When to commission an audit, and on what.

Four sources, one order of magnitude

The rate at which audit recommendations are implemented is documented, and it is consistent from one study to the next:

• 47 % — Industrial Assessment Centers programme of the US Department of Energy (ORNL), 20,290 assessments and 151,198 recommendations, 1981-2022. The authors themselves write that “a substantial share (53 %) of the potential savings will not be used”.
• 20 to 30 % — eceee, 2014 (Perkins & Maxwell), typical cases.
• 30 % of measures — BEAS/DESNZ, United Kingdom, 2026: 54 % of SMEs implement at least one recommendation, but only 30 % of the measures.
• ≈ 40 % — Alhourani & Saxena, 147 sites, with a counter-intuitive finding: sites running at full capacity implement the least.

International comparisons: Germany 43 %, Australia 54 %, Finland 50 to 60 %, Sweden 59 %.

The counter-example that matters

In Australia, energy auditing is mandatory for certain businesses. Yet the implementation rate there plateaus around 54 %. Making an assessment compulsory is therefore not enough to make it lead to action.

Conversely, the NYSERDA FlexTech programme in New York State exceeds 60 % adoption — because the audit there is subsidised at around 50 %.

The conclusion imposes itself: it is not the audit that determines implementation, it is the arrangement around it. What surrounds it: the real cost to the business, the timing, the clarity of what it is asked to do next, and the ability to measure whether anything is moving.

What this changes for a business leader

An audit is not a trivial gesture: it takes several months and a significant budget. Launching it at the wrong moment, or on the wrong subject, is expensive — not only in money, but in attention and internal credibility. Three questions are therefore worth asking before committing:

• Where am I genuinely fragile? Intuition is not enough to choose an audit subject. A structured reading is.
• Which lever first? An energy audit, a material balance, a supplier review and a margin analysis do not carry the same cost, the same lead time, or the same effect.
• Is this the moment? A business that has just lost a critical supplier does not have the same need as one preparing a financing round.

What we do with that finding

The pre-diagnostic answers the three questions above for about two hours of research and €50 per month. It does not tell you what to do with your business: it tells you where to look, and therefore where an audit will have an effect.

And it has a second virtue, less commercial: it gives you a point of comparison. Repeating the measurement six months later shows whether the decisions taken produced anything. That is the only way to know whether you are among the 47 % — or the 53 %.

One caveat, because it matters

This whole body of figures concerns energy, not materials. The authors of the ORNL programme say so themselves. No implementation rate exists for a material balance or a circularity audit: the 47 % is a proxy, not a measurement. We cite it as such.

• ORNL / U.S. Department of Energy — Industrial Assessment Centers, 20 290 évaluations, 151 198 recommandations (1981-2022) — osti.gov
• eceee 2014 — Perkins & Maxwell, taux de mise en œuvre des recommandations d'audit
• BEAS / DESNZ — Royaume-Uni, 2026, mise en œuvre des recommandations en PME
• Alhourani & Saxena — 147 sites industriels
• NYSERDA FlexTech — État de New York, 303 enquêtes, 2 452 mesures

Full references and reading notes available on request. We found no documented implementation rate for France: we do not invent one.