Making the Business Case for Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings

The business case for energy efficiency may seem straightforward – reducing energy use will save the building owner money – however, implementing energy efficiency measures can also involve upfront costs for software, equipment, and installation. These costs can be challenging for companies to justify when there are competing priorities for funding. This toolkit includes a selection of resources to support commercial building operational staff in making the business case for the implementation of energy efficiency projects to their upper management.

TOOLS

Building the Financial Business Case for Resilience Fact Sheet Fact Sheet
This fact sheet reviews key components for building the business case for resilience including the challenges of resilience, understanding and measuring risk, talking to your CFO, and how to get started building a resilience roadmap.

Kohl's Strategic Approach to Energy Finance Implementation Model
Kohl’s embedded members of the Finance Department into the Energy team to expedite communication of financial benefits and approval of energy efficiency projects.

USAA Real Estate: Building Upgrade Value Calculator Implementation Model
USAA Real Estate developed a calculator to convert the results of energy efficiency upgrades into metrics that are meaningful for financial decision makers, resulting in more projects funded and increased portfolio-wide energy savings.

Energy to Finance: Understanding the CFO and Translating Metrics Tools
This training workshop provided by the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) features CFO role insights, hands-on exercises, case studies, and guidance to help commercial partners get from project idea stage to implementation.

Succeed with Submetering: How to Make the Business Case Webinar
On this webinar partners from both the public and private sectors discussed how to make a compelling business case for the value of submetering.

Speaking the CFO's Language: Building the Case for Energy Efficiency with Financial Decision-Makers Video
In this Better Buildings Webinar Series presentation, Better Buildings Challenge Partners USAA Real Estate Company; University of California, Irvine; and Kohl's shared their best practices for communicating the value of building energy efficiency projects and working with financial decision-makers to make those projects happen.