Can you tell the number of ISO certifications or quality standards your company holds? Difficult, isn’t it?

The world of professional certifications is expanding to harmonise quality standards between countries. Although they are becoming increasingly widespread, you may have doubts regarding their usefulness.

You are not the only one to think so.

International certifications are extremely useful in setting standards for organisations and companies. They help define quality standards in regards to the extent to which companies are respectful of the environment, whether resources are managed efficiently or how personal data and information are handled. In this article, we review the main standards and certifications of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), as well as their relationship to energy and to each other.

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For years, the real estate sector has been using a range of sustainability, quality and energy efficiency certifications to catalogue the building stock and highlight the best-rated buildings.

The ability to categorise portfolios of buildings according to their ‘green’ credentials is very useful in positioning them better in the sales and rental market, as well as in attracting investment. These certificates are not mandatory, but they add reputation and value to your buildings and organisation.

Moreover, in the context of environmental awareness and emission reduction, real estate professionals can no longer be left aside. Buildings require a lot of energy and contribute to the emission of polluting gases, so it is increasingly important to measure, reduce and control this information.

For these purposes, various international certifications are available to establish comparative frameworks in the real estate sector. The main ones are BREEAM, LEED and WELL.

In a previous article, we presented these sustainable building certifications (LEED, BREEAM, WELL). However, in this week’s article, the focus is on the energy aspects of each of them, so that you get a complete picture before taking the plunge. Indeed, we will take a closer look at the energy requirements of these sustainability accreditations and analyse them one by one, considering the weight of energy management in the result.

We have already defined and explained the origin of these green building certifications in our previous article. This time we want to focus on the energy aspects of each of them so that you get a complete picture before taking the plunge. 

In this article, we will take a closer look at the energy requirements of these sustainability certifications. We will analyse them one by one and assess the weight of energy management for each of them.

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Modern factories are investing in technology to reduce their energy consumption, costs and CO2 emissions. This is not new, but the process of digitalisation and decarbonisation has accelerated to meet global energy transition and sustainability goals.

In addition, the constant increase in energy costs pushes companies to become more efficient and reduce overall expenditure to stay competitive. If you want to reduce your internal costs to avoid increasing prices charged to your customers, you have to seek cost-saving options. You can start by establishing energy efficiency measures.

Worldwide, manufacturing is a major energy consumer. In the UK, the industrial sector accounted for 17% of the total consumption. 

Fortunately, given this high percentage of energy consumption, there are options available to use it more efficiently and even reuse it. Waste heat from your machines is a source of energy that you can exploit.

What is this residual heat?

Waste heat or residual heat is the heat produced by your machinery when creating products and by-products. It can be intentionally-created heat or heat released from the simple industrial manufacturing process (metals, automotive products, tiles, food products, etc.).

It can be qualified as a consequence of the production process, usually lost in the air. This is perfectly normal, as your operations team is ensuring that the production process is running smoothly and at a good pace. You might however be interested to know that some of that heat can be harnessed as an energy source in your factory.

Interesting, isn’t it?

In this article, we look at how you can utilise that waste heat to generate energy, the benefits it can bring and how to measure the impact of your utilisation strategy.

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The retail sector has many energy challenges, including balancing sustainability with comfort for customers and employees.

Lighting, temperature and spaces are all designed to the nearest millimetre to provide a good shopping experience, but what about energy?  

In brightly lit shops or those with large spaces, controlling temperature, ventilation and lighting can be complex from an efficiency standpoint.

If you work in the retail sector, you’ve probably thought about how to optimise these areas to reduce your energy costs, and how you can use technology to help you. But how?

Tesco, one of the biggest UK retailers announced that they have reduced their energy consumption by 8% in a year and that they will continue investing in energy efficiency thanks to technology and more precisely Artificial Intelligence.

In this article, you’ll see 5 ways technology can help you control your energy consumption and save energy costs, so you can get your head around the idea and decide whether to take the plunge into the world of digital energy management.

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Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) continue growing in the UK and in Europe to serve all those businesses that want to implement energy efficiency projects.

Many factors including the rise in prices, the increasing awareness of the impact of energy consumption as well as the availability of subsidies have led thousands of companies to implement energy-saving measures. In this transition, Energy Service Companies play a central role in ensuring the success of these energy efficiency projects.

But it’s not that easy…

Meeting the ever-increasing demand while facing a lack of experience and resources is a real challenge. Unpleasant surprises may also be experienced when analysing a building, either because of differences between forecasts and actual consumption or because of possible problems in the customers’ installations.

Has this already happened to you?

An energy management system can be your ally as it will help you assess each case quickly and reliably so that you close more projects. Discover in this article the three main steps to follow that will reduce your next projects’ risks.

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Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) have become a key role in the energy transition. Given environmental awareness and the growing importance of sustainability, ESCOs fill a vital niche in the implementation of energy efficiency projects.

They are key players in energy performance contracting, and in securing the savings of energy efficiency projects. In fact, their business model focuses precisely on obtaining these energy-economic savings that make the investment viable and profitable.

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Energy efficiency is making its way into all sectors, and banks are now developing solutions to be part of the energy transition process.

The targets set by governments and institutions to reduce emissions and preserve the planet have a direct impact on the energy sector. You may already know this figure, but we would like to remind you that one of the objectives of the Paris Agreement is to reduce the emission of polluting gases by 40% compared to 1990 by the year 2030. The European Union wants to go even further and achieve a 55% reduction.

These global objectives, together with the liberalised market, are generating a multitude of changes in the energy sector. That’s the case with the introduction of new energy service companies, self-consumption projects or energy communities, which we talked about last week.

In this article, we look at how banks are finding their niche to become active in the energy sector. Read on to find out more.

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Facility management is a necessary task for the smooth operation of buildings of all types. As a manager of one or more buildings, you already have resources and tools to access information about your facilities, perform successful maintenance and achieve energy efficiency.

Nevertheless, you have certainly already found yourself in a situation where it was difficult to understand how your building works or to find the source of a technical issue.

In this article, you will discover how BIM (Building Information Modelling) works and how it can be useful for facility management and achieving energy efficiency.

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The so-called fourth industrial revolution (or Industry 4.0) is transforming industrial buildings, pushing them to become smart and sustainable factories with reduced carbon footprint. 

The Internet, interconnectivity, and artificial intelligence offer almost infinite opportunities to the managers of these facilities and industrial centres. From sensors that warn the system when stock is low, to devices that detect a potential fault in a machine that needs servicing, there are many usages to be found in a “smart factory”. This article reviews the main ones.

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