Green Sleeves
As businesses attempt to build an environmentally friendly image while scrimping and saving during the economic rebound, Facility Managers can roll up their green sleeves and implement, efficient cash-saving strategies, reports Deborah Erwin.
At the International Facility Management Association’s (IFMA) Integrate 2009 Conference held in Hong Kong on 2 June, a diverse group of industry professionals convened to discuss the emerging issues in facility management, especially in light of the economic downturn and increased environmental awareness. Forefront topics include shifting the focus from eco-friendly new builds to ultra efficient existing buildings; putting the five basics of modern facility management into practice; and developing a healthy relationship with property owners to achieve optimal facility performance.
|
|
Green Makeovers for the Aged
It is admittedly no easy feat making the built landscape’s senior citizens — existing buildings — fresh and exciting. Newborns don’t have this problem, especially if they are green and sustainable. But newborns only comprise two percent of the built landscape. So while they achieve admirable heights in sustainability, “Existing buildings represent 98 percent of the opportunity to reduce emissions from buildings!” says Christopher P Hodges of Facility Engineering Associates during his presentation. This reality means that these structures “remain the biggest challenge to energy reduction, conservation of resources, and improvement of workplace productivity worldwide”.
For years, statistics have indicated that buildings are significant energy and water guzzlers. Hodges points to Hong Kong’s total electrical consumption of 40 bil KWH, 89 percent of which is used for buildings. This is where facility managers can make a profound impact. Citing The Facility Management Handbook (Cotts, D.G., 1999), Hodges underscores a building’s life cycle costs. While salaries of occupants account for a whopping 92 percent, 6 percent of a building’s lifecycle expenses are attributed to its operations and maintenance. The remaining 2 percent is for the original design and construction.
Hodges outlines his ‘five things you need to know about your buildings’, not just for rookie facility managers but also for veterans seeking to modernise a building’s operations:
- How energy efficient is your building?
- How much water do you use?
- What goes into your facility?
- What comes out of your facility?
- How healthy is your indoor environment?
|
|
When assessing a building’s energy efficiency (item number one on his ‘five things you need to know about your building’ list), one first needs to find a way to benchmark performance. In the US, the Energy Star programme issues a score from 0 to 100 once a year’s worth of utility consumption data has been entered, enabling one to compare facilities of similar class and region. In Hong Kong, the EMSD (Electrical Mechanical Services Department) has devised a voluntary Energy Efficiency Labelling Scheme and the Energy Efficiency Registration Scheme for Buildings to promote Building Energy Codes (BEC’s) for lighting, air-conditioning, electrical installations, lifts and escalators. Subscribing to one of these voluntary programmes grants facility managers a clear look at how much energy is expended and for which functions, thereby revealing which areas are greedy and excessive.
The second item on Hodges’ list pertains to water usage. “Most facility managers are aware of their water use since it is often metered through your public utility.” The important issues to address are “how do you determine if your water use is average or above average and which strategies should you employ to save water?” He points to LEED- EB and HK-BEAM for benchmarking platforms. For starters, he advises FMs to install touch-free faucets and dual flush toilets, if they haven’t already.
To determine what goes into a building, facility managers need to take stock of its consumables (paper, office supplies), durable goods (office equipment, appliances), food services (food products), repair and alteration materials (for fitouts and renovations), and goods with potentially hazardous contents (light bulbs, cleaning agents). “Many of the most important purchases for an organisation are within the facility manager’s control”. If this is not the case, “the facility manager can act as the proponent for sustainable purchasing since most of these purchases include items that are critical to the functioning of the workplace.”
In addition to committing to a sustainable purchasing policy, “knowing what leaves your facility and where it goes is critical in understanding patterns of consumption and disposal,” says Hodges. Facilities can undergo waste stream audits to decide how best to recycle, compost and dispose of waste while maintaining a sustainable mandate. Finally, indoor environmental quality must be monitored to maintain innocuous and healthy living spaces. While the designer and property owner will hopefully worry about off-gassing during the design-and-build stage, facility managers can ensure that the building is effectively ventilated and maintained with green cleaning products during its life cycle.
Team Green
In addition to wielding green flags, he urges industry professionals to inform property owners of viable methods that economise resources, lessen environmental impacts, satisfy social needs and simultaneously make financial sense. “Physical facilities have a large role in determining productivity, supporting innovation, efficiency, employee satisfaction and public perception of an organisation”. Part of instigating positive change involves forming closer relations with the businesses housed within their properties. Hodges advises facility managers to “provide a sufficient and measurable return on investment, help differentiate the organisation to recruit and retain the best people, [and] have a clear vision and understanding of long-term corporate business strategy rather than a short-term focus on tactics”. To achieve greater communication and cooperation, he advises facility managers to diversify their training to speak the language of the C-suite (CEOs, COOs and CFOs), understand the complexities of strategic facility planning and budgeting, and help shift the perception of facility management from the ‘cost of doing business’ to an integral component of business strategy.
|
|
Customer Satisfaction is a Must
Many speakers strongly emphasised the need for frequent collaboration between property owners and facility managers. These two parties, in essence, interact as a customer and service provider, and since this relation is symbiotic in theory, Peter McLellan, Senior Lecturer at University College of London, thought it important to explore which factors contribute to strain and harmony between the two. After conducting a survey with 72 contract managers at various large customer organisations in the UK, he discerned nine service quality indicators that influence purchase intentions. These include reliability and responsiveness, market clout, organisational reputation, client awareness, price competitiveness, communication and consulting, accessibility, competence and offering, and assurance and empathy. Both ‘reliability and responsiveness’ and ‘communication and consulting’ were determined the most critical factors for FM service quality. The management implications of this study, as explained in his presentation, were that “service quality is an antecedent of customer satisfaction and that customer satisfaction exerts a stronger influence on purchase intentions than does service quality. Thus managers may need to emphasise total customer satisfaction programmes over strategies centred solely on service quality”.
Seizing the Downturn
Unfortunately, much eco enthusiasm has dissipated since companies began tightening their belts late last year. But instead of trudging through mud and waiting for the skies to clear, Oliver Jones, Chief Executive of The Asset Factor tells facility managers to adopt a carpe-diem attitude. In reaction to the economic slump, he notes that facility managers have minimised square footage, consolidated workplaces and squeezed down service costs. “But this is not good enough!” he announces with gusto. He implores them to do more by asking: “What are your customers looking for today? Do you understand how your customers make money and what this is based upon?” While applauding his audience for attending industry-specific conferences such as Integrate 2009, he challenges, “Are we applying the innovation of recent years in property and FM in response?” Jones purports that strategic partnerships between property operators and facility managers are essential. The foremost concerns of property operators are cost reduction, service enhancement, revenue generation and value improvement. To develop a relationship with property operators and work toward united goals, facility managers need to understand these priorities — now more than ever. Furthermore, he says facility managers should seize this period as an opportunity to make buildings more efficient, environment-friendly and economical.
