A sustainable approach for powering asset management within government organizations

Government organizations have acknowledged the need for a cleaner world, and many have launched initiatives to become more sustainable. The United Nations has spearheaded the Cities Race to Zero Campaign, which has attracted 130 cities worldwide, and 24 states in the US have greenhouse gas reduction targets.

When it comes to sustainability, how organizations enact their strategies can ultimately make or break their ability to succeed — and their willingness to stick with the effort. For those that do want to take sustainability practices seriously, the concept of embedding sustainability into their organizational culture can be a daunting task.

Government agencies and departments are expected to deliver increasingly complex services. The nature of these services is shifting from transactional to transformational, with an emphasis on citizen engagement, access and experience.

What’s standing in the way of sustainability?

Spoiler alert: it might be how assets are managed.

Many government organizations need help with sustainability because they need more resources or expertise to bake it into their day-to-day operations. In addition, there are often other drivers that influence how — or if — sustainability is embedded into government workflows.

There are many factors urging government organizations toward sustainability, such as:

• Ownership of public assets brings about added usage and responsibility
• Public agencies are expected to provide services of a certain caliber
• Balancing public safety while being financially transparent

Working with large numbers of people can be challenging. Additionally, officials must recognize taxpayers' needs and wants because how the public perceives an action can be just as necessary as the action itself.

Technology that centralizes data can help governmental leaders make smarter decisions and better communicate the reasoning to their citizens.

Data: the key to smarter business decisions

Without visibility into the “why” that large capital spending decisions are made, the public might not trust the choices made to better their communities. However, data can help explain the reasoning.

Data can also help governmental departments to more efficiently schedule repairs. Improvements that address potholes, for example, may help reduce traffic incidents, but contribute to increased fuel use and overall emissions. But, when data is used to identify other nearby projects that can be completed in the same trip, they are able to stay on track for sustainability goals.

Organizations also need tech that can help them find consumption patterns, benchmark buildings and make decisions that reduce carbon emissions — the right energy management solution can make that easier to accomplish by centralizing data with a simplified dashboard.

Whether it is a short-term maintenance decision or a long-term replacement, data analysis is essential, to provide evidence to the community on why and how these investment decisions are made. Not to mention, visibility helps uphold the government organization’s good name and financial stability.

Brightly understands the complexities of sustainability

Bringing sustainability to the forefront of government organizations is no easy feat, but Brightly is one step ahead. Energy savings are measurable and consistent over time, but achieving this goal will require an initial investment of time and effort with a strong return over the long haul.

With that in mind, we’ve created government-focused solutions that foster smart cities through:

Scalable data management

Brightly can implement our asset management solutions so they can begin accumulating and analyzing data without adding to anyone’s workload.

Accurate, dependable data

Using an energy management system to track and report your organization’s ESG data can help you achieve a higher EnergyStar score, which translates into the potential for major cost savings.

In-house and partner expertise

Our team can provide consultations to educate and inform people about making operations more sustainable and efficient — and connect leaders to powerful asset and energy management tools to help them accomplish their goals.

Working with states and municipalities worldwide, Brightly has evolved by empowering government organizations with essential asset and energy management in a cost-effective and scalable way. We strive to make sustainability synonymous with success by helping build smart cities from within.

Brightly believes that an organization can — and should — be optimized to serve both its purpose as well as the broader global community. Schedule a demo today.