Energy and Water Management for Industrial Users

Abstract

The linkage between energy, water, wastewater and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has become an important topic for industrial manufacturing operations. Productivity initiatives across the industrial manufacturing sector are creating demand for energy and water programs that reduce operating costs and provide environmental benefits. Stakeholders are able to elevate the need for energy, water, and wastewater programs through various business drivers. Defining leading and lagging metrics are an important component towards successfully implementing an energy and water management program. Energy and water optimization opportunities identified in facilities may be more successful when evaluated outside the structure of a traditional energy-water nexus approach. Organizations are now considering the interaction of water optimization through reduction and reuse, energy consumption reduction and demand management, downstream waste management practices, and GHG emissions as an integrated approach. This paper presents perspectives on energy and water management program development and assessment. This includes strategic planning with a bottom up and top down approach for water and energy consumption reduction schemes, management of downstream waste and wastewater, and associated GHG impacts. Energy and Water Management – The New Corporate Productivity Initiative “Selling” the energy and water management program to senior leadership as “doing the right thing” can take many forms. For companies that are followers in sustainability, ensuring the program is categorized as a productivity initiative provides greater opportunities to drive the environmental benefits that result from implementing energy and water projects. There has been a recent trend towards categorizing energy and water management in an industrial manufacturing setting as a means to remove cost from operations while improving productivity as a “bottom 985 ICSI 2014: Creating Infrastructure for a Sustainable World