Value multiple benefits - Improve energy efficiency!

Why don't companies invest more in energy efficiency? One answer is that energy savings alone are often insufficient to compel investment. However, by valuing and communicating multiple benefits - such as improved product quality, enhanced employee productivity, better indoor air quality, reduced costs and risks - project proposals for energy-efficiency projects demonstrate how efficiency benefits a company's core business. The team of the multiple benefits project (M-Benefits) is developing an approach to identify, value and communicate the strategic impacts of investments that improve energy performance. By strategic, we mean showing how an energy-efficiency project contributes to an organization's competitiveness in performing their core business. Helping companies improve their competitive advantage and energy performance is the goal of the multiple benefits research project. Therefore, we follow a multi-step approach: The development of the evaluation toolkit, including training materials and a serious game; The training of energy consultants to implement the methodology; The implementation of the methodology to test it in a real-life environment; A continuous evaluation of the process; The compiling of an evidence base with good practices of the use of multiple benefits in companies' decision-making processes; A broad communication and dissemination strategy to reach beyond the audience directly targeted by the trainings and pilot projects. In this paper, we will present the underlying methodology and the developed toolkit as well as the concept for the pilot phase of the M-Benefits project.