Customized Business Services

Businesses, consumers and shareholders are changing the way they think about energy and the environment. Resources such as energy and water are increasing in price and volatility, climate change issues are becoming more complex, and decision- making by consumers and shareholders is evolving. This business landscape creates significant competitive and regulatory risk that can be turned into opportunity by an integrated environmental strategy. Our solutions are designed to reduce these risks while delivering long-term competitive advantage to your organization.

 

Regulatory Position Assessments and Strategies
Regulatory Position Assessments and Strategies

Ecos helps businesses understand the financial and operational risks, impacts and opportunities of carbon and other resource-oriented regulations. We provide legislative analysis, emissions inventories and profiles for reporting, and clear, investment-driven action plans. We‘re a founding member of The Climate Registry and a member of the Chicago Climate Exchange and the California Climate Action Registry.

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Financial Impact Analysis of Regulations

Ecos conducted a financial impact analysis of the Lieberman-Werner bill on North American operations for a Fortune 50 client.

Carbon Price Forecasting

Ecos developed future carbon price forecasts and modeled the impacts of those prices on utility rate structures for a West Coast utility.

Environmental Inventories and Baselines
Environmental Inventories and Baselines

Ecos helps businesses develop inventories in the areas of carbon, energy and water. We provide carbon and water accounting at the corporation, facility or product level and conduct energy mapping at the facility or process level to provide baselines for compliance or the developing and measuring of strategies aimed at reducing expenditures and environmental impacts.

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Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventories

Ecos conducted an integrated GHG inventory for the worldwide operations of a large media holding company.

Water Footrprinting

Ecos conducted the water footprint for a large regional restaurant chain as part of their effort to reduce resource expenditures.

Sustainability Performance Audits

Ecos conducted an integrated audit of the existing sustainability practices for the nation’s largest national park in an effort to identify improvement opportunities as part of a larger Ecos-designed sustainability initiative.

Integrated Resource/Engineering Audits

Ecos conducted an integrated energy audit supported by on-site metering of specific process components for a national food processor to identify opportunities for implementing efficiencies and cost reductions.

Registry Compliance and Reporting

After conducting a GHG inventory for a company in the tourism industry, Ecos handled the registration process with the California Climate Action Registry.

Industry Benchmarking and Best Practices Audits

Ecos worked with the developers of large casino in the design and approval stages to identify and substantiate the best-in-class sustainability practices necessary for the casino to be built in a national scenic area.

Integrated Resource Efficiency Strategies & Implementation
Integrated Resource Efficiency Strategies and Implementation

Ecos identifies opportunities for your business to improve energy and water efficiency. We provide technical and business direction to reduce utility costs and improve productivity using continuous improvement and lean manufacturing strategies. We‘re experts in facility systems, including lighting, HVAC, compressed air, pump and piping, with the results yielding lower energy and water use and more reliable operations.

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Energy Efficiency Project Identification and Implementation

Ecos identified and implemented compressed-air system savings for a large beverage manufacturer that yielded $176,000 in annual energy savings.

Water Efficiency Project Identification and Implementation

Ecos identified water savings and is implementing an operational water-use strategy for a restaurant chain that is forecasted to save $20,000 annually.

Waste and Recycling Project Identification and Implementation

Ecos identified 20 projects for the nation’s largest national park that will divert an estimated 576 additional tons of waste from landfills while further reducing GHG emissions.

Energy Management Solutions

Ecos worked with a regional food provider to identify and design the opportunity for monitoring and managing energy through automated controls facilitating better management and continuous commissioning of energy measures.

Onsite Generation Assessments
Onsite Generation Assessments

We have provided local, state, national and multinational organizations with detailed technical assessments of the feasibility of implementing such distributed-generation technologies as solar photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, waste heat recovery systems, and combined heat and power (CHP) systems. We also advise utilities on distributed-generation opportunities available to their customers, providing preliminary assessments of the environmental and financial benefits to both the utility and its customers.

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On-site Generation Feasibility Analysis

Ecos identified the opportunity and provided the engineering-level feasibility analysis of a 2.4 MW CHP unit for a national food products company. Ecos worked with the local utility, financial institutions and the company to develop a solution that yielded a positive ROI and increased efficiency and reliability while lowering GHG emissions.

Portfolio Assessments for Onsite Generation

Ecos completed an engineering feasibility and financial assessment of all potential onsite generation opportunities for the top 100 global sites of a Fortune 50 company.

ontinuous Resource Improvement (CRI) Services
Continuous Resource Improvement (CRI) Services

Built on the foundations and methodologies of other improvement programs (Lean, TQM, ISO 14000), Ecos (which is on the standards committee for development of the ISO 50000 spec) employs a CRI model that enables companies to build resource efficiency awareness as a foundation for environmental responsibility. The CRI model draws on an organizational development assessment of the client as a platform on which to position all analysis of resource utilization and improvements.

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Phase One: Establish a Baseline

Ecos helps clients develop an intimate knowledge of their organization’s environmental impacts and the organizational behaviors that perpetuate those impacts. Services include:

  • GHG Inventory and Environmental Baseline with Benchmarking
  • Life Cycle Analysis
  • Organizational Development Baseline
  • Creation of Data Management and Visualization tools
Phase Two: Identify Risks and Opportunities

Ecos evaluates a company’s exposure to compliance and financial risks as a result of the evolving regulatory and consumer preference landscape. Service include:

  • Regulatory Risk Assessments
  • Competitive and Benchmarking (Gap) Analysis
  • Operations Audits and Value Stream Mapping
  • Environmental and Financial Metric Development
  • Project Identification and Ranking
  • Project Feasibility Analysis
Phase Three: Goal and Strategy Development

Ecos assists clients in setting appropriate impact reduction goals and develops a comprehensive management and investment plan for achieving defined goals. Services include:

  • Goal Development
  • Project Structuring and Valuation
  • Investment Prioritization Framework Development
  • Organizational Development Planning
Phase Four: Implementation

Implementation: Ecos assists clients in implementing initiative strategies, providing a full suite of services ranging from data and project management to internal and external training and communications. Services include:

  • Project Management
  • Internal Communications and Employee Training
  • Data Management and Reporting
  • Corporate Sustainability Report Development and Green Marketing
Phase Five: Evaluation and Improvement

Evaluation and Improvement: Ecos works with clients to audit operations over time, to ensure that they achieve expected project or initiative results. Our objective is to hand the CRI process over to the client for self-governance. As requested, Ecos employs adaptive management strategies to drive improvements throughout the initiative. Services include:

  • Measurement and Verification
  • Facilities Commissioning
  • Adaptive Management Consulting
Corporate Sustainability Strategies
Corporate Sustainability Strategies

While environmental stewardship and sustainability may be part of the operating philosophy of many companies at the plant or business-unit level, most have not formalized their sustainability strategies at the corporate level. Ecos helps companies capitalize on their opportunities in this arena and leverage their investments in environmental stewardship through the development of a cohesive sustainability strategy at the broader, corporate level.

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Data Gathering and Evaluating Current Practices

Ecos conducted an integrated audit of the existing sustainability practices for the nation’s largest national park in an effort to identify improvement opportunities as part of a larger Ecos-designed sustainability initiative.

Sustainability Strategy Development with Prioritization and Measurement Frameworks

Ecos assists clients in setting appropriate impact reduction goals, structuring projects according to the value they will bring, prioritizing investment framework, and planning organizational development.

Internal and External Communications Strategy Development

Ecos worked with the nation’s tenth largest brewer to aggregate and quantify the considerable sustainability efforts it had undertaken over the course of 20 years. Ecos then created a unified, corporate sustainability strategy that tied their achievements with business operations and product marketing that yielded an increased awareness of their actions and their brand’s commitment to the environment. The company has since won three awards for their sustainability efforts.

Investment Prioritization Frameworks
Investment Prioritization Frameworks

Ecos is an expert at identifying and evaluating the financial merits of a particular project or group of projects within an environmental strategy. We understand that whatever one’s stance is on the environment, actions must make financial sense. Beyond our financial analysis capabilities, Ecos has more than 12 years of experience identifying and processing financial incentives to improve the return associated with efficiency projects. Many large-scale utility programs offer financial incentives for customers who implement efficiency measures. In addition, many local, state and federal agencies deliver tax incentives for the same measures.

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Financial Incentive Assessment and Delivery

Ecos worked with a large beverage manufacturer to deliver utility incentives for a compressed-air project that covered 40% of project costs.

Financial Investment Budgeting and Prioritization

Ecos worked with a well-known winery to develop a 12-month, forward-looking efficiency investment budget that encapsulated historical energy spend, energy mapping and the expected performance improvements gained from phased efficiency investments.

Green Marketing and Corporate Communications
Green Marketing and Corporate Communications

Negative “green” portrayals can hurt your brand as well as your corporate reputation. For more than 12 years, our Ecos Marketing team has helped organizations capitalize on positive, defendable policies to attract customers to their brands and improve loyalty. Ecos delivers in-house, cost-effective marketing and promotional campaigns that help increase consumer awareness of current environmental efforts and positions. We are experts in creating highly effective green communications plans, including key pieces that position your organization’s positive efforts and mitigate risks associated with “greenwashing.” Services include:

  • Market Research and Strategy Development
  • Technical Writing and Design
  • Advertising
  • Interactive Strategies
  • Photography and Video
  • Special Events, Promotions and Training

To see more, please visit our Marketing section.