I think there are a few ways that could be approached.
The traditional energy audits tend to be fairly intense undertakings, especially the ones that are usually funded by utility programs. These will often be $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 studies. They require a significant amount of effort and there are only so many trained auditors in the country. Our firm is probably one of the largest, certainly in western Canada, that is dedicated to that, and we're just 30 people. There's a limit to how many buildings even we can audit.
I actually think there's a technology solution to that portion of the problem, where greater investment in data analytics.... For the utilities, we look at ways that we can do lighter-touch audits, where we come in and do walk-through audits or something with much less effort. In our experience, if you have someone who really knows buildings well, you actually can get 75% of the value with 20% of the effort, for example. I think that's a way to scale the amount of work that can be done.
The first barrier is just identifying what the opportunities are. Doing that effectively, quickly and inexpensively is going to be one way to scale the impact.
In terms of the energy manager program, it's really just incentives—whether through utility programs or other programs, or maybe some tax credits that are possible—for organizations to hire these energy managers and for them to understand what the value is. I'm not sure what the mechanism is, but just get those people into medium to large organizations. Not every mom-and-pop shop needs an energy manager, but once you're of a certain size, it absolutely makes sense.