Of thirteen Canadian commercial audit firms we reviewed, not one published a deliverable specification — no table of contents, no sample, no description of what arrives at the end. You are asked to commit five figures to a document nobody will describe. Here is ours, section by section.
This is the structure of a Level 2 report. A Level 1 report carries sections 1 to 4 and a shortened section 5; a Level 3 report adds a calibrated model and measured data under section 3.
| Section | What is in it | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Executive summary | The decision, in one to two pages: total recoverable saving, total capital required, blended payback, incentive position, and what we recommend you do first. Written for a board or an owner, not for an engineer. |
| 2 | Building and operations profile | Gross floor area and how it was determined, use types and proportions, occupancy and operating hours, major systems inventory with age and condition, and the operating constraints that rule measures in or out. |
| 3 | Energy baseline | 24 to 36 months of utility data by fuel, weather-normalized, with the normalization method and degree-day source stated. Energy use intensity. Peer benchmark where the building type supports one. Estimated reads and data gaps identified rather than smoothed over. |
| 4 | End-use breakdown | Where the energy actually goes — heating, cooling, ventilation, domestic hot water, lighting, plug and process load — and how the split was derived. This is the section that changes minds. |
| 5 | Energy conservation measures | The ranked table. One row per measure, with the columns set out below. Measures that were considered and rejected appear here too, with the reason. |
| 6 | Incentive position | Measure by measure, which programme applies, what it pays, what the eligibility gate is, whether pre-approval is required, and the date each figure was verified. |
| 7 | Implementation sequence | The order to do the work in, so measures do not undo each other — envelope before heating plant sizing, controls before equipment replacement, metering before anything that will need verifying. |
| 8 | Measurement and verification plan | What will be measured, how, against what baseline, and for how long. Required by every pay-for-performance programme. |
| 9 | Assumptions and limitations | Stated explicitly. What we measured, what we estimated, what we took on trust, and what the report does not cover. |
| 10 | Appendices | Equipment schedules, utility data tables, site photographs, logger data, calculation sheets and the drawings relied on. |
Every row carries all of these. A measure that cannot be given a cost and a saving is not a recommendation, it is a suggestion, and it goes in a separate list labelled as such.
| Column | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Measure and scope | Specific enough to tender. "Upgrade lighting" is not a measure; a fixture schedule is. |
| Installed cost estimate | With the basis stated — quoted, catalogue, historical or parametric. |
| Annual energy saving | By fuel, in kWh and m³, not only in dollars. |
| Annual cost saving | At stated rates, with the rate and date shown. |
| GHG reduction | In tonnes CO₂e, with the emission factor source. |
| Simple payback | Before and after incentive. Both, because they are often very different decisions. |
| Incentive available | Named programme, amount, eligibility gate, verified date. |
| Interaction | Which other measures on the list change this one's saving. |
| Confidence | How firm the number is, and what would make it firmer. |
Two tests. First: does every recommended measure have a cost, a saving, a payback and a named incentive? Second: is there a limitations section? Experienced reviewers read that one first, and a report claiming no limitations is the one they scrutinise hardest.
Two readers, and they want different documents. Operations needs the systems detail, the equipment schedules and the sequencing. Finance needs the capital requirement, the payback, the incentive position and the risk. We write the executive summary and the measure table so a finance reader can act on them without reading section 4, and we keep the engineering in the body and appendices where it belongs.
Every report is delivered as a PDF, with the measure table also supplied as a spreadsheet so you can re-sort it, change a rate assumption and see what happens. A review meeting is included — a report handed over without one tends not to get read past the summary.
Being explicit, because scope confusion is where audit engagements sour:
Yes, on request — redacted, because the originals belong to the clients who paid for them. Ask and we will send one for a building type close to yours.
Often, and it makes the new work cheaper because the baseline and the equipment inventory are already done. Send it to us before you commission anything. Measures that failed a payback test three years ago frequently pass now, because incentive levels and energy prices have both moved.
You do, on payment, including the spreadsheet and the data behind it. We retain a copy for our records and for any verification work that follows.
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If you do not need an audit, we will say so.