April 3, 2009— VFA, Inc., a leading provider of end-to-end solutions for facilities capital planning and asset management, announced that it has completed a green facility condition assessment of 18 buildings and nearly 530,000 square feet of real estate at Salem State College in Salem, Mass. VFA identified potential green opportunities on campus, providing the college with a strategy for achieving both traditional capital planning and sustainability goals.
Like many higher education institutions, Salem State College had recognized the importance of understanding the condition of buildings in its portfolio, prioritizing projects during the capital planning process, and establishing defensible funding requests through traditional facility condition assessments from VFA.
Using the guidelines of LEED-Existing Building Operations and Maintenance, VFA has now delivered recommendations for green actions and established a sustainability baseline for the campus.
In conducting the green building assessment of Salem State College, in conjunction with a facilities condition reassessment, VFA says it was able to focus on low-cost, easily executable initiatives that deliver a short-term payback and provide tangible improvements to the quality of the work environment, as well as identifying long-term initiatives with more wide-ranging impact and extended payback. The use of a performance scoring system allows Salem State College to compare buildings with one another and set benchmarks to monitor each building’s sustainability progress over time .
For more information, see the VFA Web site.
