Energy Academy
Level 1/Monitoring & Targeting (M&T)
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Setting Realistic Targets

How to set energy targets that are ambitious but achievable.

9 min read · Last reviewed July 2026

A target converts monitoring into management. Without one, an M&T programme can describe performance beautifully and change nothing; with a good one, every weekly report carries a quiet question: are we on track or not? The craft is in setting targets that are ambitious enough to drive action, credible enough that operations accept them, and normalised properly so that a cold winter cannot masquerade as failure or a mild one as success.

Anchor the target to the baseline, not to raw history

The naive target, "use 10% less than last year", fails the first time the weather differs from last year, which is always. The robust form applies the reduction to the baseline model, not the raw total:

Target consumption = (baseline expectation for the period's actual conditions) × (1 − reduction)

The target then travels with the weather. In a mild month it demands less in absolute terms, in a cold month more, and in every month it asks exactly the same thing: perform 10% better than the site's established relationship with its drivers.

Worked example — a degree-day-adjusted target
Given
  • Baseline model: annual gas = 96,000 + 100 × HDD, so a 2,100 HDD year expects 306,000 kWh
  • The programme commits to a 10% reduction against baseline
  • Gas £0.06/kWh
Find
The target and its value in a 2,100 HDD year.

Choosing the number

Where should the 10% come from? Three defensible sources, in rising order of ambition:

  • Recovered waste. The exception reports and signature analysis have already quantified identified faults and avoidable base load. A target that simply commits to capturing what has been found is modest but nearly guaranteed, and a good first year.
  • Benchmarks. If comparable sites, or published sector benchmarks, run 15% leaner per unit of output or floor area, the gap is evidence of what is achievable without new technology. Compare like with like, as the sector benchmarking lessons stress.
  • The project pipeline. If funded projects (a burner replacement, LED lighting, heat recovery) have engineering estimates attached, the target can incorporate their predicted savings with their commissioning dates. This ties the M&T programme to the capital plan, which is where it earns senior attention.

A structure that works well in practice: a firm annual target built from the first two sources, plus a stated stretch component contingent on the project pipeline landing.

Make it SMART, then make it visible

The usual SMART tests apply: specific about which meters and what normalisation, measurable against the published baseline, achievable for the reasons above, relevant to a business priority (cost, carbon, or a corporate commitment), and time-bound with interim milestones rather than a single year-end cliff. Quarterly milestones expose drift early; the CUSUM chart from the baseline lesson is the natural way to display progress against the target line, because it accumulates the story rather than resetting each month.

A target nobody owns is a wish

Every target needs a named owner with the authority to investigate deviations and commission fixes. The M&T analyst reports against the target; the owner answers for it. Where sub-meters exist, cascade ownership: the site target at the top, and each significant system or department accountable for its own share. Accountability, not analysis, is what moves the number.

With targets in place, the remaining machinery is the routine that polices them: exception reporting, the subject of the next lesson.

Sources and further reading