Vivaki – Jonathan Huynh – 2011

Goals

Jonathan Huynh spent his summer as an EDF Climate Corps fellow with VivaKi, a media organization that is part of the Publicis Groupe umbrella of companies. During his fellowship in Chicago, he worked with stakeholders in three buildings to develop a business case for energy efficiency and employee engagement projects.

Solutions

Although each building had already made progress using energy efficient fixtures, Huynh was able to identify nearly eight lighting and office equipment projects that offered significant savings. If scaled to the entire building, one LED retrofit project could save the company more than $112,000 over its lifetime. An analysis of the building’s computer power management practices led to a software solution that resulted in potential savings of $24,000 annually. 

In addition to retrofits, Huynh worked with each building to understand the barriers to existing “greening” and sustainability programs. He worked to facilitate knowledge exchange and understand organizational disconnects, as these focus areas could serve to reinvigorate the employee engagement initiatives. His efforts led to the formation of a preliminary committee of cross-functional business units and representatives to think about sustainability and usher projects forward after he leaves. Together, the retrofit and engagement projects provided the ideal 1-2 punch to tackle energy efficiency one outlet at a time.

Potential Impact

In total, Huynh facility-related recommendations could save the Leo Burnett building nearly 1.2 million kWh of electricity each year, 900 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, and approximately $207,000 over the lifetime of the projects.