The blogosphere has been atwitter the last few weeks after consulting firm McKinsey & Company released a 165-page report (if anyone reads the whole thing, please let me know - I owe you a beer!) citing a potential savings to the U.S. economy of $1.2 trillion through 2020 by investing $520 billion in energy efficiency and other green building measures. Such an investment would cut our energy use by 23 percent by 2020 and prevent 1.1 gigatons of carbon emissions, the report says.
While that's all very impressive, what does it really mean? Does the $1.2 trillion figure impress you, as is no doubt the intention? If you're answering "not really," you're not alone.
You are probably well-familiar with such "if we do 'x', then we'll see 'y' results"-type studies, and the funny thing is, the general reaction to this one seems to be: "Well, duh!" (Check out this blog by one of my favorite green building experts - Rob Watson - who touches on the McKinsey report.) No one is really that surprised that if we invest in energy efficiency, we'll save money. Clearly, the reason this report has generated so much buzz is the supposedly eye-popping TRILLION dollar figure.
Of course, the other most common reaction has been to bring up questions of practicality. I bet if the Cincinnati Reds - my favorite baseball team - fired manager Dusty Baker and signed $200 million in top-tier free agents this off-season, they'd have a real good chance at winning the 2010 World Series. Ain't gonna happen, unfortunately. And similarly, that $520 billion (the report says a target $50 billion over each of 10 years) investment, which is four to five times the current annual investment in energy efficiency, is fairly unlikely to happen also. It'd be nice, but it won't.
Now, I'm certainly not trying to attack this report's credibility or poo-poo the importance of energy efficiency, and I certainly don't mean to sound like a skeptical jerk. It's just that we've heard all this before. If anything, a report like this is valuable because it reiterates the value and importance of energy efficiency. Hopefully, it'll spur action - at least at an organizational level!