This book provides a simple, easily followed process for auditing building operations to identify and reduce energy consumption that leads to measurable carbon reduction. The crucial steps of this process involve assessing the facility's current conditions, understanding, and analyzing the operational and cost-based opportunities that increase carbon output. Taking this information to report the findings and then document a multiyear energy and carbon reduction plan. The book discusses the full scope of building components and systems, including how each system affects energy efficiency. It describes the operational energy efficiencies that are gained by implementing no-cost changes or alternative maintenance activities already funded. The book includes the process for identifying capital improvement opportunities, along with evaluating return on investment and life cycle replacement options for equipment. The four-step process described in this book will serve as a valuable tool for every building operator seeking to improve energy performance and reduce carbon output.

This book outlines a simple and easy-to-follow process for auditing building operation to identify and reduce energy consumption. It explains the operational and cost-based opportunities, assessing the current conditions, analyzing the opportunities, and reporting the findings and documenting the plan. The book discusses the different building components and systems and how they affect energy efficiency and describes the operational energy efficiencies that can be gained by implementing no cost changes or alternate maintenance activities already funded. Capital improvement opportunities, and evaluating Return on Investment and life cycle replacement of equipment are also covered.

This book provides a simple, easily followed process for auditing building operations to identify and reduce energy consumption that leads to measurable carbon reduction. The crucial steps of this process involve assessing the facility’s current conditions, understanding, and analyzing the operational and cost-based opportunities that increase carbon output. Taking this information to report the findings and then document a multiyear energy and carbon reduction plan. The book discusses the full scope of building components and systems, including how each system affects energy efficiency. It describes the operational energy efficiencies that are gained by implementing no-cost changes or alternative maintenance activities already funded. The book includes the process for identifying capital improvement opportunities, along with evaluating return on investment and life cycle replacement options for equipment. The four-step process described in this book will serve as a valuable tool for every building operator seeking to improve energy performance and reduce carbon output.

Now there is a comprehensive reference to provide tools on implementing an energy audit for any type of facility. Containing forms, checklists and handy working aids, this book is for anyone implementing an energy audit. Accounting procedures, rate of return, analysis and software programs are included to provide evaluation tools for audit recommendations. Technologies for electrical, mechanical and building systems are covered in detail.

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Buildings are the largest energy consuming sector in the world, and account for over one-third of total final energy consumption and an equally important source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Achieving significant energy and emissions reduction in the buildings sector is a challenging but achievable policy goal. Transition to Sustainable Buildings presents detailed scenarios and strategies to 2050, and demonstrates how to reach deep energy and emissions reduction through a combination of best available technologies and intelligent public policy. This IEA study is an indispensible guide for decision makers, providing informative insights on: cost-effective options, key technologies and opportunities in the buildings sector; solutions for reducing electricity demand growth and flattening peak demand; effective energy efficiency policies and lessons learned from different countries; future trends and priorities for ASEAN, Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United States; implementing a systems approach using innovative products in a cost effective manner; and pursuing whole-building (e.g. zero energy buildings) and advanced-component policies to initiate a fundamental shift in the way energy is consumed.

The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

The growth of renewable energy technologies, mainly wind and solar, demands the development of practical and economically viable energy storage technologies. This book explores the current state-of-the-art of large-scale energy storage and examines the likely environmental impacts of the main categories based on the types of energy stored.