5900-444 Partner of the Year Award Application

2020 ENERGY STAR^® Awards

PART 2: Partner of the Year Award Application

Energy Management

The simple choice for energy efficiency.

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Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

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About the Award

ONLY applicants awarded Sustained Excellence in 2018 and/or 2019 should complete the application for Sustained Excellence Energy Management.

Eligibility: ENERGY STAR partners that can demonstrate improved energy performance of buildings and plants through an organization-wide energy program are eligible to apply. Please remember to review and complete PART 1: General Instructions & Executive Summary before completing this part of your application.

Description: This award recognizes businesses and organizations that demonstrate their commitment to environmental protection through superior energy management, particularly by integrating and promoting ENERGY STAR tools and resources within their energy management program. Winning applications must clearly show the organizations’ commitment to and success in achieving superior energy management as well as their active participation in and promotion of ENERGY STAR.

Criteria: The 2019 ENERGY STAR Awards are based on work completed and energy savings demonstrated during the 2019 calendar year. Selected accomplishments outside of this time may be mentioned for reference in your application and to demonstrate continuous improvement but will not be considered as evidence of meeting award requirements in 2019.

Previous Partner of the Year award winners with evidence of continuous improvement will automatically be considered by EPA for the Sustained Excellence award but should still complete this Partner of the Year Energy Management application.

Be aware that EPA will refer to material in applications in its promotion of winners’ achievements. Please do not include confidential data. Applications citing or including confidential business information will NOT be evaluated.

BEGIN APPLICATION

PART 2:
Award Accomplishments Document

(use the following information to create a Word or PDF file)

Accomplishments Narrative:

The narrative consists of three sections: Section 1 – Energy Management Practices Narrative response Narrative response Section 2 – Communication Strategies A – C. Narrative response D. Samples of creative work that includes ENERGY STAR Section 3 – Demonstration of Energy Savings Building Partners – Summary of results from POY report generated in Portfolio Manager and savings equivalency statement Industrial Partners – Completed savings table, summary of results, explanation of results and savings equivalency statement The narrative must be no longer than nine pages and use a minimum of 12-point black font. Margins should be no less than 1” on all sides. Pages that exceed the limit will not be evaluated.

Supporting Files:

Applicants are encouraged to submit electronic copies of materials that support the application as long as they are clearly referenced within the application. Supporting materials will not count toward the nine-page limit, but must be directly relevant to energy management and/or ENERGY STAR. Each applicant must submit at least one item in PART 3: Supporting Materials for an application to be accepted by the MESA system. (required)

Evaluation: The application is evaluated based on the equal weighting of each section below. Evaluation will focus on your detailed description of the 2019 accomplishments and how the required criteria have been met.

Section 1 – Energy Management Practices

In this section of the application, you will describe the practices employed by your organization to manage and reduce energy use. These include long-term strategies, management practices, innovative technologies, cost-effective upgrades, data-driven enhancements to systems or processes, or other actions implemented at the corporate or organization level to improve performance.

1. Describe your organization’s energy management program, detailing its main elements in comparison to the ENERGY STAR Guidelines for Energy Management. For example, in discussing goals, describe how goals were set, their scope, and the process that was followed to define them.

In addition to explaining how you manage energy across your facilities, incorporate information on:

• How you integrate ENERGY STAR into your energy management program;

• How ENERGY STAR recognition opportunities and tools and resources contribute to your program’s achievements; and,

• How you have improved your energy program through the inclusion of new program elements.
  
  

2. Discuss 2019 key projects and initiatives that have led to your energy program’s success. Provide at least three to four good examples that represent your work.

3. Share your long-term strategies around energy management. Explain your organization’s motivation for energy management, the factors that may impact or alter strategic direction in the future, and how your strategy incorporates planning for these factors.

Section 2 – Communication Strategies

ENERGY STAR Award winners excel beyond a simple list of outreach tactics. Their communications plans are strategic, integral components of their corporate energy management programs. In this section of the application, you will explain how you communicated to support and promote your energy management program and enhanced your partnership with ENERGY STAR.

1. Please describe your organization’s communication strategies for promoting energy efficiency with ENERGY STAR to internal audiences (i.e., those within your organization, such as employees, senior leadership, students, etc.), how you implemented your strategy, and the 2019 results. Address the following in your response:

• Goals of the outreach: What were the goals for outreach to internal audiences?

• Target audiences: Which internal audiences did you target and why?

• Metrics: What metrics did you identify to track for measuring your success? (e.g., web stats, collateral distributed, number of attendees at an energy fair, etc.)

• Tactics and materials: What tactics and supporting materials did you use to implement your strategy and reach target internal audiences? Examples of tactics include:

  • Producing and distributing print or electronic materials about energy efficiency that feature ENERGY STAR

  • Creating content on your organization’s internet or intranet about your ENERGY STAR efforts and energy efficiency education

  • Hosting energy fairs or other energy efficiency-related events

  • Developing competitions, incentives, or recognition programs and related materials that leverage ENERGY STAR tools and resources

• 2019 accomplishments, including measured results: What did your communications achieve in 2019? How many people did you reach? Examples of measured results include:

  • Email newsletters with energy-saving tips: sent to 7,500 people monthly

  • ENERGY STAR booth at energy fair: visited by 2,200 people

  • Energy champions trained: 342 employees
    
    

2. Describe your organization’s communication strategies for promoting energy efficiency with ENERGY STAR to external audiences (i.e., those outside your organization, such as tenants, customers, shareholders, community members, suppliers, industry peers, etc.), how you implemented your strategy, and the 2019 results. Please address the following within your response:

• Goals of the outreach: What were your goals for outreach to external audiences?

• Target audiences: Which external audiences did you target and why?

• Metrics: What metrics did you identify to track to measure your success? (e.g., web stats, social media engagement, printed impressions, audience size for newsprint articles, email open rates, etc.)

• Tactics and materials: What tactics and materials did you use to implement your strategy and reach your target external audiences? Examples of tactics include:

  • Sharing news of your ENERGY STAR achievements, including story placements by major news outlets, advertisements, and press releases

  • Helping to spur additional energy savings at the local and/or national level by engaging external organizations

• 2019 accomplishments, including measured results: What did your communications achieve in 2019? How many people did you reach? Examples of measured results include:

  • Outdoor billboard advertising: 2,700,000 impressions

  • Web pages about ENERGY STAR partnership: 32,774

  • Online Facebook promoted ads: est. 12,500,000 impressions

  • Twitter engagement: 32 tweets mentioning @EnergyStar, @EnergyStarBldgs or an ENERGY STAR-related hashtag; 325 retweets reaching an estimated audience of 2,000,000

3. Describe your participation in ENERGY STAR recognition activities such as:

• Certifying eligible buildings and plants as ENERGY STAR on an annual basis

• Displaying the ENERGY STAR prominently at certified buildings and plants

• Achieving Designed to Earn the ENERGY STAR for new commercial building designs

• Achieving the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry for manufacturing sites

• Hosting a competition using ENERGY STAR resources

• Participating in local or regional ENERGY STAR-related programs

• Helping to develop ENERGY STAR success stories

• Hosting ENERGY STAR Industrial Showcases at plants

4. Please tell the stories that accompany your communications. Provide samples of your work such as advertisements, news stories, posters, articles, press releases, photos of the ENERGY STAR decal/ flag/banner in prominent locations, and other creative materials. Please highlight any shareable online content, such as videos, social media activity, dedicated web pages, energy-saving guidance promoted online, etc.

NOTE: Supplemental materials submitted should reflect a sampling of an organization’s strongest examples of external and internal communications related to promoting their partnership and achievements with ENERGY STAR. These materials should be submitted electronically with the application and include proper use of the ENERGY STAR logo in accord with the ENERGY STAR Brand Book.

Please note that EPA is not looking for entire PowerPoint presentations, but, rather, excerpts of slide sets where ENERGY STAR was highlighted. This helps reduce the length of attachments and allows the strongest examples to be demonstrated. To limit the size of attachments, some applicants have found it helpful to prepare a slide set with multiple examples of outreach included on just a few slides.

Section 3 – Demonstration of Energy Savings

This section of the application focuses on actual energy performance improvements achieved by your organization during the past year. Your application will be judged on both the magnitude of your improvements in 2019, as well as your current energy performance relative to your peers.

While 2019 savings are the focus of this section, you also are encouraged to report and illustrate the cumulative accomplishments of your efforts (e.g., dollars saved since program began, total energy saved since “x date in the past,” etc.) When highlighting cumulative accomplishments, include a timeframe for the longer-term accomplishments (e.g., saved $3 million in 2019 and more than $10 million since 2001).

Please note that commercial and institutional building partners will respond to section A only, and industrial partners will respond to section B only.

A. Commercial and Institutional Building Partners

All Commercial and Institutional Building Partners must summarize and provide a POY Report from Portfolio Manager showing organization-wide improvements. This POY Report must be generated for the period ending August 2019 or later. Additional supplemental guidance for generating this report can be found at www.energystar.gov/awards.

In your summary, please provide one or more equivalency statements for your energy savings by equating them to a metric related to your business or industry, or other financial or environmental metrics. Examples include:

• Number of first-year teachers that could be hired

• Number of MRI machines that could be purchased

• Number of hotel rooms that could be rented

B. Industrial Partners (NAICS 21, 31-33)
The entire table must be included in your narrative. Please provide a summary of your organization-wide energy performance, and copy the completed table into your narrative. If your company’s energy program is global, you may choose to include all operations worldwide or only the operations in the U.S. Please identify whether the information you share is U.S. only or global. Please be sure to use the proper units and intensities as stated in the table.

(Note: Cut and paste this table into your Accomplishments document for editing

1. Number of facilities tracked and benchmarked by plant type *
2. Total number of facilities operated by plant type
3. Total output, in units, which apply to the business of your company and correlate with energy usage, e.g. ft2, tons of a specific product, etc. for 2019
4. Aggregate energy intensity for 2019** in MMBtu/total output
5. Aggregate energy intensity for the corresponding period in 2018 in MMBtu/total output
6. Change in energy intensity (#4-#5)
7. Aggregate energy intensity for the corresponding period in an earlier year*** in MMBtu/total output
8. Change in energy intensity (#4 - #7)

*Plant type refers to the primary process used or product produced by the plant, e.g. auto assembly, metal casting; cement; etc.

**Calculate using 12 months of continuous data. Due to the deadline for this application, it is acceptable to complete the 12-month period using data from the final two months in 2018, e.g. the data period could be from November 2018 through October 2019.

***Selection of the specific year is at your discretion. If 2019 represents the first year for which energy was tracked, please enter “not available” in rows 7 and 8.

Lines 7 and 8 in the table are requested to enable a view of your energy program’s long-term energy savings. To further illustrate these long-term savings, you may provide equivalent dollars saved along with carbon dioxide emissions prevented for the equivalent period.

You may provide a summary report from your corporate tracking system that includes this information.

In addition to the information above, if ENERGY STAR has provided your industry with a plant Energy Performance Indicator (EPI), please provide ratings for each plant you have scored in the past year. If scores have improved over time for a plant, show that information as well. Additionally, provide results and accomplishments of plants taking the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry.

It is helpful to EPA to understand changes in business activity that may have impacted energy use in the past 12-month period. Provide an explanation when appropriate. In addition, describe any efforts to normalize data, such as accounting for weather, climate differences, or other business effects.

In your summary, please provide one or more equivalency statements for your energy savings by equating them to a metric related to your business or industry, or other financial or environmental metrics. Examples include:

• Number of socks that would have to be sold to equal the value of energy saved

• Number of cars that would have to be sold to equal the value of energy saved

Prepare/Gather Remaining Documents for Upload

PART 3: Supporting Materials (at least one required, as described in the Application Instructions above)

PART 4: Organization’s High-Resolution Logo (required)

ENERGY STAR^® is the simple choice for energy efficiency. For 25 years, EPA’s ENERGY STAR program has been America’s resource for saving energy and protecting the environment. Join the millions already making a difference at energystar.gov.

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