A Discussion on Occupant Engagement, Part I

On April 28th Pulse Energy hosted a webinar on engaging buildings occupants in energy conservation.  Andrew Pape-Salmon, Director, Energy Efficiency Branch, BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, was gracious enough to take a break from his sabbatical and speak about the occupant engagement measures applied in part of his 150,000 sq ft office building that achieved a 12% savings on energy.  The 70+ webinar attendees responded very well to the moderator`s challenge to ask Andrew a lot of tough questions, and at the end of the webinar we were left with dozens of great questions that we simply did not have time to answer.  Therefore, we would like to use the questions as the seeds to a potentially very interesting discussion on occupant engagement here on our blog.  Andrew and his colleague Brooke McMurchy, who led the occupant engagement initiative at the Jack Davis building, have replied with their answers to the questions asked at the webinar; please add your comments by clicking the “comments” link below the title at the top.

Questions on Occupant Engagement at the Jack Davis Building:

Q: What was the general tone of the response to being prompted – by email, personal visit, etc., on a scale, perhaps, from “rolling of eyes” to “eager involvement”?

APS: To objectively answer this question, one should speak to the staff directly, not the people conducting the campaign.  However, I believe that the “conservation culture” work for the full year in advance of the campaign helped to build trust and acceptance of what we are trying to achieve.  I don’t think that political targets like “net zero emissions by 2010” resonate with occupants, but empowering goals like “use task lighting at night to avoid turning on the whole floor of lights” is meaningful and doable.

BM: One of our 5th floor champions reported back that most people she urged to turn off lights during the mini-earth hour were in the ‘rolling eyes’ category. Although with her encouragement, they still complied to turning off their lights over the lunch hour. 4th floor occupants ranged from moderate to eager involvement. (The Electricity and Alternative Energy Division is on this floor.)

Q: For the Jack Davis Bldg. you mentioned that you aimed to reduce elec. use by 9% by 2009 and 20% by 2020. What is the baseline year?

APS: The baseline year is 2007, the year the Public Service Energy Conservation Agreement was signed: http://www.gov.bc.ca/lcs/pseca/

Q: Is lighting the only energy end use being monitored?

APS: Initially we only monitoring the lighting retrofit. We have lighting information going back to May 2008. Starting in December 2009 we started monitoring the chillers, elevators, plug loads, laboratory, motors (MCC), all lights, overall electrical consumption, transfer SW and natural gas volume.

Q: How do you get the cleaning company, janitors, to buy into the process?

APS: We didn’t – yet. We felt it was critical to build a culture among staff first, and then develop policies and procedures that institutionalize energy saving, inevitably involving cleaning staff in the latter.

Q: Was any work done on computer power management?

BM: yes, a significant amount. In August 2008, Shared Services BC implemented a Workstation Power Management Program, whereby all government computers go into sleep mode overnight, saving approximately 50% energy use from computers. Also, in 2009 as part of a routine hardware and software upgrade, all government computers were switched to Energy Star models, and are set up to operate in power saving mode. See this report for more info on what MEMPR did in 2008: http://www.livesmartbc.ca/attachments/carbon_neutral_action_reports/Ministry_Energy_Mines_Petroleum_Resources.pdf

Q: Why only a one week effort for engaging building staff, instead of a more long term?

BM: JDB only had staff resources available to conduct a one week structured campaign focused on lighting. That said, energy conservation is promoted year-round through a program called the Workstation Tune Up, which includes guidelines for minimizing lighting use; by hosting energy-related presentations and workshops; and by posting energy saving tips on MEMPR’s Intranet site.

(Look for Part II, which will include answers to questions on the ROI of the occupant engagement campaign later this week)

- Julius Walczynski