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Understanding the True Meaning of Asset Sustainability

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 01Sep2010 Word count: 507 Viewed: 175 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

What factors determine whether a particular asset is efficient or not within any given organization? Put it another way, what are the important metrics when it comes to assessing the viability of an asset and its return on investment? Traditionally, these factors are centered around performance based on specific purpose and the benchmarks used reflect manufacturer or industry expectations.

Asset sustainability is now becoming more widely recognized as an indicator of value. Companies understand how their activities may impact the people and environment all around them and are beginning to interpret the true meaning of corporate social responsibility. The company understands that it relies on natural resources to operate and that it must be a better steward of these resources.

What factors determine whether a particular asset is efficient or not within any given organization? Put it another way, what are the important metrics when it comes to assessing the viability of an asset and its return on investment? Traditionally, these factors are centered around performance based on specific purpose and the benchmarks used reflect manufacturer or industry expectations.

Every company needs to decide how it can minimize its exposure, while trying to operate to its maximum potential. This can be a difficult juggling act, especially in the modern era, when all its activities appear to be much more visible to interested stakeholders.

Asset sustainability directly affects the amount of energy that the company is responsible for procuring and using. We know that this energy creates a volume of greenhouse gas emissions and we know that every effort must be made to curtail this carbon pollution in the face of growing anxiety. If energy is to be treated as a scarce commodity, a different set of metrics must be used to record the sustainability of each asset.

Typically, an asset is purchased for a particular purpose and its efficiency measured according to industry or product benchmarks. In short, the asset is termed to be operating efficiently and to purpose if it performs as measured by specific parameters. Very rarely is it measured according to its carbon output, or determined to be ultimately sustainable, or not.

Asset sustainability will require a whole new approach to asset design and manufacturer. It is conceivable that such an asset may be designed to be less than ultimately efficient from a pure performance perspective in future, if such a design makes it environmentally unsustainable. This is a significant change in approach and will take some assessment.

Asset sustainability may only be revealed if it is individually monitored, from an energy consumption perspective, of course. This is not the case in the vast majority of organizations, who are only beginning to determine their energy-related carbon footprint as a consequence of their overall electricity use. Individual monitoring, before the meter, will reveal how each asset is performing based on a historical analysis.

We are moving from an era where assets, once installed, are expected to perform satisfactorily until they are projected to be replaced, to an era where asset sustainability is much more important.

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