quality
● More detailed
-
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1,000
Peopleneededtodeliverdata
Monthly data sources
Utilities
High Quality
Utility Data
Minutes

28. Why does automation matter for sustainability reporting and
management?
Operational efficiency
Cost
Timing
Accuracy
Reliability
Consistency
Visibility
Transparency

29. Key Takeaways
1 | Until recently, collecting utility data was incredibly complex and an
impediment to sustainability reporting
2 | Industry changes and advances in technology have created the
opportunity to bring automation to the process
3 | Automation will improve sustainability reporting processes and allow
new organizations to report on sustainability for the first time

30. How to use software for data
visualization, sustainability
reporting, and performance
management

31. ● > 10 years experience working with Sustainability Reporting and Utility
Management
● 8 years Implementation experience with CRedit360 working with strategic clients
including H&M, Deutsche Bank, Heineken, SAB Miller, Philips & Barclays
● MSc in Environmental Science and Sustainability from Lund University, Sweden
Alistair Blackmore
Head of Implementation | CRedit360

32. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
• Sustainability & EHS specialists
• Over a decade of experience
• In-house development
• Hosted, managed software solution with installed option
• Existing integrations with numerous automated data sources
• Key partnerships and accreditations:
About us

33. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Overview

34. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Each of these areas can benefit from automated data from 3rd party
sources.
Solution areas

35. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
• Increasingly easy due to experience and
expectation
• A range of different protocols
• Push
– Post via https://
– Email
– EDIEL
• Pull
– Listen to sFTP/FTPs site
– Via API
Integrating automated data

36. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Integrating automated data

37. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
• Utility consumption over
time
• High granularity (15 min
interval) enables
• Active monitoring
• Exception reporting
• Alarm setting
• Invoice verification
Charting & Analysis

38. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Data can then aggregate – temporally and through the
business structure
Charting & Analysis
• Automatically updated
dashboards
• Visual interpretation
• Track progress against
targets

39. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Charting & Analysis
Identify outliers & areas for
improvement

40. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
• Using standard emissions calculation tools enables
• Consistent Carbon reporting
• Pre-approved data sources
• Audit-ready exports
• Fully automated saving time
• Increase frequency
• Manage, not just measure
Emissions calculations

41. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Multiple data sources
enable deeper insight
Higher frequency enables
action instead of review
Decision Making

42. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
Reliability and
presentation enables the
data to be presented
more elegantly and
succinctly
Decision Making

43. info@credit360.com www.credit360.com
London 2012
• 31 Projects
• 7 Themes
• Monthly collection
540 hrs per month
$600,000 p.a.
Cost saving

44. Key Takeaways
1 | Storing data in one central source enables powerful insight
2 | The increase in frequency enabled by automated data collection can
move you from just reporting to managing your impacts
3 | Embedding advanced energy and water data collection can save money

45. Questions?

46. Thank you for
attending!
Contact: Erik Becker,
Vice President of Sales
erik.becker@urjanet.com