Organizations are challenged to meet sustainability objectives and mandates often with severely constrained budgets. Their overall success hinges on the ability to intelligently evaluate and prioritize sustainability investments to achieve the greatest impact, all within the context of their general business objectives.
With the right framework in place, organizations can evaluate the sustainability of their existing facilities, plan to reduce their environmental impact, increase their energy efficiency and cost savings, and promote a healthier built environment. Whether an organization already has a sophisticated sustainability program or is newly engaged in this effort, it is important to evaluate and prioritize green options while remaining aligned with the overall business goals. This ensures consistent, dedicated resources that will bolster the organization’s bottom line.
Organizations that are early in the process of integrating green programs into their capital plans may choose to focus initially on relatively low-cost initiatives. These can deliver short-term paybacks by reducing energy and natural resource consumption—with the priority based on cost savings and other desired benefits. As they achieve results, they may go on to evaluate greening opportunities that can provide both short- and long-term environmental, social and economic benefits. For example, such assessments may be conducted in support of major building renovations, large-scale master planning programs or the acquisition of a long-term property holding.
By combining this information with detailed data about overall requirements across a building portfolio, organizations can maximize operational efficiency while promoting a sustainable built environment. Finding this data and making these decisions can be an overwhelming task for many organizations. The following are a few simple steps to take when considering facility and sustainability upgrades.
Establish a sustainability framework and business objectives
The first step in identifying the best investment strategy for sustainability is an objective evaluation of an organization’s current state of sustainability and options for change—including estimated costs and potential benefits. There are several questions an organization should ask itself when establishing a sustainability framework.
First, what are the organization’s strategic, real estate and green objectives? Is there a balance between the two? Basically, where does the company want to be in terms of sustainability while staying within the corporate agenda? It is important to remember sustainability is not a “one-size-fits-all” process. Organizations will have different approaches to sustainability. When deciding on corporate or sustainability initiatives, keep in mind that reaching the highest level of green or energy performance is most cost effective when timed to coincide with new construction, renovation or major infrastructure renewal.
Also, the savings are greatest when improvements are made as close to end of use as possible. For example, lighting systems and water-efficient restroom fixtures are quick, money-saving improvements.
Define and track key performance metrics
Once an organization’s objectives are decided, it is time to determine the starting point, what types of assets and equipment are already in place, where can sustainability be improved easily and where the most work is needed.
There are many factors to consider when determining the starting point of the sustainability plan. Climate can affect sustainability drastically; warmer climates will need to consider cooling systems while colder climates will focus on heating. Other aspects of climate such as annual rainfall and cloud cover also can determine what sustainable technology is best for that particular facility.
The location of a facility—rural, suburban or urban—will play a role in determining sustainable technology needs; urban buildings normally contain more equipment and assets in a smaller space as opposed to rural buildings which are less densely occupied. Other factors to consider are type and use of buildings, age and existing condition, corporate mission, community initiatives and partnerships, and mandates.
Financial metrics obviously will have an impact on how an organization evaluates its sustainability initiatives. When an organization looks at its deferred maintenance, maintaining facilities and keeping them going through their lifecycle, it normally would look at an in-kind or conventional replacement. If there are green alternatives, corporations should consider several financial metrics while evaluating each option. A system’s lifecycle along with the cost of operation over that span is an important factor; keep in mind that many sustainable alternatives include a payback over time resulting from reduced energy and operation costs.
One easy way to evaluate the cost of green alternatives is the cost as a percentage of current asset replacement value. If the cost of making a facility sustainable starts approaching the value of the facility itself, it is not financially viable. An organization also should consider the triple bottom line which includes the financial impact on the organization, the organization’s impact on the environment and the organization’s social responsibility. If a capital plan that includes green initiatives can hit all three areas of the triple bottom line, it may be the best alternative.
While financial metrics are important, it is also necessary to have metrics that define and measure both current and future sustainability.
A typical facility condition assessment (FCA) gathers data on facility condition, the lifecycle of different systems within the facility, code compliance, functionality and efficiency, among other aspects. Integrating sustainability into the FCA process adds several metrics to the assessment: energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor air and environmental quality, site sustainability, and materials and resources.
Identify green opportunities
After performance metrics have been established, the organization can identify green opportunities while also looking at overall facility condition. Many common green opportunities within existing buildings include green roofs, high-efficiency lighting controls and sensors, water conserving bathroom fixtures, organic landscape maintenance, materials with recycled content or bio-based materials, and centralized automated building management. This part of the process involves capturing data and identifying the green options, not deciding which of these options are in line with the organization’s capital planning objectives.
Once the opportunities have been identified, the next step is to evaluate them in the context of the overall capital plan. When evaluating options, it is important to take into account initial cost differences between the conventional and sustainable alternatives along with the savings over time; for many resource-saving alternatives, the initial investment may have a rapid payback period.
The best way to evaluate all the options is to develop a list of parameters that represent important priorities for the organization. Priorities may include cost, potential energy savings, impact on overall facility condition and other issues of strategic importance. Using these parameters, the organization can make an informed, data-driven decision regarding the alternatives.
Following this approach will allow an organization to determine the current state of its facility and sustainability, the alternatives for sustainable facility upgrades, the cost and payback of these upgrades, which upgrades are the most important, and how to incorporate the upgrades into an established facility capital plan and budget.
What does integrating sustainability look like?
The facility management group at a leading college in Massachusetts recently integrated sustainability into its ongoing capital planning by undertaking a program that included concurrent green building and facility condition assessments. A team of skilled assessors gathered critical condition, performance and sustainability information across all four of the college’s campuses.
By combining sustainability practices within its normal maintenance and operations, and ranking its buildings by goal, the college was able to prioritize its capital spending plan for each asset while still targeting the projects, deferred maintenance and upgrade opportunities across the entire portfolio. This helped the college to reach its primary goal: to meet its commitment to reduce its carbon footprint as part of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment.
Meanwhile, at one of the leading government-sponsored research centers in the U.S., located in California, the facility management department successfully gathered the critical facility data it required to meet the federal government’s Executive Order 13423, which mandates reporting on building portfolios’ sustainability. In addition, the center created water and energy baselines and used alternative green renewal choices to created integrated capital budgets, demonstrating its commitment to becoming more sustainable while maintaining its portfolio day-to-day.
Finally, one Boston hospital’s facilities group was tasked with creating a viable and defensible implementation plan for sustainability in order to justify access to necessary capital. The hospital’s facility management team focused on the incorporation of green options into its existing capital planning process, creating definitive green projects with demonstrable costs and benefits while completing traditional planning and forecasting the impact of the new projects. By recommending the replacement of its 80-horsepower domestic water pumps with a new variable frequency drive (VFD) system with variable controls, the hospital was able to reduce run time from 24/7 to variable runs at 15-horsepower as needed. The estimated cost savings over a one-year period equated to a two and a half-year payback on the investment in the new pumps.
Evaluating sustainability initiatives
Conclusively, sustainable practices need to be integrated not only into daily facility management, but also into the long-term facility capital planning process. By combining green initiatives with detailed data about overall requirements across an existing building portfolio, organizations can get a holistic view of a facility’s needs to maximize both facility condition and sustainability.
From government research centers to hospitals to educational institutions, organizations are reducing their carbon footprint, meeting government mandates and creating defensible budgets. By integrating sustainability programs into their existing capital plans, organizations are able to evaluate which green initiatives will provide the greatest results over the short- and long-term. FMJ
