Smart Energy Management is Smart Business All authors involved in this energy series hope that you, the reader, are taking away one key message – being smart about energy is smart business.  Smart energy management – from long-term, strategic planning to tactical actions such as putting your computer in sleep mode can have a profound compounding effect on an organizations wallet and the environment. 

In our last post, we talked about how a greenhouse gas management program mitigates the risks associated with future regulatory changes. We also talking about its usefulness as a cost mangemnent metric. Today, we will get into the basic steps of the greenhouse gas mangement process. Greenhouse Gas Management at a Glance A greenhouse gas inventory will likely include the following steps. 

Government organizations and private sector businesses need to realize that greenhouse gas management can no longer be viewed as a tactic to appease socially conscious citizens or shareholders but rather should be recognized as a critical component of long term organizational success. Over the next two blog entries will discuss how a greenhouse gas management program mitigates the risks associated with future regulatory changes and its usefulness as a cost management metric.  We will also briefly explain the basics of the greenhouse gas management process.

  Decisions based on bad information can lead to poor results and be quite costly to organizations. This may culminate in the squandering of opportunities, taking on unnecessary risk, misallocating resources, and ultimately not achieving strategic goals or objectives.

Decisions based on bad information can lead to poor results and be quite costly to organizations. This may culminate in the squandering of opportunities, taking on unnecessary risk, misallocating resources, and ultimately not achieving strategic goals or objectives.

 

Decisions based on bad information can lead to poor results and be quite costly to organizations. This may culminate in the squandering of opportunities, taking on unnecessary risk, misallocating resources, and ultimately not achieving strategic goals or objectives. At a time of shrinking budgets and increasing expectations to do more with less, making better decisions based on informed judgment has taken on even more significance for both private sector and government organizations.

The next contribution to this forum, based on an IBM Center report written by Karen Hardy, explores the benefits of an enterprise-wide approach to risk management. This is especially timely because of the Obama administration’s focus on accountability and transpar ency that has prompted a renewed focus on risk and controls. In addition, recent highprofile financial failures have also focused increased attention on risk and controls. Holistic ERM starts with a focus on the possible events that could potentially happen and their classification into opportunities and risks.

The next contribution is based on a Center report by Professor James Bailey, Strengthening Control and Integrity: A Checklist for Government Managers. It follows Hardy’s piece on enterprise risk management and focuses on managing risks to strengthen the financial control and integrity process that may lead to better decision making. Taken together these two articles provide state-of-the art overviews on how governments at all levels can improve their control and risk management activities, which in turn, can lead to better decision making.

The next contribution is based on a Center report by David H. Schanzer and Joe Eyerman, Improving Strategic Risk Management at the Department of Homeland Security. It explores how the federal government can enhance its capability to use strategic risk management in safeguarding the nation. It focuses on strategic risk management—the process by which decisions are informed by an analysis of risk. Risk management can be applied at several levels: tactical, operational, and strategic.