66.5 Best Energy Efficiency Tips for Your Office or Facility

There are dozens of ways to reduce energy use. The harder question is deciding which ones make sense for your building.

Originally published March 9, 2012. Updated October 2026.

There is no shortage of ways to reduce energy use in an office or facility.

When I originally wrote this article in 2012, I assembled 66.5 ideas for reducing energy consumption. More than a decade later, many still apply. Others need qualification because buildings, controls, equipment and energy strategies have changed.

The list remains useful, but I would use it differently today.

Don’t treat 66.5 ideas as 66.5 projects.

Start with the building’s actual performance. Understand where energy is being consumed, what equipment is approaching replacement, what operational problems already exist and what capital work is planned.

Then use the list to identify opportunities worth investigating.

Some cost almost nothing. Others require engineering, capital investment or coordination with a larger building project.

Here are 66.5 places to look.

Operations & Controls

1. Review operating schedules.
Make sure HVAC and lighting systems are not routinely operating when the building is unoccupied.

2. Match HVAC schedules to actual occupancy.
Building hours change. Control schedules do not always change with them.

3. Review temperature setpoints.
Overheating and overcooling waste energy and often create comfort complaints at the same time.

4. Look for simultaneous heating and cooling.
A building should not routinely pay to heat and cool the same space at the same time.

5. Review after-hours HVAC use.
Understand who is requesting it, how often and whether entire systems are being operated for small occupied areas.

6. Use occupancy scheduling where appropriate.
Spaces that are used intermittently should not necessarily operate as though they are continuously occupied.

7. Check control overrides.
Temporary overrides have a habit of becoming permanent.

8. Verify that sensors are accurate.
A sophisticated control sequence cannot compensate for bad information from a failed or poorly located sensor.

9. Review control sequences periodically.
The sequence that made sense when the building opened may no longer match how the building operates.

10. Use the building automation system as a management tool.
Do not treat it simply as the screen someone looks at when a complaint arrives.

Lighting

11. Replace inefficient lighting as opportunities arise.
For many buildings, LED conversion is already largely complete. Where it isn’t, evaluate remaining opportunities.

12. Use occupancy or vacancy sensors where they make sense.
Conference rooms, storage areas, restrooms and other intermittently occupied spaces are obvious places to evaluate.

13. Use daylight controls where conditions support them.
Artificial lighting does not need to operate at full output when daylight is doing part of the work.

14. Review lighting schedules.
Exterior and interior lighting can remain on long after it is needed if schedules are never revisited.

15. Avoid overlighting.
More light is not automatically better light.

16. Clean and maintain fixtures.
Poorly maintained fixtures can reduce effective light output and lead occupants to compensate unnecessarily.

17. Review exterior lighting controls.
Photocells, astronomical time clocks and schedules should reflect actual operating needs.

18. Include lighting controls in renovation projects.
A fit-out or renovation is an opportunity to improve controls rather than simply replace fixtures.

HVAC

19. Maintain filters.
Dirty filters increase resistance and can affect both system performance and indoor conditions.

20. Keep coils clean.
Fouled heating and cooling coils reduce heat-transfer performance.

21. Inspect belts, dampers and actuators.
Small mechanical failures can undermine an otherwise efficient system.

22. Maintain proper refrigerant charge and equipment condition.
Efficiency depends on equipment actually operating as intended.

23. Review outside-air quantities.
Ventilation should satisfy applicable requirements and occupancy needs without introducing unnecessary conditioning loads.

24. Use economizer operation where appropriate.
When outdoor conditions permit, properly designed systems may be able to reduce mechanical cooling.

25. Evaluate variable-speed operation.
Fans and pumps do not always need to operate at full speed.

26. Reset temperatures and pressures when the system allows it.
Static pressure, supply-air temperature and water-temperature reset strategies can reduce unnecessary energy use.

27. Review equipment staging.
Multiple boilers, chillers or other equipment should operate in a sequence appropriate to actual loads.

28. Don’t automatically replace equipment with the same capacity.
Loads may have changed since the original system was designed.

29. Consider recommissioning.
Buildings drift from their intended operation. Recommissioning can identify problems that equipment replacement alone will not solve.

30. Coordinate HVAC replacement with other planned work.
Envelope, occupancy and controls changes may affect the system you actually need.

Building Envelope

31. Inspect weather stripping and door seals.
Uncontrolled air leakage can create both energy loss and comfort problems.

32. Maintain exterior doors and closers.
A door that does not close properly is an envelope problem regardless of how efficient the HVAC equipment is.

33. Review loading-dock and service-door practices.
Large openings left unnecessarily open can create substantial heating and cooling loads.

34. Investigate recurring perimeter comfort complaints.
They may reveal air leakage, insulation or glazing issues rather than simply an HVAC problem.

35. Evaluate roof insulation when roof work is planned.
A roof replacement can create an opportunity that would be expensive to pursue as a standalone energy project.

36. Evaluate envelope improvements when exterior work is already required.
Coordinate energy objectives with planned façade, window and waterproofing projects.

37. Use shading where appropriate.
Exterior or interior shading can help manage solar gain and occupant comfort.

38. Don’t replace windows based on energy savings alone without doing the analysis.
Window projects can be expensive. Energy is only one part of the business case.

Water

39. Repair leaks promptly.
A small leak wastes water continuously and can become a much larger building problem.

40. Evaluate low-flow fixtures when fixtures are being replaced.
Planned restroom work is an obvious opportunity.

41. Review irrigation schedules.
Irrigation should respond to actual landscape and seasonal requirements.

42. Look for unnecessary irrigation.
Watering pavement is not a landscape strategy.

43. Consider irrigation controls appropriate to the property.
Weather- or moisture-responsive controls may reduce unnecessary use.

44. Track unusual water consumption.
An unexplained increase may be the first indication of a leak or equipment problem.

Equipment & Plug Loads

45. Use power-management settings on computers and monitors.
Equipment does not need to operate at full power when it is unused.

46. Shut down equipment that does not need to run overnight.
Understand operational requirements first; then eliminate unnecessary runtime.

47. Include plug loads in energy discussions.
As lighting and HVAC systems become more efficient, miscellaneous electrical loads can represent a more significant share of consumption.

48. Evaluate office equipment when it is replaced.
Energy performance can be one selection criterion along with functionality, reliability and cost.

49. Review kitchen and break-room equipment.
Refrigerators, vending machines, coffee equipment and other appliances can operate continuously.

50. Question equipment that nobody seems to own.
If no one knows why something is running, it is worth finding out.

Capital Renewal

51. Connect the energy plan to the capital plan.
The two should not be separate exercises.

52. Look for incremental opportunities during required replacement.
If an asset already needs renewal, evaluate the additional investment required for better performance.

53. Don’t replace functioning equipment solely because something newer is more efficient.
Evaluate remaining life, reliability, energy savings and the full business case.

54. Avoid stranded improvements.
Do not invest in a component that a planned renovation or major replacement will soon remove.

55. Coordinate projects across systems.
Lighting, envelope, HVAC and controls improvements can affect one another.

56. Consider maintainability.
An efficient system that the operating team cannot maintain effectively may not perform efficiently for long.

57. Consider reliability alongside efficiency.
Energy savings are only one part of an asset decision.

58. Understand available incentives before finalizing the project economics.
Utility or government programs may affect the business case, but incentives should support a sound project rather than create one.

Measurement & Verification

59. Benchmark building performance.
Know how the building is performing before deciding what needs improvement.

60. Review utility consumption over time.
Look for trends, unusual changes and seasonal patterns.

61. Normalize the story before drawing conclusions.
Changes in occupancy, operating hours, weather and equipment loads can distort simple year-over-year comparisons.

62. Submeter significant loads where the information will support decisions.
More data is useful only when someone intends to use it.

63. Establish the expected result before the project begins.
If energy savings help justify an investment, document what is expected.

64. Verify performance after implementation.
Do not assume that installation automatically produced the modeled savings.

65. Investigate when savings do not appear.
Controls, operating practices, changed conditions or incorrect assumptions may explain the gap.

66. Keep monitoring after the project is closed.
Building performance can drift as schedules, occupancy and operating practices change.

And the Half

66.5. Ask the people who operate the building.

Energy data, engineering analysis and building systems matter.

So does the person who knows that the air handler has been overridden every Monday morning for three years, that one conference room is always too cold, that a tenant regularly works until midnight, or that a piece of equipment everyone assumes is operating normally has been troublesome for months.

The people closest to the building often know where to start looking.

Don’t Turn the List Into a Capital Program

Sixty-six and a half opportunities do not mean a building needs sixty-six and a half projects.

Some items may be operating corrections. Some belong in routine maintenance. Some may justify standalone investments. Others make sense only when coordinated with planned capital renewal.

A chiller approaching replacement creates a different decision from replacing a functioning chiller solely to reduce energy use.

The relevant question may not be:

“What does the energy project cost?”

It may be:

“If we already need to replace this asset, what incremental investment produces better performance?”

That distinction matters when capital is limited and projects are competing for funding.

Verify What You Bought

Energy projects frequently come with projected savings and payback periods.

Those projections depend on assumptions: utility rates, operating hours, occupancy, weather, equipment runtime and how the building will actually be operated after the work is complete.

If those assumptions help justify the investment, go back after implementation and see what happened.

Did consumption decline?

Are the new control sequences operating as intended?

Did the building achieve the expected performance?

If not, understand why.

An energy project is not successful because the equipment was installed.

It is successful when the building performs better.

Leadership takeaway: Use energy-efficiency ideas as a starting point, not a shopping list. Understand the building’s performance, connect opportunities to the capital plan, and verify that the improvements you fund actually deliver the expected result.