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A recent AICD direcors’ poll confirmed that most companies do not have the skills in house to drive sustainability. Current action plans are measurement and reporting centric The natural approach is to first understand the problem. This generally involves engaging consultants to measure the carbon footprint and provide information. Mandatory reporting regimes like Australia’s NGERS underscore this approach. The theory is that informed decisions and prioritised actions will result. Yet looking at the number of companies highlighting their marginal savings in paper and air travel, one has to question if the above theory holds. Here is the publicly released carbon footprint of one of Australia’s developers and building managers: 
What we find is that for office centric organizations, there is little material variance to the above ratios. ANZ, one of Australia’s big four banks, has a carbon footprint composed 90% of electricity usage. Within 5 seconds, it should be clearly evident, that while any savings are good, paper and air travel are not top priority. Considering this is a classic case of the 80/20 rule, is spending a year or more to “discover” one’s marginal variance to the above public domain ratios the optimal decision? A “cheaper, better, faster” roadmap Measurement is important. Yet, what’s currently missing is the “doing”. It is generally accepted that we learn by doing, and that an optimal approach is an iterative cycle of learn-do-learn-do… where each iteration is quick and cost-effective. Acting on the low hanging fruit today, putting some runs on board quickly, buys time for considered action tomorrow. Incremental change over a longer period is arguably easier to manage and less costly than radical change under time pressure. Energy efficiency is an important component of ANY future strategy. If about 90% of carbon emissions are electricity based, and 80% of that is air conditioning and lighting based, focusing on these areas now, should is a “no-brainer”. Claims of the need to wait for consultants’ reports and more information are baseless. PowerSense solutions deliver some of the fastest and most effective payback results, with options to pay you without you having to pay for expenditure up front. Contact us to prove it. “Efficiency is the largest, cheapest, safest, fastest energy option… [it’s] also least visible, least understood and
most neglected” Rocky Mountain Institute | 
