Home > Areas of expertise > Energy and climate change strategies > Benchmarking

It can provide plant owners and company managers as well as governments with an understanding of their relative performance in comparison to potential competitors or best practice, the reasons for their relative position and the possibilities for improvement.

Benchmarking can offer many benefits, including: - providing realistic and achievable targets - highlighting gaps or weaknesses - challenging operational complacency - fostering continuous improvement

Our experts have been involved in benchmarking for many years. With experience in many sectors we have an in-depth understanding of the challenges and possibilities of benchmarking and have developed several approaches to best meet our clients’ needs. In addition, we can support follow-up activities where the benchmarking process has identified gaps and areas for improvement related to energy efficiency or emissions (see our Carbon Management service and our voluntary carbon market activities).

Our services include:

• Impact assessment of benchmark-based policies or systems on e.g. energy consumption, emissions, allowance allocation or costs
• Technical benchmark services, ranging from web-based self assessment tools to tailor-made services
• Strategic advice on performance improvement
• Evaluating the added value and the technical, economic and political feasibility of benchmarking as policy instrument or allocation methodology
• Capacity building & process management.

References:

• Evaluating the contribution of the Benchmarking Covenant to Dutch energy and climate change targets – Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs
• Feasibility of benchmarking as an allocation tool for the EU ETS – governments of the UK, Flanders and Cataluña (Phase II) and the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and the European Commission (Phase III)
• Developing a benchmark-based CDM methodology for cement - WBCSD
• Benchmark of cement plants in Canada – Canadian Cement Association
• Efficiency of power generation: a country comparison – incl. impacts of flue gas desulphurisation – Central Research Institute for the Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI), Japan
• Benchmarking biodiesel technologies – a private equity fund
• Capacity building , designing and implementing benchmark-based voluntary agreements in China – China Council
• Operation of the UK Focal Point on Benchmarking in Phase II of the EU ETS – UK DTI/DEFRA.