Industry Leader Interview: Fred Fendt of The Dow Chemical Company

The “Industry Leader” series features interviews that aim to shed light on energy efficiency and energy-related activities that are shaping strategic initiatives in leading U.S. industrial companies. This month, the Alliance interviewed Fred Fendt, Energy Efficiency & Conservation Global Manager at The Dow Chemical Company and newly elected Chairperson of the U.S. Council for Energy- Efficient Manufacturing (U.S. CEEM).

Alliance: What do you see as potential activity for U.S. CEEM over the next two years?
Fendt: At a minimum, U.S. CEEM will act as the voice of U.S. manufacturers, providing feedback and guidance to whomever is administering the SEP program. This alone has tremendous value, but I think U.S. CEEM has the potential to do much more. I hope U.S. CEEM can become recognized as the voice of U.S. industry for comment and feedback of a technical nature for any proposed program or legislation affecting industrial energy usage. Some organizations advocate for specific policies and associations represent their particular industry’s point of view on energy, but U.S. CEEM is unique in focusing only on the technical and logistical issues of industrial energy efficiency and in doing so with such a broad cross-sectional representation of all U.S. industries.

Alliance: What do you see as the most valuable aspect of the organization?
Fendt: There isn’t just one that is most valuable by itself. I believe the thing that is the most valuable about U.S. CEEM is that it truly represents ALL of industry, not just one sector and that its focus is the technical and logistical impacts of energy efficiency programs on manufacturers. I think U.S. CEEM has the potential to be a great resource to industry as well.  The actual people who represent member companies at U.S. CEEM meetings are usually corporate energy managers who are involved in the details of implementing their companies’ energy and sustainability programs. 

Alliance: Has the outlook of energy managers toward energy efficiency changed over the past five years, if so, how?
Fendt: I think that in general there are two current trends with respect to industrial energy efficiency.

One is financial. Interest in energy efficiency ebbs and flows with varying energy prices and other financial fluctuations. Oddly, high energy prices often mean a company has less money to execute energy efficiency opportunities right when they are needed most. Then, when there is more money because of lower energy costs, the opportunities seem less valuable and are harder to justify.

The other trend is sustainability and brand management. The specifics seem to shift, but being sustainable, having a smaller footprint, being less of a burden to air and water, all of these drive energy efficiency behaviors in the right way. When I began my career, over thirty years ago, the attitude was that a company would do what made economic sense, period. Now, I believe companies see value in being sustainable as well. They understand the value placed by society on sustainable behavior and realize the benefit from having sustainability programs.

Alliance: Has SEP enabled or enhanced Dow’s ability to measure and document energy savings? If so, has this affected your ability to obtain capital for energy efficiency projects or facilitated replication of energy efficiency projects at other Dow plants?
Fendt: Honestly, the whole process is very new, and we haven’t had it implemented long enough to gauge the full impact yet.  Our Texas City facility has completed certification, and they are seeing some benefit.  We have other sites at various stages of the process and I believe that the structure of ISO 50001 combined with the transparency and rigor of SEP will pay dividends for any facility that adopts them.  For plants that are already ISO certified for 9001 or 14001, then the support structure for an ISO system already exists and implementing ISO 50001 is not by very costly.  If a plant decides to manage energy, doing it in a way that allows SEP certification returns a lot of value in increased discipline and increased transparency.