Are you looking for ways for your school to “go green” but do not have a large budget to hire an energy management consulting company?  Think Lean Energy.   At its heart, Lean focuses on eliminating waste from the value stream of a product or service.  (Click here  to see some examples of wasteful activities in education that lie buried in processes).    This means removing all of the wasteful operations, processes or things the end customer

does not want and does not want to pay for in hidden costs (See for more discussion of value add vs. non-value add from the perspective of students and parents).  Through the application of lean principles, school systems can find simple ways to improve energy and environmental performance while lowering operating costs, improving staff morale and bringing true value to the school system’s stakeholders (i.e. students, parents and the larger community.)

In his book Green Intentions: Creating a Green Value Stream to Compete and Win, Brett Wills identifies seven “green” wastes:

1. Energy: paying to consume more energy than is required from a source that negatively impacts the environment (e.g., coal)
2. Water: paying to use more water than needed
3. Material: designing products with no intentional thought of how to reuse (e.g., products that will end up in a land fill)
4. Garbage: paying for something you will throw away (and paying to throw it away)
5. Transportation: paying for excess and unnecessary travel
6. Emissions: paying to create and discharge pollutants
7. Biodiversity: destroying trees, landscaping, etc. or overharvesting these resources faster than they can re-generate themselves

As with other lean efficiency efforts, the goal is to see, understand and remove these wastes using Lean and Six Sigma tools and approaches.  How does this translate into real world examples?  Let me share with you results from a few school districts LEAN Frog has worked with to drive lean efficiencies that have generated significant energy improvements.

Getting $Green$ from Lean Energy Initiatives

• We helped one small, rural district with 9 schools move from their manual paper requisition/procurement process to a paperless electronic process using existing software tools.  This saved $10,065 per year through the reduction of mileage/transportation and paper/printing cost.   This was in only one process.

• Through a Detailed Efficiency Review, we identified the opportunity for one large urban district to reduce the usage of 190,576 sheets of paper annually — 33 Linear miles if stacked end-to-end, Over 2 Football Fields high if staked flat — in the Purchasing and Account Payable Process.   Improvements would save the district $18,800 in paper and preprinted form costs and potentially allow the reduction of 2 internal mail delivery days saving another $24,000 per year.

• We helped one large urban school district develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and deploy a monthly Organizational Review Process to maintain vigilance.  Some of the energy related KPIs included water, electricity, and natural gas usage. This performance management system allowed the district to see how they were performing overall on a normalized per 1000 student number and to be able to compare individual school facilities.  By drilling deeper into individual metrics, the process resulted in the quick identification of immediate opportunities.  One of the most significant was a major long-term underground water leak that was unknown at one of the district’s schools.  By tracking and monitoring KPIs, opportunities like this leak can be identified and addressed quickly minimizing the negative impact.

Other Simple Lean Energy Things Schools Systems Can Do

School systems can make the biggest gains in energy efficiency with the lowest costs by engaging its people, a basic Lean tenet.

• Nurture subtle shifts in employees’ thinking.  When employees recognize energy wastes and think from their stakeholders’ point of view, it is second nature to immediately report and fix leaky faucets and to turn off lights that are not in use.
• Provide incentive programs.    Promote and reward positive behavior by having individual schools track their power usage.  Split savings costs between the district and the high performing school.

For more insight into lean energy solutions, see the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) free LEAN, ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL KIT. This 64 page pdf was developed “ “to assist organizations in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy use while improving performance through Lean manufacturing activities. Drawing from the experiences and best practices of industry leaders, Lean and environmental service providers, and government partners, this toolkit provides practical strategies and techniques for improving energy and environmental performance while achieving Lean goals such as improved quality, reduced waste, and increased customer responsiveness.”

Lean initiatives can provide opportunities to improve your school system’s financial performance and energy efficiency.  Think Lean Energy!