Bernhard: Leading the Transition To an Energy-Efficient World

Bernhard is committed to building an energy-efficient and low-carbon world

Bernhard is one of the largest turnkey energy solutions companies in the United States with more than 2,000 employees and with operations in 20 locations. For more than 100 years, Bernhard has provided innovative, client-focused engineering and construction services for customers across the U.S., helping their clients become more energy efficient.

Bernhard has certified 22 of their locations with the Green Business Bureau, with locations earning the Gold and Silver-Level certifications, a well-deserved award. Bernhard has sustainability integrated at its core and works with their clients to create an energy-efficient, low-carbon world, and in this Green Business Bureau member story, we discuss how.

Leading the energy transition of our built environment to achieve net zero

As a leader in energy transition, Bernhard’s diverse capabilities and innovative solutions help promote decarbonization and reduce the environmental impact of the built environment. The business is committed and continues to deliver energy solutions, to accelerate a global evolution toward net zero.

Bernhard’s mission statement reflects this commitment:

“Our mission as an Energy-as-a-Service provider focused on sustainability is to deliver innovative engineering, construction, and energy solutions that empower our customers to help promote a low-carbon future. By pairing innovation with meaningful action, we can fight for and achieve a sustainable future for our customers, families, and communities – Bernhard’s green mission statement

Under this mission, Bernhard has made a clear commitment to becoming a net zero business.

Securing energy-efficient and low-carbon operations for their clients

Bernhard has always focused on energy efficiency to drastically reduce customer utility consumption and GHG emissions. To date, Bernhard has collectively saved their customers ~$1 billion while also avoiding 5 million MTCO_2e of emissions. Bernhard’s technical solutions improve clients’ energy efficiency and cut emissions. Plus, Bernhard’s added focus and expertise for better reliability and resiliency are second to none.

Standardizing sustainability measures across multiple sites with the Green Business Bureau

As a company that’s operational over 20 locations, Bernhard wanted to make sure every business location functioned under the same sustainability standards. And the Green Business Bureau has allowed Bernhard to unlock this goal.

GBB provides a great framework for Bernhard to incorporate green practices into day-to-day operations throughout the business’s numerous locations – all of which are situated differently in terms of their sustainability journey. GBB offers flexibility for all locations to join in the action and make sustainability improvements, while also creating consistency throughout the business.

Through the GBB program, Bernhard empowers each location to be champions of a shared journey that combats climate change and creates a more sustainable future.

Bernhard provides proactive measures for climate change resiliency across multiple industries

While Bernhard offers comprehensive energy solutions for multiple industries, their primary customer base is within the healthcare and higher education markets. These facilities in particular have unique interdependencies in their utility types. Power, water, and heating infrastructures are intricately connected, and any impact on one utility could mean disaster. Recent extreme weather events brought on by climate change have uncovered multiple vulnerabilities in the infrastructure serving these users, causing cascading effects that impact the availability and cost of critical utility services. However, these risks are proactively mitigated with effective and efficient energy measures paired with good operations and maintenance practices.

Bernhard’s headquarters are located in New Orleans, Louisiana, meaning the business understands more than most that extreme weather events can have a significant impact on operations. Bernhard has an expanded disaster response service with teams available to perform critical repairs and restore operations to customer facilities. In addition to Bernhard’s emergency response capabilities, they offer disaster preparedness planning, resilient building system design, energy efficiency measures, and industry-leading operations and maintenance services that all work to create both efficient and resilient facilities.

Bernhard exhibits a real commitment to sustainability

“At Bernhard, sustainability is more than a paper or marketing exercise – there’s real commitment behind our words. We’re taking an active role in educating and encouraging our employees, customers, and communities to embark on the shared journey of environmental advocacy. By pairing innovation with meaningful action, Bernhard can fight for and achieve a sustainable future for our customers, families, and communities” – Alyssa Jaksich, Vice President of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) at Bernhard