Bottom-up and budget targets
Bottom-up targets are a dynamic class of targets, where the target values that are created at lower levels in the organizational hierarchy are aggregated into target values at higher levels in the hierarchy. Budget targets are a type of bottom-up target that tracks cost information.
An example of a bottom-up target might be to reduce annual CO2 emissions by 1000 kilotonnes (kt), compared to a baseline of the organization's CO2 emissions for the previous year.
Bottom-up target values that are created at account, meter, or location levels can be aggregated into target values at the group or organization level. You can use only absolute target types to create bottom-up targets, and you can use active bottom-up targets for comparison in all the relevant performance dashboards. Only bottom-up targets are supported in the daily refresh of monthly aggregated data in datamart.
Only one bottom-up target of a particular type, such as native unit, can be active for a particular period. The reason is that because bottom-up targets are used in performance dashboards and reports, the target data must not overlap. Multiple targets of the same type that cover consecutive time periods can be active at the same time.
The Bottom-up Targets grid
You can display a grid of bottom-up targets from the IBM® ESG Suite Manage menu. Also, on the summary pages of lower hierarchical levels, you can use the More menu to view bottom-up target data within a specific group, location, account, or meter.
In the Bottom-up Targets grid, you can manage and create targets, generate Excel templates for bulk updates and drill down to capture target data manually. The actions that are displayed when you right-click a target, or click Actions, depend on your permissions.
- Target name
- A unique name that the client gives to a specific target.
- Target status
- Indicates whether a target is active or inactive. Only active targets are displayed in standard performance dashboards.
- Target type
- The type of bottom-up target. Native unit targets are the most flexible, but you can also configure energy, emissions, mass, and volume bottom-up targets if needed.
- Measured in
- The unit in which the target data is captured. The options that are available depend on the selected target type. For example, for energy, options might include GJ (gigajoules), MWh (megawatt hours), or MMBTU (one million British Thermal units).
- Effective from
- The start date of the period that the target covers.
- Effective To
- The end date of the period that the target covers.
- Months covered
- The number of months that the target covers from the effective from date to the effective to date.
- Description
- An optional description of the target.
- Account/meter targets
- A count of how many months of target data at the account or meter level have been captured across all the accounts and meters.
- Location targets
- A count of how many months of target data at the location level have been captured across all the locations.
- Lowest level
- The lowest hierarchical level at which you can create target data.
- Updated on
- A timestamp that indicates when the target was last updated, where the update relates to the target container and not the target data.
- Updated by
- The name of the last person to update the target, where the update relates to the target container and not the target data.
Secondary bottom-up target types
The native unit bottom-up target type is most commonly used because it can be expressed in other measures if the conversion is present.
You can configure a target directly as one of the normalized measures such as energy, emissions, mass, or volume. However, it is not possible to then express the target in terms of one of the other normalized measures. For example, if you configure a target as an energy target, you cannot convert it to an emissions target. However, it is possible to view the target in other related units of measure. For example, an energy target that is configured in GJ can also be viewed in kWh, MMBtu, and so on.
Different secondary bottom-up target types can all be active at the same time as each other. Therefore, it is possible to have a native unit target, an energy target, and an emissions target all active for the same period.