March 5, 2003—The UK chapter of IFMA convened an evening of presentations and discussion recently to launch its initiative on sustainable buildings and FM.
Office occupiers and facilities managers, developers, FM providers, service and product suppliers, workplace consultants, architects and surveyors gathered at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors to be welcomed by IFMA UK chapter president Mike Liddle and David Fitzpatrick, executive director of the RICS Foundation.
The UK FM Building Sustainability Initiative comes out of the Building Sustainability Conference held last September alongside the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, when representatives from the built environment professions and industry signed the Global Agreement for Building Sustainability, an RICS Foundation initiative.
David Fitzpatrick explained that the WSSD has resulted in both inter-governmental actions on agreements and ‘sub governmental partnerships for action and activity’, including GABS.
GABS involves more than 50 organizations which are focussed on building an alliance and delivering actions but also on learning from what works and influencing change, said Fitzpatrick.
The GABS partners aim to raise awareness and close the gap between policy and practice by embedding values in their organizations, developing tools, setting benchmarks and monitoring progress.
GABS has already been adopted as an example of best practice by several UN bodies and formal responses and requests for assistance following Johannesburg have come from South Africa, Uganda, Brazil, Canada and Australia amongst others. The World Green Building Council and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development have both signed up to GABS, as have the Sustainable Development Research Network and a number of Real Estate Societies around the world.
Responses to a draft strategy plan are currently being considered and a ‘business’ plan should be in place by the summer.
The business case for sustainability was put by Jim Ure of ABS Consulting. He defined sustainable FM as “a facilities management process that optimizes financial, environmental and social factors in support of the primary purpose of the organization.”
For more information, contact GABS.
-Richard Byatt
Reprinted with permission; copyright 2003 i-FM
