Energy management software helps firms make better business decisions
Better business intelligence leads to better business decisions.
When it comes to maximising the efficiency of the business, that means drawing on data such as energy and water use and carbon emissions across different locations and processes. Analysing this data can highlight where equipment is not operating as expected, or where there are inefficient procedures that result in energy or water waste, explains business consultant John Hsu in an article for the Carbon Trust.
The data also provides evidence to support a robust business case for investing in new or upgraded technologies.
In many organisations, data on sustainability metrics comes from different teams and in different formats and is put together once a year for the sake of annual reporting.
However, companies are increasingly taking an integrated approach to data, finding ways to bring sustainability metrics into their wider evaluation of performance, Hsu says.
This is being driven by declining costs for meters and sensors to collect information, alongside the ability to access and aggregate large quantities of data in smarter ways. Thanks to new data and analysis technologies, it is becoming easier to combine disparate and disorganised pieces of information, to automate the cleaning of the data, and to report this in an organised fashion.
Energy management software also plays a key role, enabling effective decisions to be made using this data.
The latest all-purpose business intelligence (BI) software allows organisations to create highly tailored BI solutions, which in many cases are just as powerful and useful as many tailored sustainability software solutions, Hsu notes.
"It is only through good measurement that sustainability issues can truly be managed effectively," the business consultant concludes. "The sooner that clunky old spreadsheets are put into retirement -- whether through specialist sustainability software or BI solutions -- the better the outcomes will be for the planet."
