Competencies, Roles and Responsibilities of Lead Assessors

Any organisation that opts for energy audits, Display of Energy Certificates and Green Deal Assessments needs a lead assessor to review the chosen ESOS compliance routes. The Derivative provides that energy audits should be carried out independently by qualified and accredited experts. Additionally, these audits should be implemented as well as supervised by independent authorities under the national legislation.

Lead assessors undertake several roles in ESOS assessments. He or she is the one responsible to take the lead of the entire assessment team, prepare the plan, conduct the meetings and submit the formal report to governing authorities. Nevertheless, selecting an appropriate lead assessor is an important element that every organisation should carefully consider.

Competencies Requirements of Lead Assessors

Lead assessors should be knowledgeable enough with in-depth expertise in carrying out energy efficiency assessment. They should also possess foundational, functional and technical competencies to deliver the task effectively. Likewise, consider the assessors? sector experiences, familiarity with your business? technologies and properties, and accreditation with prescribed standards.

As you choose your lead assessor, contemplate on the skills and qualifications that would give your organisation benefits.

Roles and Responsibilities of Lead Assessors

The business organisation is responsible for the overall legal ESOS compliance. Moreover, here are some of the roles and responsibilities that lead assessors should assume in ESOS assessments.

The lead assessor agrees on the audit methodologies that the organisation would undergo in new audits. He or she agrees with the ESOS participant regarding the audit timetable, sampling approach and visits required. It is also the lead assessor?s role to identify the opportunities on energy saving and assist in calculating the cost savings from the measures taken. During the ESOS audits, the lead assessor determines the energy use profiles, presents the recommendations and reviews the entire assessment as a whole. Furthermore, he or she should maintain the evidence pack of the ESOS to uphold the audit’s credibility, its findings and recommendations.

Finding Lead Assessors

Energy and environment professionals would only be able to demonstrate their expertise as lead assessors upon registering in a professional body accredited by the Environment Agency. Any business that needs a lead assessor is advised to check on the EA?s website to see the details of approved registers.

Lead assessors can either be in-house experts or external professionals. However, they should be able to provide proof of membership as an approved register to take the role of a lead assessor. If the organisation has an internal lead assessor, the company should then take the final ESOS assessment to two board-level directors that would sign the formal report.

Indeed, the lead assessor is an organisation’s partner when it comes to delivering great results. With good professional conduct and excellent management of an assessment team, the lead assessor can help achieve breakthrough energy efficiency strategies. More than anything else, the organisation will benefit from maximum energy savings opportunities ahead. Thus, every qualified business enterprise should invest in finding the best lead assessor to guide them towards success.

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Still Looking For A Way To Consolidate Excel Spreadsheets?

We use Excel spreadsheets everyday. We use them to prepare budgets and reports. We even use them when drafting plans and forecasts. With this ubiquitous office application, entering data and carrying out on-the-spot computations and analysis is quick and easy. However, when it’s time to consolidate Excel data, I won’t be surprised if you wished there was an easy way.

In fact, you were probably looking for a solution before landing on this page, right?

Because budgeting, reporting, planning, and forecasting are normally done by a group of people and not just by one individual, spreadsheets bearing the necessary data can be scattered in different folders, desktops, offices, and, in the case of really large organisations, geographical locations.

How are these data brought together? Through email attachments or by sharing folders in a local area network. Each member of the working team sends out copies of their own spreadsheets to other members, who then review them, make necessary changes, then send back to the source. The files can go back and forth until everyone is satisfied.

With each sending, sharing, and edit, business critical data gets exposed to all sorts of spreadsheet risks. Copy-paste errors, omission of a negative sign, erroneous inputs, accidental deletions, and even fraudulent manipulations can take place. And because each member can end up with multiple versions of a single spreadsheet, the chance of working on the wrong version exists.

So when all the data gets consolidated and finalised, it is possible for the end product to contain significant errors. It may not happen all the time, but it certainly can happen.

But that’s not the only disadvantage of spreadsheets. The entire process of comparing cells and sheets, copy-pasting data, linking cells, writing formulas, and specifying ranges can be very tedious, not to mention time-consuming. With spreadsheets, beating deadlines is always an almost impossible exercise.

What you need is a solution that will no longer require you to consolidate Excel spreadsheets. One that is faster, more reliable, and significantly less error-prone. Denizon has a server-based solution that has all those capabilities and much more.

With a server-based solution, all your data is stored in one place. Everyone is working on the same data source, so consolidation is fast and easy. Everyone becomes synchronised and no one has to worry about working on the wrong version.

Read more about our server-based solution

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The Rights of Individuals Under The General Data Protection Regulation

The General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR is a European Union law reinforcing the rights of citizens concerning the confidentiality of their information, and confirming that they own it. We thought it would be interesting to examine the GDPR effective 25 May 2018 from an Irish citizen?s perspective. This article is a summary of information on the Data Protection Commissioner?s website, but as viewed through a businessperson?s lens.

How the Office Defines Data Protection

The Office believes that organisations receiving personal details have a duty to keep them private and safe. This applies inter alia to information that individuals supply to government, financial institutions, insurance companies, medical providers, telecoms services, and lenders. It also applies to information provided when they open accounts.

This information may be on paper, on computers, or in video, voice, or photographic records. The true owners of this information, the individuals have a right:

To make sure that it is factually correct
To the assurance that it is shared responsibly
That all with access only use it for stated purposes

Any organisation requesting personal information must state who they are, what the information is for, why they need to have it, and to whom else they may provide it.

Consumer Rights to Access Their Personal Information

Private persons have a right under the GDPR to a copy of all their information held or processed by a business. The regulation refers to such businesses as ?data controllers? as opposed to owners, which is interesting. They have to provide both paper and digital data, and ‘related information?.

Data controller fees for this are discretionary within limits. The request may be denied under certain circumstances. The data controller may release information about children to parents and guardians, only if it considers a minor too young to understand its significance. Other third parties such as attorneys must prove they have consent.

Consumer Rights to Port Their Data to Different Services

Since the personal information belongs to the individual, they have a right not only to access it, but also to copy or move it from one digital environment to another. The GDPR requires this be ?in a safe way, without hindrance to usability?. An application could be a banking client that wants to upload their transaction history to a third party price comparison website.

However, the right to data portability only applies to data originally provided by the consumer. Moreover, an automated method must be available for porting. Data controllers must release the information in an open format, and may not charge for the porting service.

Consumer Rights to Complain About Personal Data Abuse

Individuals have a right under the General Data Protection Regulation to have their information rectified if they discover errors. This right extends to an assurance that third parties know about the changes – and who these third party entities are. Data controllers must respond within one month. If they decline the request, they must inform the complainant of their right to further remedial action.

If a data controller refuses to release personal information to the owner, or to correct errors, then the Data Protection Office has legal power to enforce the consumer?s rights. The complainant must make full disclosure of the history of their complaint, and the steps they have taken themselves to attempt to set things right.

Further Advice on Getting Things Ready for 25 May 2018

The General Data Protection Regulation has the full force of law from 25 May 2018 onward, and supersedes all applicable Irish laws, regulations, and policies from that date. We recommend incorporating rights of data owners who are also your customers into your immediate plans. We doubt that forgetting to do so will cut much sway with the Data Commissioner. Remember, you have one month to respond to consumer requests, and only one more month to close things out subject to the matter being complex.

ESOS Guide for UK Manufacturers Available

The Engineering Employers’ Federation (EEF) is the UK’s largest sectoral structure. Its goal is to promote the interests of manufacturing, engineering and technology-based businesses in order to enhance their competitiveness.

EEF has positioned itself in London and Brussels in order to be in a position to lobby at EU and Westminster level. Part of its role is helping its members adapt to change and capitalise on it. When it discovered that a third of UK manufacturers must comply with ESOS (and 49% had not even heard of it) EEF decided it was time to publish a handbook for its members.

According to EEF’s head of climate and environment policy Gareth Stace, For the many manufacturers that have already taken significant steps to improve energy efficiency, ESOS can be viewed as a ?stock taking exercise?, ensuring that momentum is maintained and new measures are highlighted and taken when possible?.

He goes on to add that others that have not begun the process should view it as an ‘impetus’ to go head down and find the most cost-effective ways to slash energy costs. Ecovaro adds that they would also have the opportunity to reduce carbon emissions almost as a by-product.

Firms with more than 250 employees, over 250 million revenue or both must comply with ESOS across all UK sectors. In simplest terms, they must have conducted an energy audit by 5th December 2015, and logged their energy saving plan with the Environmental Agency that is Britain?s sustainability watchdog.

The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DEEC) that oversees it believes that large UK businesses are wasting ?2.8 billion a year on electricity they do not need. Clearly it makes sense to focus on larger targets; however EcoVaro believes those halfway to the threshold should voluntarily comply if cutting their energy bills by 25% sounds appealing.

We are able to assist with interpreting their energy audits. These are often a matter of installing sub-meters at distribution points, and reading these for a few representative months to establish a trend. Meters are inexpensive compared to electricity costs, and maintenance teams can install them during maintenance shutdowns.

Ecovaro helps these firms process the data into manageable summaries using cloud-based technology. This is on a pay-when-used basis, and hence considerably cheaper than acquiring the software, or appointing a consultant.