Outsourcing energy retrofitting of hotel buildings: the decision-making process

Abstract

Poor energy performance of existing buildings worldwide has led to a crucial need to retrofit existing buildings to minimise energy consumption. Among the existing buildings, hotels use as much as 50% of their total expenses on energy and offer significant opportunities for energy efficiency improvement. Yet, comparatively the level of implementation of energy retrofits found to be low, which has attributed to, inter alia, the absence of a clearly defined process for ensuring the delivery of energy retrofit projects and lack of proactive guidance for project teams to ensure that they make the right decisions at the right time to achieve the desired outcomes. Since many energy retrofit projects in existing hotels are carried out with the involvement of an external contractor, or an Energy Service Company (ESCO), this study focuses on investigating the decision-making process in implementing energy retrofits when the project is outsourced to an external party. An in-depth case study is used to obtain insights into the critical decisions to be taken and key activities to be performed throughout the decision-making process. The findings are used to propose a step-by-step decision-making process comprising of three key phases: i.e., pre-retrofit, retrofit implementation and post-retrofit. It is hoped that the decision-making process developed in this study will serve as a roadmap for the effective adoption and implementation of energy retrofits in existing hotel buildings when an external contractor is involved.

Implementing energy retrofits in existing hotel buildings using in-house teams: the decision-making process

“…According to respondent IH1R2, 'if there is significant potential for saving, but no enough capability to proceed with a retrofit project, then we have to make another decision, that is to still proceed with the project by obtaining the assistance of an ESCO or drop the project' (indicated by the 2 nd decision point in Figure 2). If an organisation decides to obtain the assistance of an ESCO, the project in turn becomes an outsourced ER project, which generally follows a different decision-making process (refer Fasna and Gunatilake, 2019).…”

A dynamic model of strategic outsourcing with emphasis on human resources and work experience in power industry of Iran

“…It is essential to take these steps to make a proper decision on outsourcing. Because, with regard to what has been said, outsourcing, along with many benefits, creates serious risks for the company (Fasna and Gunatilake, 2019). One of the benefits of the three-step decision-making process is identifying ways to prevent the failure of outsourcing.…”