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JOIN THE CELEB2010 marks IFMA30-year anniversa

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www.fmjonline.com | MARCH/APRIL 2010 | US$12.50

Top Strategies for a Greener Corporation PAGE 54 Are you LinkedIn? PAGE 38 Financial Trouble in Higher Education

COMTHIS

SPRING IFMA FACILITYFUS (PAGE 28)


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I t is becoming increasingly common orexecutives to issue or receive environmen-tal sustainability goals. Tis is especially

true in the area o reducing energy use andcost where the volume o energy consumedcontinues on what can o ten appear to bean inexorable upward trend.

Eighteen percent o CO2 emissions, orexample, are now attributed to commerciabuilding energy use, according to the U.Svironmental Protection Agencys ENERGS AR program. And many companies uruse o ce space by 50 percent or moreGartner Researchwhich also means waheating, ventilating and air-conditioning

(HVAC) and lighting costs or those undetilized areas. Tis is a lost opportunity to reduce operating costssuch as utilities, ta janitorial and maintenanceas well as cophysical assets, reeing up capital througreduction o the physical ootprint.

A great deal o unnecessary expense andexpanded carbon ootprints can be avoidby using some simple, proven and o tenvendor-neutral conservation strategies. S


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conservation initiatives may be driven purelyby bottom line considerations, by concern

or the environment or both.

Whatever the motivation, managers alreadyhave the operational insights and even theIntegrated Workplace Management Systems(IWMS) so tware tools that are needed to

implement a range o strategies and bestpractices or conserving energy and achie-ving other sustainability goals. Tese toolsand techniques are readily available, easilya ordable and too o ten underutilized.

Stop being a waste of spaceAside rom the impact to your bottom linethat comes rom renting or owning surplusbuildings, the associated wasted energy costspoint to the simple conclusion that the asteryou implement better space management,the aster you gain the added environmental

and economic bene t o lower energy useand operating expenses. More requentspace audits using space planning andmanagement so tware can readily identi yvacant space and opportunities toconsolidate your operations.

BlueCross BlueShield o North Carolinadid exactly that at its nearly 2 million-square- oot campus and reduced its carbon

ootprint through a space consolidationprogram that eliminated the need or a newUS$35 million headquarters. Even better,the consolidation opened up 500,000 square

eet o foor space the company could thensublease at its existing campus buildings togenerate US$1.5 million revenues annually.

What the company saved and earns can nowbe applied toward environmental initiativesor other productive uses.

Tere is also virtually no limit to the scal-ability o such a strategy in pursuit o energysavings, in addition to other organizational

cost reduction goals. For instance, interna-tional electricity and natural gas producer/distributor Enel generated a 24 percent re-duction on what had been more than 23 mil-lion square eet o rentable area costs.

Alarm your facility managementdepartment 24/7Integrating your Building AutomationSystems (BAS) with your acility manage-ment departments building operationsso tware can be a highly e ective energy con-

servation strategy. A major Midwestern stategovernments recent energy managementinitiative linked BAS HVAC alarms to itsbuilding operations so tware. Te integratedsystems identi y the location o the problemon building drawings and automate the is-suance o work orders when energy manage-ment systems detect per ormance ailures o

heat traps and other system components.

Te state has projected annual energy sav-ings o US$6 million rom its energy man-agement initiatives statewide, o which theBAS/IWMS integration is a key part. TeBAS/IWMS e ort alone is expected todeliver within its realm o implementationan estimated 20 to 40 percent in opera-tional savings, contributing approximatelyUS$500,000 in cost reduction to the overallprojected savings. Tose and other mea-suressuch as space consolidationhave

reduced annual statewide emissions o CO2 by at least 200 million pounds, droppednitrogen oxide output by nearly 300,000pounds and lowered its sul ur oxide volumeby more than 500,000 pounds. It is calcu-lated that the emissions reductions are theequivalent o removing 16,000 automobiles

rom the states roads.

A similar initiative is being pursued at theUniversity o North Carolina - Charlotte,the state systems astest growing campus.Te schools sustainability commitmentis in large part due to institutional convictionbut it was given added impetus by astate directive to reduce its energy costs20 percent by 2010 and 30 percent by 2015.

Energy economies on such a scale wouldproduce a considerable bottom line impactat the school given the extent o its acili-ties. UNCC currently has 123 buildingscomprising 6.5 million square eet o space.Because o the universitys continuing ex-pansion, that square ootage is expected to

double by 2020providing added impetusto implementing BAS/IWMS integrationand other sustainable energy practices now.

Prevent data centers fromgenerating more heat than lightA recent IDC market research report showsthat customers have increasingly identi edthe cost-e cient management o power andcooling as the number one challenge or thedata center. Such operational costs routinely

exceed 50 percent o the total in ormattechnology budget.

A typical 10,000-square- oot data centein New York City, or example, may spenin excess o US$50 per square oot annon HVAC costs in addition to the costo electricity to run the data center equi

ment itsel .

A contributing cause o that energy expis the purchase o unnecessary, requenunderutilized, heat-generating server capitynot to mention the cost o construcadditional data center space to house it.

Excel-based, manual tracking systems ocant keep up with rack server equipmenchanges. On the other hand, implementina data center management so tware proveasy, graphical visualization and automaupdates to server rack inventories. Tegraphical views and insights such a prodo ers help to optimize server capacity anavoid over-provisioning and underutilizao installed server rack systems.

Other techniquessuch as the implemention o hot and cold aisles in data centercan also aid in reducing data center powconsumption. Surprisingly, IDCs 2007power and cooling trends study revealedthat ewer than 20 percent o data cente

are using hot and cold aisle con guration Avoid working in a "HVACuum"NASA Goddard Space Flight Center hasits heart in outer space but it also has its on controlling inner space HVAC costs inthe 140 structures that occupy the center1,200-acre Maryland campus. An energymanagement audit by the organizations

acility management group ound that tmany o its o ces were receiving 24/7HVAC supporteven though they oper-

A great deal of unnecessary

expense and expanded carbon

footprints can be avoided by

using some simple, proven

and often vendor-neutral

conservation strategies.


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ated during a standard nine-to- ve workdayand were vacant on weekends and holidays.

In a variation to the hot and cold aisleconcept at data centers, NASAs acilitymanagement department is attempting toremedy its energy excesses in a trial projectat one building that indenti es rooms and

unctions in need o 24/7 HVAC, colocatingthem into clustered zones o their own.

Using its space management so tware andcomputer-aided design drawings to recon-

gure space and consolidate the HVAC-intensive data centers and other operations,NASA has reduced its a ter-hours electric-ity consumption by up to 13 percent. Teencouraging proo -o -concept result canbe expected to roll-out to the rest o thecampus and bene t government budgetsand taxpayers alike.

Create a home team advantageelecommuting may be one o the biggest

boons yet to organizations interested inrunning leaner, greener operations. Researchby elework Advisory Group o Worldat-Workan organization based in Phoenix,Ariz., promoting work- rom-home initia-tives ound that:

Sun Microsystems telecommute pro-gram, called Sun Open Work Practice,has 2,800 employees working rom home

three to ve days a week; another 14,219work remotely twice weekly. Tishas resulted in 29,000 ewertons o CO2 emissions andsavings o US$63 millionin one scal year by cut-ting 6,660 o ce seats.

A & reports sav-ings o US$3,000per o ce, or ap-proximately US$550million total, byeliminating or

consolidating o ce space throughtelecommuting initiatives.

wenty- ve percent o IBMs 320,000workers worldwide telecommute,saving the company some US$700million in real estate costs.

As part o a billion-dollar cost reductioninitiative that also tries to minimize carbon-based commuting, Voda one U.K. now has40 percent o its headquarters sta working

rom home, either ull- or part-time. In addi-tion, the company encourages videocon erenc-ing to urther reduce travel and lost produc-

tivity. Both measures are helpingthe company achieve its goal o reducingcarbon emissions 50 percent by 2020 versits 2007 baseline o 1.23 million tons o

Another remote-work advocate elecommute Americaestimates that 60 percento a companys annual real estate costs c

saved through the right telecommuting strgies. It estimates average annual reduction1,800 miles annually in round-trip commby workerssaving an average o 53 miper day in travel time and reducing auto- bus-generated greenhouse gas emissions.

However, a common thread that runsthroughout many organizations telecomming programs is to also have employees operiodically or meetings or other activitiTis keeps them integrated with their workteams and corporate culture.

o support a success ul telecommutingstrategy, you may needand might alreahavehoteling so tware or reservationbased allocation o unassigned desk or ospace on a short- or long-term basis to ocsionally accommodate your telecommuteTis will help to improve both the workinenvironment and your bottom line.

Teach old dogs new metricsKey per ormance indicators (KPIs)

are the metrics used orimproving organi-

zational per


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ormancethe benchmarks against whichprogress is measured or environmental sus-tainability initiatives, cost reduction goals,business process improvements and otheractivities. oo ew managers are employingenvironmental sustainability KPIs and thatsa missed opportunity.

A well thought-out environmentalsustainability strategy can deliver up to10 percentand possibly as much as 20percentsavings on operational costs.

Whatever the environmental goal, managersshould choose KPIs that represent a ew keymetrics or their organization. As examples,they might include the volume o recyclableversus disposable materials headed or land-

lls, the rate o energy reduction or adoptiono renewable energy or better hazardousmaterials management.

Being able to track the amount o water orelectricity being used on a day-to-day basisand where the energy sinks are, gives orga-nizations the ability to take quick remedialmeasures that can have immediate returns.A centralized real estate, in rastructure and

acility management system is invaluable insupporting robust KPI data collection and thesubsequent reporting and analysis o that data.

Te tools are right at your ngertips. By in-corporating and implementing more sustain-ability initiatives, your buildings energy usageis sure to improve and your overall operatingcosts will decrease. Te results are worth it.FMJ

Bruce K. Forbes, IFMA Fellow, is the founder and president of ARCHIBUS Inc., and is con-sidered a leading authority on infrastructure and facility management. He is a past directorof the design automation project at Harvard. Forbes delivered presentations to more than40,000 facility professionals in 2009. He can be reached at [email protected] more information on ARCHIBUS, visit www.archibus.com.

Joseph Kolmer is the chief operating officer of ARCHIBUS Solution Center Environment+ Sustainability Services, the division responsible for the Total Environmental AssetManagement System software that was recognized as a Top 100 Product for 2009

by Buildings magazine. Kolmer may be reached at [email protected]. Visit ASC-TEAMS on the Web for more information at www.asc-teams.com.

Kenneth Miller is the president of Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc., a co-developerof TEAMS software. CEC provides sound technological solutions that balance compliance,risk management and business needs in the practice areas of environmental, civil and sitedevelopment engineering, ecological services, water resources and solid waste manage-ment. Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Visit CEC online at www.cecinc.com.

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