In our kick-off episode, Graziella Sicilliano from the US Department of Energy sits down with Greg Lamson from Boston Scientific to talk about energy management and the ISO 50001 global standard.
In today’s episode, Graziella Sicilliano from the US Department of Energy sits down with Greg Lamson from Boston Scientific to talk about energy management and the ISO 50001 global standard.
Greg Lamson, Principal Facilities Engineer at Boston Scientific shares what's driving energy and carbon management at Boston Scientific, and how using the ISO 50001 energy management system framework is helping streamline efforts across the company saving energy, carbon, time and money. "
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Greg Lamson: [00:00:00] Like they say, one of my favorite sayings is continual improvement. Yep. I love that. Yeah, me too. That's what it's all about. It's not about just a. Up and downs. It's a long haul. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
Host: Welcome to Connected fm, a podcast connecting you to the latest insights and ideas in facility management. This podcast is brought to you by fma, the leading professional association for facility managers. If you're ready to grow your network and advance in your career, go to ifma.org to get started, and we've just launched an all new updated SFP credential.
This is your chance to become an expert in sustainability and improve the bottom line of your organization. Visit imma.org/sfp to learn more. In today's episode, GRA Ciano from the US Department of Energy sits down with Greg Lampson from Boston Scientific to talk about [00:01:00] energy management and the ISO 50,001 Global Standard.
Graziella Sicilliano: Everyone. This is Graciano and I work for the US Department of Energy, and we're so excited to be here at the ifma World Workplace Conference in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. So excited to have the opportunity to talk today with Greg Lanson from Boston Scientific on this podcast about one of my favorite topics, energy management.
This is really about Boston Scientific and take it to the next level with ISO 50,001 s. So before we dig in, Greg, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your company and your role.
Greg Lamson: All right. My name's Greg Lampson. I'm the principal facilities engineer with Boston Scientific.
We're a global medical device manufacturer, the global headquarters located in Marlborough, mass.
Graziella Sicilliano: Excellent. At this Isma conference, we've had a lot of traffic to that Department of Energy booth. Energy management seems to be [00:02:00] top of mind for facility managers and folks really interested in all of the DO OE free resources, and they really wanna take their energy management programs to the next level.
I know energy's a big topic for your company. For you personally, I'd love to hear a little bit more about. Where you guys are at right now in terms of energy and your carbon management and what's really motivating and driving efforts at your company right now?
Greg Lamson: Boston Scientific. They're the, uh, first medical device manufacturer to make a, uh, carbon neutrality commitment with respects to scope one and Scope two carbon.
That's exciting by 2030. Thank you very much. That's quite a commitment. Extremely so. I mean, that, that's where, what drives the whole program and we've got a pretty tightly management team there, is just trying to reduce energy and reduce our carbon footprint as well.
Graziella Sicilliano: Is that the motivation by setting that carbon neutrality goal, a part of just eternal company strategy or external stakeholders, or what's really pushing you guys to set these ambitious, ambitious targets?
Greg Lamson: Yeah, so. [00:03:00] Boston Scientific. They're a great company to work for. If they care about their employees, they're also, they're here for the environment as well. You, I'm trying to be as green as possible. Seeing the carbon neutrality commitment, that was just another notch in Boston Scientific's Belt.
Graziella Sicilliano: Well, that's great.
That's really great to hear. So you got all these people and all these facilities. You're all over the world, I assume. And you've got these big goals. How do you go about getting all of your facility managers and all your leadership at all those levels moving in the same direction towards that carbon neutrality goal?
It's a big undertaking to change the way you do things or improve the way you do things. To meet a goal and get a whole organization to move in the same direction. Yeah.
Greg Lamson: It's a, uh, a top down approach. Definitely. Everybody's, everybody's performance metrics are tied to these goals. We have social sustainability goals as well as environment, so it comes from the top down.
And then we just, we have a global [00:04:00] facilities and utility management team. We meet every month, every other month, and that's how we stay in contact. We do community practice just. Lots of knowledge sharing. It's definitely a great
Graziella Sicilliano: resource. Yeah. You know, it's, it's pretty important when leadership is not only setting ambitious goals, but also empowering folks to move with those goals.
The criti critical piece, I know you guys also have implemented the ISO 50,001 Energy Management. Yeah. Systems standard. How does that play into your strategy for. Coordinating our Cross Oak organization
Greg Lamson: and ISO 50,001 Global Standard. We are 9,001 certified in our manufacturing sites. We're 14,001 certified, the majority of our sites, and so 50,001.
Was just another way to, to continue on with best practices. It's certainly energy management is going to be our key focus on try or our key tool to implement the carbon neutrality. We have basically [00:05:00] three pillars of that, if you will. We have cut, convert, and compensate. Okay. Those are the three basic tools to energy management.
Cut. Cut the
Graziella Sicilliano: energy
Greg Lamson: use, right? Just reduce energy, use, implement, uh, more efficient equipment. Better. Better sequence of operations, better controls, convert. We're trying to decarbonize all of our sites, so we're moving away from natural gas towards renewable energy. And then finally, the last step, the one we want to implement the least, is to compensate.
And I believe as we get closer to that 2030 date, we may have to do some of the compensation and parts of some offsets. Yeah.
Graziella Sicilliano: Yeah. I appreciate the ordering though There it's offset says a last. Resort and it really sets you up to take advantage of what's available technology-wise to, but, and so hopefully innovation moves at your pace and can meet your needs.
But yeah, certainly understand the need to consider offsets as part of the, of the strategy. So you guys have all this experience with ISO Management systems, so you're familiar with the structure of [00:06:00] managing change in the organization. So it's part of the language that you guys speak. Um, But was it challenging to implement even with the familiarity that you guys had?
Was it challenging to implement? Standard. What did it take? Did it take a long time?
Greg Lamson: We were actually able to accomplish it in just about 11 months. Oh, wow. Marlboro was the first site in the US to be ISO 50 1001 certified. Oh. But we had a lot of experience behind us, our sites in, in Ireland and, uh, crop.
Yeah. They were all ISO 50,001 certified too. So they, they built the man, the, the energy manual. Oh, excellent. And then, you know, we just, Basically worked. We had a four team or foresight operation going. So there was Marro, Massachusetts, Quincy, Massachusetts, Spencer, Indiana, and Dorado, Puerto Rico. So it was a four team effort and we were able to rely on each to make things move a little bit faster, and certainly being able to utilize all the tools that had been put in place.
Yeah, it really allowed us to meet [00:07:00] our goal.
Graziella Sicilliano: Yeah, leapfrog. Why reinvent the wheel when you've got your friends in Ireland that have tested out an approach? So that's really great. That's really great. We do know a lot of European companies have do 50,001. They have a lot of incentives in Europe, financial incentives from government and all that wonderful stuff that we don't quite have set up yet in the United States.
Yeah, definitely. But it's interesting cuz we are seeing a lot of companies voluntarily take up 50,001 in the United States cuz they see the benefits of that from the European sites. So through internal. Best practice sharing saying, Hey, this is something to really consider for the whole company, so it's great, and maybe we'll have incentives for that one day.
That would help. That would certainly help. Absolutely. You guys, even probably before the fifth, 2001, you were managing energy, right? What were some of the incremental benefits that like the management system, ISIS of 2001 approach brought to your business?
Greg Lamson: Prior to to the 50,001 [00:08:00] certification, our energy management was more of an ad hoc type situation, being the facility engineer.
I'm able to log into the billing management system and review how the, all of our HVAC systems, all our critical systems are operating. But it wasn't strategic at that point. It just, I'd log in, oh, some pumps are running when they shouldn't be. Or, uh, controls weren't exactly the way they should be set up, so it wasn't as standardized.
With the 50,001 program, it certainly allows us to have more of that, that, uh, say what you do, what you say, type attitude about it. Yeah. And the documentation really a assists.
Graziella Sicilliano: Yeah, it's, we work with a lot of companies, the Department of Energy, and one of the exciting parts of the job is working with these amazing energy champions at, at their fantastic folks that even without leadership buy-in, are able to just use their pure will and charisma to get things done.
But the sad thing is when they leave and then there's, that was Jane's thing and I don't know where those, that stuff is. So documentation just for like [00:09:00] continuity management, when you have staff transitions, To keep things moving is, is super helpful, even though it sounds like super boring. Documenting and energy manual and standard operating procedures, and it seems like overkill, but it really helps with.
Managing the risks of staff moving on or staff, new staff coming in and getting them up to speed. Yeah,
Greg Lamson: exactly. The thing that I find I struggle with as I go is I'll just see an issue and focus on it and correct it. We'll see the energy consumption, those numbers. Every month we do the review and where they go up or down, typically they go down.
The documentation part was always like a kind of a tough point for me just being in the ED area. I wanna get
Graziella Sicilliano: it done, like you wanna get it done and gotta move on to the next challenge. Write it down. Everything down takes exactly. The
Greg Lamson: longer it takes, the less energy you say. Yeah. So, but that, that is the process, as you said, being able to have that continuity between one person to the next.
And all the documentation that comes with ISO 50,001, it's critical to the [00:10:00] program success.
Graziella Sicilliano: Oh, excellent, excellent. What are your next steps? Are you guys gonna be doing more of this, your facilities or en energy?
Greg Lamson: The E N M S, you know, it's, uh, ongoing process, always trying to improve the program, implement more efficient equipment, but, In general, just improve the program.
Yeah. It's ongoing. Like they say, one of my favorite sayings is continual improve. Yep. I love that. Yeah, me too. That's what it's all about. It's not about just up and downs. It's a long haul. Yep. It's a marathon, not a sprint, so. Yep, absolutely. One. One of the most important tools that I use is the ISO 50,001 energy footprint tool.
They are the DOE energy footprint tool. Yeah. I find that is probably the most important tool I
Graziella Sicilliano: have. Oh, excellent. Excellent. I know all my colleagues that created that tool are gonna be very happy to hear that.
Greg Lamson: Yeah. I had between DOE and Georgia Tech, I had the opportunity to work with those guys as well and it is, it's quite a powerful
Graziella Sicilliano: tool.
Yeah. We do at Depart of Energy have a [00:11:00] lot of resources on 50,001. Um, cuz we did see a need, a lot of companies that we work with had that ad hoc approach. And there were opportunities, money being left on the shop floor and that kind of stuff from potential energy savings. So we really invested a lot to help develop the standards, but also tools to translate a wonky standard into steps and tools and description and worksheets to make it easy for us industry to take this standard up and run with it.
Hmm. So. Really excited when we get to talk with someone that has really emulated that and taken it to the next level and really implemented across the country. One last question for you. Your medical device manufacturer, you've had success with 50,001. What would you say to other facility managers here at ifma?
We have folks managing. Soccer stadiums and office buildings [00:12:00] and just the widest array of functions, buildings. What would you say them, do you think 50,001 could help them? You think it's useful for them and their particular need? From what
Greg Lamson: I see, I don't see that it works for everybody. Some of these smaller sites, lease sites, I think it's more difficult.
It's definitely more challenging to try and do an energy management program, but if, if your owner operated or you have a large network, I think it's definitely a better tool for you. Better tool. Yeah,
Host: absolutely. Yeah.
Graziella Sicilliano: Excellent. Greg, thanks so much for taking the time to talk about my favorite topic, energy management.
Thank you
Greg Lamson: for having me.
Host: Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe to the podcast and don't forget, go to ifma.org/sfp to start your sustainability learning journey. That's ifma org slash sfp. We'll see you soon on the next episode.
Connected FM is a [00:13:00] production of the International Facility Management Association. If you want more great content, be sure to check out our YouTube channel, youtube.com/ifma Global.