Niall Enright is a sustainability consultant helping companies become more resource and energy efficient. A few months ago he contacted me to tell me about a book he’s written called, Energy and Resource Efficiency Without the Tears – the complete guide to adding value and sustaining change in an organisation. This guide is free as a PDF and can be downloaded via this link.

About this book, Niall writes:

This is not a theoretical manual – it is based on more than 25 year’s work in the field in the US, Canada, Europe, Africa and the Far East. For example, for the last 8 years I have been Director of Sustainability for Peel Holdings a US$10bn property and infrastructure company here in the UK. In this time, I helped design and lead a programme which has saved £1.5m a year on an energy bill of £4m, achieved the first ISO 50001 certification for a major UK property company as well as piloted the “BREEAM Communities” standard (similar in some ways to LEED Neighbourhood Development).

Niall has made the argument that sustainability is about Value and as such, he has developed a straightforward framework to demonstrate the most successful method to identify, implement and maintain momentum down the sustainability path (see diagram below):

Niall wrote this book for a variety of reasons:

[T]hose of us who work on sustainability in buildings know that this is not an easy subject. There are many non-technical barriers and challenges that we encounter. The book is packed with helpful advice, ideas and techniques to overcome these barriers. Whether you are an energy efficiency practitioner, a sustainability manager, a LEED AP, a project manager, involved in policy-making, an educator or a student, an analyst, architect or designer – there is a lot of useful material for you. This content is not at all UK-centric – It draws on many real projects and best-practices from around the world.

The book is divided into two sections:  Volume One describes the framework Niall uses to help companies change, while Volume Two describes the techniques used to make those changes.

While the framework sets out how to go about making changes and all the stakeholders involved in doing so, Volume 2, gives you the techniques for doing so.

Since the book is 840 pages, you can believe that no stone for achieving efficiency has been left unturned. There are hundreds of real-life examples of situations where efficiency measures were taken or not depending on the frame of mind of management and their immediate and long-term goals. There are resources to help guide sustainability managers at every turn from how to finance new projects, to achieving different certification levels to finding the right technical expertise to help evaluate potential projects and even how to address behavioural issues and mindsets that are often the largest barrier to efficiency.

This is the most in-depth book I have ever read on energy and resource efficiency. Niall also goes over the numerous benefits for a company for becoming more efficient. While you might immediately come to the conclusion that efficiency is about saving money, in fact, that is only one part of it (and in many cases, not enough of a motivator to make the change). Often there are other reasons such as comfort, safety, ease of doing something, lower maintenance, etc. All of these reasons can add up to increasing a company’s motivation for more efficient use of resources.

This is a great reference book people involved in almost every aspect of designing, building and operating buildings. It can help guide you through identifying which projects to do and where to look for the resources to help you achieve your goals. While the PDF is free, the hardcopy is also available at £79 – it is printed on-demand so there is no waste (which generally is a huge problem in the publishing industry).

You can download the book directly from their site or order a printed copy here: http://www.sustainsuccess.co.uk/iwik

and it is also available through Amazon.

Note that while I did receive a free e-copy of book via the link, it is available to everyone. Niall did not know that I review books and I volunteered to write this review. I’d like to thank Niall for reaching out to me and letting me know about his book.