Reports from McKinsey & Company are not on the required-reading list for most facility managers. McKinsey is a consulting group that targets senior management, and they’ve made a name for themselves by analyzing opportunities and challenges that have strategic importance.
Lately, McKinsey has been paying attention to a topic that’s on every facility manager’s to-do list: energy efficiency. And the firm concludes what most everyone else who looks at energy efficiency concludes: It’s a great economic opportunity. As part of the firm’s “Climate Change Initiative,” McKinsey estimates a whopping $1 trillion in potential savings from improving energy efficiency in the United States.
No wonder McKinsey thinks that CEOs will be interested.
That trillion dollars wouldn’t all come from buildings, of course. But a healthy chunk of it would. McKinsey calculates that a $125 billion dollar investment in the commercial sector would produce present value savings of $290 billion — 87 percent of which would come from buildings and the devices in them.
How much should facility managers care about McKinsey’s work? After all, the firm’s numbers alone won’t justify the investment of a single dollar in any energy upgrade. But an article from McKinsey might be worth e-mailing up the chain of command as an FYI. And there may be some situations — say, a discussion of the potential strategic importance of energy efficiency — where dropping the McKinsey name wouldn’t hurt.
But I think there’s a more basic reason for facility managers to be aware of McKinsey’s studies, and this principle isn’t limited to material that comes from McKinsey: It’s never a bad idea to know what your boss, or your boss’ boss, may be reading — especially when it has to do with your job.