Over the past 12 months we have been inundated with Net Zero Carbon commitments. Before I get into why I think this is partly delusional, I want to take a moment to clarify my position on the topic in general.

What kickstarted the Net Zero movement?

Since Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ hit our screens in 2006, the devastating impact we have on our planet has become widely accepted and understood. Thankfully, the climate change sceptics are now few and far between. But awareness of the issue is one thing, for a long time we lacked any notable action.

Energy efficiency has gone out of fashion. A quick check of Google trends will confirm this. A 15 year-long steady decline in search volume. But why?

Last week I shared a blog post about why I believe energy waste during non-operational hours is one of the most easily avoided forms of waste in buildings. This week, I’m deep-diving into the 4 step process to identifying energy waste during non-operational hours across your portfolio of buildings.

Degree days are the most underused performance metrics in energy data analysis. Simultaneously, they are widely misunderstood and therefore misused.

Weather conditions are the most influential factor when it comes to the variability of energy use in buildings. Even in a moderate climate such as the UK’s, changes in the requirement for heating and cooling typically accounts for 50%-70% of the variation in usage over the course of a typical year. In other words, regardless of everything else that’s going on inside or outside our buildings, changes in weather account for nearly all fluctuations we see day to day, week to week or month to month.

If you’re not going to use degree days for your energy data analysis, then you may as well be blindfolded. It would be like going on a diet but not tracking how much you eat.