Jillian Winterkorn

To combat climate change, companies across the country are setting ambitious decarbonization goals. Facility managers, trained to make sure these buildings are operating properly, are now tasked with finding ways to make these buildings operate more energy efficiently, less dependent on fossil fuels and find solutions to help their companies reach the greenhouse gas reduction goals. An electric and natural gas utility in the Northeast has devised several support mechanisms to help train facility managers so they are ready for these new tasks. Through its facility manager training program, aimed at equitably advancing efficiency across the industrial sector, we offer studies that focus on equipment benchmarking and monitoring, energy efficiency treasure hunts and customized training. These trainings help facility managers identify solutions to help run their building operation more efficiently, track reduced energy consumption and achieve greenhouse gas reductions. This presentation will discuss the best practices for training facility managers, so they are prepared to meet the challenges associated with decarbonization and discuss lessons learned from devising a training-based program. It will discuss how to engage and train facility managers so they can act as the change agent by proposing the solutions that can help their company exceed its decarbonization goal. Training the facility managers who run these facilities to look for innovative efficiency and zero-carbon solutions is essential, especially for companies that want to be successful in meeting their decarbonization goals.