How do you ensure your energy audit recommendations improve comfort, productivity, health, and safety?

1 Understand your goals

Before you conduct an energy audit, you need to define your goals and expectations. What are the main issues or challenges that you want to address? How do you measure the comfort, productivity, health, and safety of your building users? How do you communicate and engage with them to understand their needs and feedback? By clarifying your goals, you can tailor your energy audit to focus on the most relevant and impactful aspects of your building's performance.

2 Choose the right method

There are different types of energy audits, ranging from simple walkthroughs to comprehensive analyses. Depending on your goals, budget, and available data, you need to choose the most appropriate method for your situation. A basic energy audit can help you identify obvious problems and low-cost solutions, such as replacing inefficient lighting or sealing air leaks. A more detailed energy audit can help you evaluate complex systems and equipment, such as HVAC, insulation, or renewable energy sources. A more advanced energy audit can help you model and simulate different scenarios and solutions, such as optimizing your building's design or operation.

3 Prioritize your recommendations

After you conduct an energy audit, you will have a list of recommendations to improve your building's energy efficiency and performance. But not all recommendations are equally feasible or beneficial. You need to prioritize your recommendations based on several criteria, such as cost, payback period, energy savings, environmental impact, and occupant satisfaction. You can use tools such as cost-benefit analysis, life-cycle assessment, or multi-criteria decision analysis to help you rank your recommendations and select the best ones for your situation.

4 Implement your recommendations

Once you have prioritized your recommendations, you need to plan and execute your implementation strategy. This involves securing the necessary resources, such as funding, materials, contractors, or permits. It also involves managing the implementation process, such as scheduling, monitoring, quality control, or risk management. You need to ensure that your implementation is done in a timely, efficient, and safe manner, with minimal disruption to your building's operation and occupants.

5 Monitor and evaluate your results

After you implement your recommendations, you need to monitor and evaluate your results. This involves collecting and analyzing data on your building's energy use, performance, and outcomes. You need to compare your results with your baseline and goals, and determine if your recommendations have achieved the desired effects. You also need to solicit and incorporate feedback from your building users, and assess how your recommendations have improved their comfort, productivity, health, and safety. You need to report and communicate your results to your stakeholders, and celebrate your successes.

6 Continuously improve your performance

An energy audit is not a one-time event, but a continuous process of improvement. You need to regularly review and update your goals, methods, recommendations, and results, and identify new opportunities and challenges. You need to maintain and optimize your systems and equipment, and address any issues or problems that arise. You need to keep learning and innovating, and adopt best practices and technologies that can help you enhance your building's energy efficiency and performance, as well as the comfort, productivity, health, and safety of your occupants and staff.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?