There are more and more questions about the environment and how facilities impact climate change. Depending upon which article you read, facilities are responsible for between 40 and 60 percent of greenhouse gasses. This seems really high; maybe after the hype settles down a bit, the numbers will get more reasonable, but for FMs it really doesn’t matter. Facilities are going to be getting greener in the next few years. The really interesting challenge will be identifying which “green” initiatives have the best return on investment for your company.
An analytical approach would be to analyze your facilities using Web-based tools that would provide you with a preliminary LEED rating. This would allow you show how well your facilities are performing with regard to sustainability and help prioritize those where you want to obtain LEED certification. But if you can’t make LEED ratings, or want to raise them, how do you know which green initiatives would benefit your reducing your operating expenses the most. An essential component of a sustainability tool would be to show how implementation of certain LEED criteria affects total operating costs.
FM BENCHMARKING Sustainability was designed to answer the above questions and more. Participants in the survey are asked to indicate if they have an energy savings performance target and what changes they plan to implement to achieve it. By looking at and comparing those metrics to your building’s metrics in the same quartile, you will be able to make intelligent “data driven” decisions.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 below show how benchmarking can be used to establish reasonable performance targets for your building.
Another set of examples shows the ability to track LEED-EBOM points in a manner similar to the LEED-EBOM survey. It has been updated to include the latest revisions from the USGBC. In the example below, we have shown a few questions from the Sustainability section from the FM BENCHMARKING LEED-EB survey. Answer options for each LEED credit area are:
- Yes Implemented
- No Not implemented
- UC Under Consideration
Here, one would state whether a given credit has been satisfied or not, and if not, whether you are considering implementing it in the future (see Figure 3).
After you have completed the various sections, an overall score is developed showing your ranking on the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED-EB certification scale.
If you do not yet have enough LEED points to earn the certification level that you want, benchmarking can help you determine which other initiatives you should implement.
Here is how that can work. Benchmarking can show you the percentage of buildings similar to your who have implemented each initiative. It even can differentiate between those who have earned LEED certification and those who have not.
So, if one of the credits you are considering has low percentages of others who have implemented it, then perhaps you should look elsewhere. But if those who have LEED certification have a high percentage (and those who don’t have it have a low percentage), this may be one of those items that those seeking certification really go after. And, of course, if everyone is implementing one that you are considering, then perhaps you should too.
This, benchmarking is a very effective tool for:
- Reporting on the current performance
- Identifying what items to work on
- Tracking your progress
- Prioritizing your work for LEED certification
More information can be found at www.FMBENCHMARKING.com including a free demonstration tool where you can input your facility data and see some benchmarking results.
