Colgate-Palmolive – Xuancheng Zhou – 2021

Goals

Colgate is exploring strategies and opportunities to support greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. The enterprise wants to determine the potential reductions (water and kWh), cost savings, and associated CO2 reductions. 

Solutions

Xuancheng approached the challenge in three stages:

1. Identify goals and criteria for improving energy efficiency projects: After reviewing several documents and the whole factory, Xuancheng got a general idea of the factory and the production process.
2. Identify energy saving opportunities: Xuancheng combed through the company’s compressed air and water networks. He found several places that could be improved to save water and identified a potential saving in compressed air usage. Then, he tried to propose a solution, and found out if the supplier was able to provide equipment to solve the problem.
3. Evaluate project value: He used the CCFAT to estimate the value for the energy saving project, reported to the supervisor, and implemented the plan step by step.

Potential Impact

He found that there was a large deviation between the municipal water meter and the water meter measured by factory and proposed a solution to save energy. These projects, when fully implemented, could result in 57,000 kWh of annual electricity savings, and 63.79 metric tons of CO2 emissions reductions. It will help companies save almost ￥300,000 a year.