Shannon Quinn
Vice President, Strategic Marketing
Johnson Controls Building Efficiency

A post from one of our Greenbuild exhibitors and sponsors, Johnson Controls.

To help accelerate the transformation to a more energy-efficient and sustainably built environment, we at Johnson Controls feel it’s critical to understand the priorities and challenges facing executive decision makers. That insight is in the 2011 Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI), conducted by the Johnson Controls Institute for Building Efficiency.

Here are four high-impact findings I’ve identified from our 2011 EEI:

1. Technology is key to tracking and reviewing energy performance. Across the globe, monitoring and analyzing performance data is essential to actual improvements in energy efficiency.
2. Markets are moving toward energy efficiency. Energy continues to be a strong priority for organizations around the world, driven by cost savings, incentives and public image.
3. Decision makers continue to face barriers to pursuing energy efficiency, including:

a. Organizational barriers, such as lack of awareness of savings opportunities and lack of technical expertise to evaluate opportunities.
b. Technical challenges, like difficulty assessing whether projects’ promised savings will be achieved.
c. Financial barriers, including projects’ inability to meet internal “hurdle rates” and not having capital to invest in projects

4. Common success factors exist among organizations more likely to invest in energy efficiency projects. Organizations that established goals, analyzed energy data more frequently, deployed more internal/external personnel resources and leveraged external capital implemented more energy efficiency improvement measures than organizations without those characteristics.



We encourage all industry professionals to dig deep and review this year’s EEI in its entirety. This is the fifth annual survey; the second with a global scope; and the largest to date in geography and number of respondents. It reaches a balanced mix of CEOs, CFOs, real estate executives, facility managers, engineers, and sustainability managers in organizations from small sole proprietorships to global corporations with properties totaling tens of millions of square feet. It covers a broad array of industry sectors: government, education, real estate, healthcare, finance, manufacturing, retail, life sciences, engineering, construction and more.

I’d love to hear your feedback on these four takeaways, as well as your overall impressions of this year’s 2011 EEI. I encourage you to share your thoughts and explore the possibilities for building efficiency management on What’s Possible, a Johnson Controls Building Efficiency blog. You also can find Johnson Controls in booth 425N at Greenbuild to see more possibilities for building efficiency management.

By talking about building efficiency solutions and the impact they have on people, we believe we can cut more emissions, generate greater savings and give you greater control to make buildings even easier to manage.

About the Author
Shannon Quinn is vice president, strategic marketing, for Johnson Controls Building Efficiency. She is at the forefront of new and emerging business models and the customer experience.

Johnson Controls Building Efficiency is committed to uncovering more opportunities to enhance building environments. It provides products, services and solutions that optimize energy and economic efficiency in buildings for more than 1 million customers.