If energy efficiency is such a good solution for skyrocketing GHG emissions and rising costs, why is it not being widely adopted by industry?
On 13 June, IIP hosted a webinar to explore this question and demonstrate how one of the greatest barriers to energy efficiency is simply access to good quality information. The webinar, ‘Breaking through the Information Barrier’, is the first in a series being organized by IIP, hosted by the Clean Energy Solutions Center (CESC) on their online platform. This webinar brought together a panel of experts to investigate how to break through the information barrier and allow the free flow of information on industrial energy efficiency between governments, industry and the financial sector. It explored ways to make reliable information on technology and practices freely available to industry; investigated how policymakers can use it to drive industry implementation; and examined how the financial community might use it in loan applications. Presenters were Arvind Thekdi, the President of E3M; Ernst Worrell, an internationally renowned energy and resources professor at Utrecht University; Jean-Francois Sautin, an energy efficiency consultant and former Senior Vice President of internal auditing at Lafarge; and Murat Mirata, IIP’s Technical Manager. The webinar included a panel discussion on the role of independent collection of information in rectifying information barriers, particularly in regard to the energy and GHG performance of various technologies and relationships between industrial companies and equipment suppliers. It also covered IIP’s Industrial Efficiency Technology Database (IETD), which was developed to make relevant and reliable information accessible to all.