Energy Management
As part of our commitment to reduce our carbon footprint, we adopt "green" building techniques and operations around the world. For example, we have installed smart building technology in three of our facilities in Paris, where over a period of six months in 2011, we saved the equivalent of 620 trees by reducing our energy usage by 14 percent over 2010. Additionally, in Canada we partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to implement new energy management programs in our Toronto West office. Installing smart meters enabled us to reduce lighting and heating, ventilation and air conditioning schedules by 42 hours per week, contributing to energy reductions of approximately 31,420 kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year—a saving of approximately 14 percent over 2010.
Accenture has an Environmental Management System (EMS) and holds global ISO 14001 certification. In fiscal 2010 and 2011, successful audits of Accenture's ISO 14001 locations resulted in renewal of our global certificate and we expanded our EMS in locations such as Mexico City. We continue to harvest and share innovations from these locations and look for new opportunities to expand our EMS. Additionally, many Accenture offices around the world hold green building certifications, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and Green Star 6.
To reduce our use of office electricity, in fiscal 2010 we implemented new Remote Energy Monitoring (REM) technologies. We have now connected more than 150 smart meters in 20 locations, transmitting energy data from our locations in South Africa, Spain, Mauritius, UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, India, Philippines, Canada and Germany. As a result, we now feed our electricity consumption data from these locations to a central tool, which records and monitors consumption in real time. The REM technology can accelerate energy-reduction efforts for instance, in our Johannesburg, South Africa, location, it yielded a 10 percent efficiency improvement in only four weeks.
We have also improved our energy efficiency over the last two years. In fiscal 2010, our collective efficiency activities helped us save approximately 36,400,000 kWh compared with our fiscal 2007 baseline. These activities allowed us to avoid 21,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions and approximately US$4.1 million. In fiscal 2011, our collective efficiency activities helped us save approximately 63,400,000 kWh compared with our fiscal 2007 baseline, thereby avoiding 44,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions and approximately US$7.8 million.
We also procure more than 10 percent of our office electricity from renewable sources. In several of our locations, including in Germany, Italy and the United States, we have been able to replace nonrenewable with renewable energy. Based on the successes achieved in those locations, we have developed a global energy procurement strategy that we plan to execute in additional locations over the next two years.
Our people, too, participate in lowering carbon emissions related to electricity. For example, in fiscal 2011, 30 Accenture locations across North America competed in Accenture's Biggest Kilowatt Loser Challenge, a five-month collaborative effort to reduce office energy consumption. The result of the six-month contest: we avoided 912,096 kWh–an overall kWh reduction of 7.2 percent.