chris hartsfield, lessons about energy staroperations center, delta airlines jean lupinacci chief,...

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buildingoperatingmanagementDECEMBER 2015

INSIDE

8 Green Building Report: Our Interconnected World

14 Window Replacement Offers a Chance For Long-Term Energy Savings

20 COVER STORY: Wellness Moves Forward The industry is focused on human health impacts, from facility design to operation.

28 Lessons from Energy Star Leaders Benchmark your Energy Star benchmarking efforts against organizations that have certifi ed scores of buildings.

34 Facilities Respond to California's Drought Facing the governor's water-reduction order, facility managers are fi nding innovative ways to save water, both indoors and out.

38 Four Steps to a Sustainable Floor People and planet can benefi t from carefully selected fl oors.

44 High-Performance Buildings in Action Two high-profi le government buildings improveoperations to hit their energy-effi ciency targets.

close-up

features

departments4 Editorial

6 Product Gallery

47 Preview: NFMT Baltimore

48 Ad Index

DECEMBER 2015 • VOLUME 62 • ISSUE 12

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Check out our recently redesigned website, packed with articles, product info, fresh news releases, and much more.FACILITIESNET.COM

Join the discussion, ask questions and network with other facility management professionals at our social networking site, myFacilitiesNet. MYFACILITIESNET.COM

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EDITORIAL

CORPORATERobert J. WisniewskiPresident/CEO [email protected]

Jeff SchenkChief Operating Offi cer/Chief Financial Offi cer [email protected]

ADVISORY BOARDJohn BalzerVice President, Facility Planning and Development, Froedtert Health

Nancy BechtolDirector, Offi ce of Facilities Management and Reliability, Smithsonian Institution

Jim CookePresident, The J.Fisher Group

Stormy FridayPresident, The Friday Group

Robert F. LangProfessional Program Manager, Technical Operations Center, Delta Airlines

Jean LupinacciChief, Energy Star Commercial and Industrial Branch, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Robert PearlmanSenior Facilities and Administration Offi cer, International Finance Corp.

Allan SkodowskiSenior Vice President, LEED and Sustainability Services, Transwestern

Peter StrazdasAssociate Vice President, Facilities Management, Western Michigan University

For reprint pricing information, e-mail [email protected]

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Water shortages have oc-curred so often in Califor-

nia, and are now so severe, that the state has good reason to practice water conservation. With that in mind, it’s interesting to look at the results of a new Building Operating Management survey about water effi ciency actions in California.

I was particularly intrigued by the responses of facility managers who said water conservation was a high prior-ity in their organizations. I’m willing to bet that this group is well above the national average when it comes to water effi ciency practices.

Pardon the pun, but I think the results from that group justify calling the glass half full and also half empty. For ex-ample, 51 percent said they had conducted water audits. From the glass-half-empty perspective, about half of the organizations that call water conservation a high priority haven’t taken the basic step of conducting a water audit. (For survey results, go to facilitiesnet.com/16324BOM.)

The numbers are better in other areas. A solid major-ity of these organizations reported taking or approving budgeted (69 percent) and unbudgeted (64 percent) water conservation measures since the California water emer-gency was declared. The top actions taken or approved: irrigation control (71 percent), water use avoidance (55 percent), faucet replacement (46 percent), toilet replace-ment (45 percent), and water audits (43 percent).

The pressure to conserve water is likely to grow in years to come. Consider, for example, forecasts calling for megadroughts in the Southwest. Our survey suggests that there is an enormous opportunity to make commer-cial and institutional facilities more water effi cient. For a look at how some organizations are taking advantage of those opportunities, check out the article in this issue on water conservation measures in California. You can also see how many organizations in the state that call water effi ciency a priority have taken specifi c steps to conserve water — and you can do the math to see how many have not. The coverage starts on page 34.

Tell me what you think at myfacilitiesnet.com/edsullivan

Edward SullivanEditor • [email protected]

Awash in Opportunity

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CONTRIBUTING EDITORSLindsay Audin – EnergyWiz

Desiree Hanford – Writer

Karen Kroll – Writer

Maryellen Lo Bosco – Writer

James Piper, PE, PhD – Consultant and Writer

Loren Snyder – Writer

Rita Tatum – Writer

Karen Warseck – Building Diagnostics Associates

4

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Our Interconnected World: Green Building And the Tragedy of the Commons

by helen j. kessler

IT’S EASY TO FORGET that we live in an interconnected world. The air we breathe, the oceans, rivers, lakes, and aqui-fers — we share all of these resources with everyone else on the planet. No one owns the air or the vast majority of the oceans; they are a “commons” that we all depend on for life. Yet humans use these commons without much consideration for the future. We pollute them. We take from them, and forget that our lives depend on them now and for future generations. And, unless you happen to live in a place with severely constrained resources (e.g., California with its current mega-drought), it is hard to un-derstand how our consuming and pollut-ing actions will negatively affect the ability of the commons to support us (humanity) in the future.

To understand how this concept of the “tragedy of the commons” relates to green buildings, let’s start with a look at a lesson from a recent college course. The students of a Northwestern University course called Systems Thinking for Sustainable Design play a game based on the concept of the tragedy of the commons. The idea behind the tragedy of the commons is that we each use the commons based on our own self-interest, yet often contrary to the interests of all of us as a group, thus depleting the common resources. This is generally inevi-

table unless there is an agreed-upon con-trol mechanism that everyone adheres to.

The game, called “Harvest,” plays right into the “tragedy.” It begins with a made-up “ocean” of 50 fi sh. After being told how many fi sh are in the ocean and that the goal is to both sustain the ocean and be profi table as a fi shing team, each team is asked to bid on the number of fi sh they would harvest each season. If the total number of fi sh harvested by the teams is fewer than 25, the ocean’s fi sh would replenish to 50 the following season. If the number of fi sh harvested is higher than 25, say 28, the ocean would regenerate to the remaining number times two, e.g. 22 remaining fi sh x 2 = 44. So the following sea-son, the ocean would only have 44 fi sh. Each season, the ocean would either regenerate to 50 or to two times the remaining fi sh.

PLAYING THE GAME The fi rst time the class played this game,

they depleted the ocean in six seasons. Be-cause the aggregate of the fi shing teams caught more than 25 fi sh in the fi rst few sea-sons, at the end of six seasons no one could catch any more fi sh, the cupboard was bare, and some of the teams came up empty, even in that sixth season. So, this is the tragedy: No one knows how many fi sh the others are catching and each wants to maximize their own profi ts. It wasn’t hard to calculate

the number of fi sh that could be caught by each team in order to sustainably maintain the ocean, but some fi shing teams decided, for whatever reason, that they wanted to catch more than would logically maintain the ocean (and some were actually altruis-tic and caught less). Interestingly no team decided to attempt to take all of the fi sh, or even half of the fi sh in the fi rst season. This seemed to represent an understanding that such behavior would not be good, even for the greediest team.

The game was played a second time, and this time, one of the students requested of the other teams, “Let’s make a pact – no one fi shes for more than six fi sh in any season. That way, we can maintain the ocean indefi -nitely.” There seemed to be agreement, but much to the student’s chagrin, one team de-cided that they needed to catch more than the allotted fi sh so that they would have enough left over to build a fi sh farm. And just by having that one team blow the pact only during the fi rst couple of years, the ocean was, once again, depleted in six years.

It was a great lesson in sustainability, systems, and human nature. We all have self-

GREEN BUILDING REPORT

Presented by Building Opera ng Management and the U.S. Green Building Council

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:Green Building and the Tragedy of the Commons ................................ 8

USGBC Perspective: 2015 Green Building Economic Impact Study ............................... 12

“Tragedy of the commons” was coined by Garrett Hardin who wrote an article for Science magazine in 1968. See that piece here: www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full

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interests. We all want the best for our family, our company, our building, whatever our self-interest is. Yet, if we just consider our own self-interest and not the interests of the whole, of the commons, the commons will eventually be depleted.

We’ve seen fi sheries become depleted around the world, one of the most famous being the cod fi shery in New England. This is partly because it is hard to see what’s hap-pening. The fi shermen only know that the number of fi sh or size of fi sh they’re catch-ing each year is diminishing. So they may decide to get more effective fi shing rigs, thus depleting the fi shery even more quickly. The immediate need for sustenance (and mak-ing more money) seems greater than the long-term need for sustainability of the resource. But what was fascinating in the game: Sustainable harvests actually allow everyone to do well — forever. At the end of six years of sustainable harvesting, every fi shing team actually caught approximately the same or more fi sh than they would have with the unsustainable practices.

MANAGING BUILDINGSSo what does this have to do with man-

aging buildings? A lot. Buildings use a great

deal of energy and the majority of that en-ergy is based on electricity generated with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels when burned emit carbon dioxide, an air pollutant and major factor in causing climate change. Under-standing building energy use in the context of the commons – our air and energy re-sources — could be a helpful way to explain why energy effi ciency and the transition to renewable energy sources are so important.

The September/October issue of Mother Jones published an article on “the hidden costs of dirty energy,” and illustrated the following fi ndings based on research by the International Monetary Fund: The external (unaccounted for) cost of coal is by far more than that of oil and natural gas due primarily to air pollution and global warming impact. The external cost of coal is more than $3 tril-lion per year versus about $1.4 trillion for oil (with traffi c accidents being the highest cost) and less than $0.5 trillion for natural gas. All of these estimated “costs” are borne by the commons and add up to the equivalent of over $5 trillion per year, 33 percent more than the U.S. federal budget. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 39 percent of U.S. electricity is generated by coal, 27 percent by natural gas, and 1 percent

by petroleum. (Non-fossil-fuel energy sourc-es include 7 percent in various renewable sources, not including hydro, which itself provides 6 percent, or nuclear at 19 percent.)

Per the Global Footprint Network, hu-manity reached Earth’s “Overshoot Day” on August 13, 2015. “Global overshoot occurs when humanity’s annual demand for the goods and services that our land and seas can provide — fruits and vegetables, meat, fi sh, wood, cotton for clothing, carbon dioxide ab-sorption, etc. — exceeds what Earth’s ecosys-tems can renew in a year. Overshoot means we are drawing down the planet’s principal rather than living off its annual interest.”

These concepts, the “tragedy of the com-mons” and “overshoot day,” provide useful frameworks for addressing humanity’s use of common resources. The good news is that there are things that all humanity can do, and that facility managers can do. Most important is to consider how energy is being used and to dramatically reduce consump-tion of fossil-fuel-generated electricity.

While energy effi ciency has been a prac-tice that most facility managers have worked with for years, we have to do better. Much has been written about net-zero energy buildings, and this is clearly a worthy goal. However, it is not easy to accomplish with most existing buildings, unless the build-ing owner also has an interest in a nearby solar (photovoltaic) array. Most buildings could consider the effi ciency and economic benefi ts, as well as the potential building im-

U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL

2101 L Street, NW, Suite 500Washington, DC 20037 1-800-795-1747Web site: www.usgbc.org E-mail: [email protected]

CHAIRMarge Anderson Seventhwave

CHAIR-ELECTFiona CousinsArup

IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIRGeorge BandyInterface

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE LEADERLisa Matthiessen Integral Group

TREASURERStuart CarronENERGIZE RE LLC

FOUNDING CHAIRMANS. Richard Fedrizzi

The Rocky Mountain Institute created this case study for the deep energy retrofi t at the Empire State Building: www.rmi.org/Content/Files/ESBOverviewDeck.pdf

Another broad concept that relates both to the tragedy of the commons and Earth overshoot is the idea of ecosystem services. To understand the interrelationships among the systems, take, for instance, a forest. To one entity, a forest may look like a bunch of trees to be clear-cut with little concern for the consequences. To another, the forest may look like a giant fi lter that keeps our water clean, keeps the hillsides from eroding, and provides habitat for spawning fi sh as well as lots of other critters. There is a monetary value to both. One views the forest only for one entity’s private good; the other as a service to the commons. Clearly, in a world where the services of ecosystems are critical to the survival of not just humans but of all species, it would be worthwhile to understand the value of an ecosystem’s services to all and to use them wisely.

— Helen J. Kessler

Eco-System Services: The Interdependence of Things


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The green construc on industry con nues to grow, according to the 2015 U.S. Green Building Council Economic Impact Study, conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton, that was released recently. The study shows that by 2018, green construc on will account for more than 3.3 million U.S. jobs, more than one-third of the en re U.S. construc on sector. That means $190.3 billion in the pockets of skilled U.S. workers in the green building industry by 2018.

The industry’s direct contribu on to U.S. Gross Domes c Product (GDP) is also expected to reach $303.5 billion from 2015 to 2018, which means the trajectory of the green building sector of the U.S. construc on industry is slated for expansive growth. To date, green building has created millions of jobs and contributed hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy.

As an industry poised for growth, it is important to point out that green construc on not only passes a cost benefi t analysis, it o en creates posi ve impacts that ripple beyond the borders of an accoun ng spreadsheet.

For example, Louisiana recently commemorated 10 years since the devas-ta on of Hurricane Katrina, while simultaneously celebra ng its phoenix-like resilience in the process of rebuilding. A signifi cant component of that story comes from green building. In economic terms, USGBC’s study shows that in Louisiana alone, between 2015 and 2018, green construc on will support more than 200,000 jobs and contribute more than $17 billion to na onal GDP.

Louisiana’s green building industry is ushering in not just a new, but also a signifi cantly improved way of life for its neighborhoods. Non-profi ts like

Global Green, Clinton Climate Ini a ve, and USGBC stepped in soon a er the hurricane to help the New Orleans public school system’s 50 completely destroyed campuses build back be er and stronger. So far, there are seven LEED-cer fi ed schools and 39 in progress. Whole neighborhoods have reimagined their future, illustrated by organiza ons like Brad Pi ’s Make It Right Founda on, which is rebuilding homes to LEED Pla num cer fi ca- on. Taylor Royal, senior advisor for the Make It Right Founda on, said

in a recent interview that green homes in New Orleans save 70 percent a month on energy bills compared to conven onal homes in the area. Green buildings are invi ng people back to healthier, more effi cient, more resil-ient homes, with the force of an ever-growing green construc on industry to support these rebuilt communi es.

Beyond Louisiana, USGBC’s Economic Impact report explores the mul -faceted economic contribu ons of both green and LEED construc on to all individual U.S. states. It projects signifi cant growth in green building’s direct contribu on to GDP to the tune of an es mated $1.3 billion by 2018. As a result, green construc on will also contribute to signifi cant savings across energy, trash, water, and maintenance costs. The report es mates that between 2015 and 2018, green construc on will generate savings of $2.4 billion in energy, $99.2 million in trash, $256.5 million in water, and $1.5 billion in maintenance. Not surprisingly, LEED green buildings are expected to account for as much as $2.2 billion of the total energy savings (approxi-mately half) projected between 2015 and 2018. With LEED’s current global count of cer fi ed square footage over the 5 billion mark and 1.85 million square feet of space being cer fi ed every day, it’s clear green construc on will con nue to grow.

View the en re 2015 U.S. Green Building Council Economic Impact Study at go.usgbc.org/2015-Green-Building-Economic-Impact-Study.html ■

USGBC Releases 2015 Green Building Economic Impact Study By Cecilia Shutters, policy and data communications

specialist, USGBC

U.S. GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL PERSPECTIVE

provement benefi ts, of a “deep retrofi t.” An excellent example of how a deep retrofi t can add signifi cant benefi t is the energy effi cien-cy renovation at the Empire State Building.

A deep retrofi t includes consideration of all energy-consuming systems interacting with each other, including the building en-velope (windows, insulation), lighting, and HVAC systems. In a deep retrofi t, it may pay to spend a lot of extra money on super-insu-lating windows, signifi cantly increased wall insulation, and well-designed controllable lighting. The resulting smaller building loads lead to signifi cantly smaller HVAC loads, re-sulting in the potential elimination of systems as well as the installation of smaller systems, helping to pay for the increased insulation. As a bonus, big reductions in energy costs result in signifi cantly higher net operating income, which increases building value.

Understanding that we live in an inter-connected world and humanity’s impact on the commons helps frame the issues we face and begins to show how our actions make

a difference. Thus, it’s time to ask ourselves, what can we do as role models and leaders to avoid the tragedy of the commons? What are the eco-system services that we use and how can we make sure they are available for future generations? ■

Helen J. Kessler, FAIA, LEED Fellow is president of HJKessler Associates, a green building and sustainability consulting fi rm in Chicago. HJKessler Associates is a LEED Proven Provider, a designation conferred by the Green Building Certifi cation Institute. Kessler has been the LEED team adminis-trator and sustainability advisor on over 70 LEED projects and is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. Email Kessler at [email protected].

Email comments and questions to [email protected].

According to the Global

Footprint Network, on

an annual basis,

humanity needs the

resources of 1.6 Earths

to meet what

it consumes, and

Americans need the

equivalent of almost two

United States to meet

what they consume.


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Energy effi ciency is not often a precipitating factor in the decision to replace aging windows. However, once replacement is unavoid-able because of problems of occupant comfort, maintenance demands, and aesthetics, a window project offers the opportunity to improve energy effi ciency and reduce operating costs. Whether owners pay these expenses themselves or pass them along to tenants, energy savings can be a compelling consideration when designing new windows.

A truly energy-effi cient window starts with good design. As defi ned by the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) in the North American Fenestration Standard (NAFS) window types are standardized according to performance grades, distinguished by design pressures:

• R class, 15 psf, typically used in one- and two-family dwellings.• LC class, 25 psf, usually low- and mid-rise residential buildings.• CW class, 30 psf, low- and mid-rise buildings with higher

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pected use, with higher performance grades capable of withstand-ing greater operating force, defl ection, and structural loading.

Knowing applicable building code is critical to window specifi -cation. Requirements for structural stability typically cover frame, glass, anchorage, and substrate attachment. An architect or engi-neer should evaluate existing substrate and determine whether it has been damaged or has decayed over time. If the substrate itself is unsound, the window could become unstable.

Building codes frequently stipulate requirements for air and water infi ltration testing of new window assemblies. Even where the code does not mandate testing, it’s a good idea to review test results from the manufacturer and to conduct laboratory and fi eld perfor-

mance tests. Follow the guidelines for test methods from AAMA and ASTM International.

Code may dictate the type of glass for a specifi c application. The most common types of commer-cially available glazing are:

• Annealed glass, raw glass that has not been heat-treated, may be limited by code due to its sus-ceptibility to thermal shock and mechanical stress

and its tendency to break into large, sharp pieces.• Heat-strengthened glass is roughly twice as strong as an-

nealed glass but still breaks into large, dangerous shards.• Fully tempered glass, which is treated to boost strength and

shatter-resistance, breaks into tiny pieces less likely to injure.Aside from structural and safety considerations, window op-

tions may be limited by energy code requirements, which are be-coming more stringent. As of this writing, the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) is in use or adopted in 47 states, the

Replacement Offers a Chance for Long-Term Energy Savings

by craig a. hargrove

Measures to improve energy effi ciency may recover their extra upfront cost in a relatively short time.

CLOSE-UP: WINDOWS

Although energy code requirements have become increasingly stringent, there can be good reasons to specify windows that are more energy effi cient than required by code. SHGC

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District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, New York City, and Puerto Rico. Performance criteria will likely continue to become more rigorous.

What Is an Energy-Effi cient Window?For windows, energy effi ciency is broadly defi ned by

two qualities: solar heat gain coeffi cient (SHGC) and ther-mal transmittance (U-factor). The fi rst of these, SHGC, is defi ned by ASHRAE 90.1-2010, the reference guide that has become the national standard for energy performance, as: “The ratio of the solar heat gain entering the space through the fenestration area to the incident solar radiation.” SHGC is a measure of how much of the sun’s heat is transmitted into the building interior through the windows.

In the past, maximum reduction of SHGC was not considered optimal for buildings in cold climates, since solar energy could help heat the building during the winter. However, due to inherent ineffi ciencies in building enclosures, the industry has largely revised its thinking on this issue, and recommendations now favor a reduction in SHGC across climate zones.

The other major determinant for energy effi ciency in windows, U-factor, is defi ned by ASHRAE 90.1-2010 as “heat transmission in unit time through unit area of material or construction… induced by a unit temperature difference between the environments on each side.” A measure of propensity to transmit energy, U-factor is the inverse of R-value, which measures ability to resist energy transfer. Window manufacturers’ data should provide whole assembly U-factor values, including both frame and glass, rather than center-of-glass U-factor values, which tend to make the window seem more effi cient than it is.

SHGC and U-factor can be reduced in the glass portion of a window assembly in a number of ways:

• Low-emissivity (low-e) coatings reduce the ultraviolet and infrared light that passes through the glass, limiting heat gain while preserving visible light transmission.

• Window tinting cuts down on solar heat gain and glare but may reduce visible light transmission by blocking part of the visible spectrum. Highly refl ective coatings on tinted glass can limit visible light transmission to less than 10 percent, compared with over 90 percent for uncoated clear glass.

By balancing desired levels of visible light with heat gain control, the design team can recommend window assemblies that achieve energy effi ciency and improve occupant comfort.

In terms of the energy code, defi ning what constitutes an energy-effi cient window may demand calculations based upon fenestration area and the performance of other building envelope elements. The IECC and ASHRAE 90.1 provide two compliance paths. One is the prescriptive building envelope option, for buildings in which vertical fenestration is no more than 40 percent of gross wall area, and the other is the building envelope trade-off option. In


Improving Daylighting And ViewsA window replacement project may present an opportu-

nity to improve user comfort by incorporating daylighting

schemes. By introducing appropriate levels of natural light

into a space, daylighting can reduce the need for electric

illumination, lowering electricity expenses and providing the

health benefi ts of full-spectrum lighting.

Daylighting may be quantifi ed in a number of ways, one

of which is through the glazing factor, the ratio of exterior

to interior illumination, expressed as a percentage. The

architect or engineer may perform calculations to determine

that a minimum 2 percent glazing factor is achieved for all

daylighted spaces. Another method for determining day-

lighting requirements is to demonstrate through computer

simulation that at least 25 foot-candles of daylight is avail-

able for illumination.

Daylighting schemes almost always require redirection

or glare-control devices to maintain energy effi ciency and

occupant comfort. For windows receiving direct sunlight,

interior shading may be required to manage glare and limit

heat gain. Automatic photocell controls for light screens,

blinds, or curtains can be programmed to adjust shading

depending upon incident light levels. Advanced glazing

technologies, including electrochromic and photochro-

mic “smart glass,” can adapt light transmission levels in

response to electric controls or sunlight.

Although it may add to project costs, increasing the win-

dow opening size may be considered as part of a window

replacement project, in order to amplify natural light and

expand views to the exterior. Windows that are 2 1⁄2 feet at

their base to 7 1⁄2 feet at their head above a fi nished fl oor

are considered an optimal size, as they are most effective

at distributing daylight deep into spaces.

When designing daylighting schemes, it’s important

to consider not only the dimensions and glazing of the

window itself, but also the channeling of light within and

between rooms. Interior glazing allows borrowed light from

exterior windows to reach inside spaces; low partitions and

open-plan offi ce layouts are other options for distributing

natural light across large areas.

While daylighting schemes may add to a project’s

upfront cost, providing better-quality natural lighting can

pay dividends in improved user experience. From an ROI

standpoint, a pleasing daylighting design can also add

value to the building.

— Craig A. Hargrove

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some jurisdictions, such as New York City, the prescrip-tive option is limited to buildings with no more than 30 percent vertical fenestration, unless daylighting controls are used. The prescriptive path assumes that windows are less energy effi cient than are opaque wall assemblies, and it provides maximum values for U-factor and SHGC.

The trade-off option is intended to demonstrate that a building with greater than 40 percent vertical fenestra-tion can function as effi ciently as one with less window area, by offsetting thermal transfer across the fenestration with effi ciencies in wall and roof assemblies. However, for a window replacement project, trade-off may not be an option, because it can be diffi cult (or even impossible) to identify effi ciencies elsewhere in the building that could compensate for excess window area.

When the Code Is Not EnoughEnergy codes based on the IECC and ASHRAE 90.1 pro-

vide good benchmarks for window performance that have come a long way in a short period of time. Before undertak-ing a window replacement project, however, it’s worthwhile to evaluate whether exceeding code requirements might be a good investment. Window assemblies that surpass code requirements may provide additional perks that provide value beyond that of improved sustainability.

The local governing authority may offer benefi ts to those who exceed baseline requirements for energy perfor-mance. In New York City, for example, zoning laws provide a deduction from gross square footage for buildings with wall and fenestration assemblies that exceed the energy code requirements.

Another motivation to go beyond code requirements might be reduced operating expenses. Although the cost of window replacement is unlikely to be offset by energy savings in fewer than 20 years, incremental increases in the effi ciency of a new assembly may pay for themselves in fi ve years or less. A low-emissivity coating that reduces the SHGC, for instance, or warm spacers in frames that lower U-factor can improve effi ciency enough to recuperate the extra upfront cost in a relatively short time.

Planned upgrades to an HVAC system also present an opportunity to realize cost savings from improved window effi ciency. The building envelope and mechanical system are symbiotic: As one becomes more effi cient, the other need not work as hard. In theory, improving the energy effi ciency of windows permits a reduction in the size of the mechanical package. However, calibrating window perfor-mance and HVAC output demands detailed analysis.

Return-on-investment benefi ts of high-performance window upgrades include reduced maintenance costs, added equity, and the possibility of increased rental rates.

By setting design goals at the outset of a window replace-ment, owners may be able to realize multiple objectives, from improved interior comfort to reduced operating costs, with one well-designed project. ■

Craig A. Hargrove, AIA, LEED AP, is senior vice president and director of architecture with Hoffmann Architects, Inc., which specializes in building exteriors. He can be reached at [email protected].

Email comments to [email protected].


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Central showpiece staircases have made a grand return to new construc on. Once an ar ul relic of pre-elevator days, a rac ve staircases are a new-again strategy for their benefi ts to energy effi ciency and because they foster occupant health by encouraging movement, as shown here at the CBRE headquarters in Los Angeles.

RYAN GOBUTY

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f or a long time now, facilities focused on sustainability have included considerations of the impact of materials selection on the health of building occupants. This has been demon-strated by the growth in green cleaning programs. It is also seen in recent developments driven by market forces, such as the fact that the last batt of roll insulation made with formaldehyde came off the production line this past sum-mer or in Kaiser Permanente banning the use of antimicro-bial additives in its furnishings and coatings.

Limiting toxic exposures remains a key strategy to pur-sue in commercial facilities, and there is even increased focus on materials selec-tion such as in the latest version of LEED. At the same time, the conversation in the commercial real estate community regarding human health impacts is be-coming more direct and comprehensive. Instead of merely trying to avoid mak-ing occupants sick, the current thinking is that buildings should also be designed and operated in a way that actively supports human health and wellness.

Wellness is a multidimensional metric, covering physical health as well as emotional, psychological, and social health. However, as the term pertains to the built environment currently, the majority of the focus is on physical health. There are many sensible, easily deployed solutions facility managers can adopt to improve the positive impact of their facilities on occupant health, as well as strategies that might have to wait for the next signifi cant retrofi t. The path to fostering wellness in the built environment is still in relatively early days, which means facility managers have an opportunity to join the conversation to develop solutions that work best for all parties involved.

Leadership in WellnessBut why should the facility’s impact on wellness matter to facility managers?

After all, there’s no monthly bill, no facility’s pain point. Right? Well, not exactly. “The value proposition on the commercial side for healthier buildings is an out-growth of the sustainability space, particularly with LEED as a driver for that for the last decade,” says Fernando Arias, director of strategic initiatives at the Ameri-can Society of Interior Designers (ASID). ASID, along with partner organizations, has created a program of Health + Wellness Protocols to help inform decisions affecting occupant wellness. The initiative started as a 2014 Clinton Global Initia-tive Commitment to Action.

There is recognition in the marketplace that employee costs are the greatest cost to the business, far outstripping the costs to operate the physical building. This is tied up in salaries, healthcare reimbursements, and other benefi ts, and is also affected by things like worker productivity. “So in any way that we can ad-dress wellness in commercial buildings, we start to help employers reduce their overall costs from healthcare reimbursements, employees being disengaged, absenteeism, and ultimately productivity,” Arias says. That’s all still not exactly a line item in the facility’s budget, but if the function of facility management is to support the overall enterprise, then taking steps to improve wellness outcomes becomes a logical course of action.

Currently, the design and standards community is working to defi ne what well-ness means and how to best achieve it through design and operations strategies. A lot of careful effort is also being made to scientifi cally prove that the strategies put forth will have reliable effects. While there has long been research and niche interest in the subject, what has arisen are evidenced-based systems with codifi ed strategies

buildingoperatingmanagementDECEMBER 2015 21

COVER STORYby naomi millán, senior editor


for facility managers to follow. Take the International WELL Building Institute, which launched the WELL Building Standard (WELL) v1.0 in October 2014. WELL focuses solely on the health and wellness of building occupants. “The WELL Building Standard is a combi-nation of harm avoidance and health improvement,” says Nathan Stodol, the vice president of product development for the International WELL Building In-stitute. “A WELL building must address known dangers such Legionella and formaldehyde, as well as address qual-ity of life improvements, like acoustic comfort and biophilia.”

The standard focuses on the im-pacts of seven concepts: air, water, nourishment, light, fi tness, comfort, and mind. These cover more than 100 features that impact the health, comfort, or knowledge of occupants. Certifi cations exist for new and exist-ing buildings, interiors, and core and shell. More than 16 million square feet of projects have already registered or certifi ed through WELL.

WELL is set up in a way that will be familiar to users of green build-ing standards, and pairs well with

such systems, without crossing over into considerations of energy or eco-friendliness. “We’ve made it a point to not make our standard a green stan-dard,” says Stodol, though there will inherently be some overlap in strate-gies. “LEED is looking at safe materi-als that are not off gassing, which is a hallmark of the WELL program, and in other cases there is overlap in design but not in intent. For example, a green building standard might prefer that people use the stairs because it saves electricity, or bike or walk instead of use cars from an energy and pollution point of view. For the WELL program, we like those same sorts of things, but from a physical activity point of view.”

Designing for WellnessThe fi rst offi ce to be certifi ed un-

der the WELL Building Standard in fall of 2013, while it was still in the pilot phase, was CBRE’s global corpo-rate headquarters in Los Angeles. In a Workplace 360 study in 2014, 92 per-cent of employees in the space said the new space had a positive effect on their health and well being, and 94 percent said the new space had a positive im-

pact on their business performance. Several organizations have put forth

guidelines for achieving improved hu-man health outcomes in buildings (see “Resources” on page 26), but even if a building project does not have this as its primary focus, it is likely still going to be part of the conversation. When the Superior Court of California in San Benito County, Calif., decided it needed a new facility that could meet current trial court facilities standards, a primary consideration was that the new facility be seen as an integral and welcoming part of the community. But human health outcomes were also naturally part of the project.

Given the high-stress environment of a courthouse, particular attention was paid to the circulation fl ow within the building and intuitive way fi nding. A glass facade both fl oods the facility with natural light and makes it easy to see how navigation works within the space. “Especially in a courthouse or in places where people are nervous or under a lot of stress, orientation is very important,” says Kim Swanson, associ-ate at SmithGroup JJR, the architect for the project. “People may not articulate that as being something that they don’t like about certain kinds of buildings, but we recognize that is something that contributes to being able to navi-gate without too much stress.”

“That contributes to comfort, psy-chological comfort,” adds Hiroko Mi-yake, principal at SmithGroup JJR and


The Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens was a fully opera ng exis ng building that was pursuing Living Building Challenge cer fi ca on at the me the WELL Building Standard was launched. With some rela vely minor changes, it was also able to achieve pla num cer fi ca on in the WELL pilot program due to the synergies between the systems, says Nathan Stodol, the vice president of product development for the Inter-na onal WELL Building Ins tute.

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the project designer. “The way fi nding is very important at any level.”

One of the crown jewels of the new building is the main stairway in the lobby, which is done in warm inviting materials. “When you walk into the building, you may have already seen the stair before you even go through the door,” says Swanson. “And then once you get through security it’s there, you see it, it’s bathed in day-light. You’re going to go there.”

Stairs and elevators at both ends of the building also promote circulation, avoiding dead ends, and views to the outdoors were made at every possible vantage point. “When you have a dead end, you just feel agitated,” says Mi-yake, who says the consideration is the same as when designing for dementia patients. “You always like to feel fl ow and movement.”

Strategies for Existing BuildingsEven given the limitations of exist-

ing facilities and tight budgets, there’s still a lot that facility managers can do to foster wellness through their facili-ties. As in new construction, one hall-mark strategy is to focus on the stairs. Granted, facility managers can hardly construct grand central staircases, but they can make the stairs they do have accessible, visible, and attractive.

The Active Design Guidelines were created in 2010 by the City of New York to promote physical activity in its portfolio, which is predominantly ex-

isting buildings. “One of the big wins that was achieved was opening up the stairwells in the vast majority of New York City’s public buildings,” says Jo-anna Frank, executive director of the Center for Active Design, which was created to promote the guidelines.

Use of stairs, even six fl ights a day, has been shown to have a real tangible effect on people’s risk of stroke and improvement of their health, Frank says. “So opening stairwells in existing buildings was found to be something that was very possible, even within New York City’s portfolio.”

At the most basic, stairs need to be opened up from a security standpoint so people can travel between desired fl oors without setting off alarms or getting locked out. Ideally stairwells would have glass doors, Franks says, so that people could easily identify the location of the stairs, be reminded to use them, and would feel safer about going into the stairwell. But even opaque doors can be painted with a bright color to bring attention to the stair’s location.

At the courthouse in San Benito County — which was designed to have showpiece public stairs — the back-of-the-house stairwells, accessible only by staff with a key fob, were still treated with added consideration to encourage their use. One wall was painted with an accent color and better than aver-age lighting fi xtures were specifi ed. “It’s just a paint color, but it says, ‘We care.’

We want people to enjoy even the back staircase,” says Miyake.

Making it easy for people to navi-gate to the stairs is equally important. In existing facilities, the central bank of elevators usually has pride of place in the lobby, so signage that points out the location of the stairs as soon as people enter a building is important to encouraging stair use. In addition to navigational signage, motivational sig-nage also plays a role. Signs that show how many calories are consumed by going up the stairs, or how many steps it will take, can provide a little boost of motivation to use the stairs.

Another strategy to consider is mak-ing small choices that will encourage facility occupants to move a little more in their days. Alan Hedge, a professor in the department of design and environ-mental analysis at Cornell University, says some companies have removed vending machines from every other fl oor, making people walk just a little further if they want that midday snack. Removing printers from desktops and providing a central network printer is another way to encourage facility oc-cupants to move around.

On the topic of encouraging move-ment, sit/stand desks are gaining trac-tion in the marketplace. However, as with any new behavior, effective education and change management are required to make this a successful strategy. Hedge says the track record thus far isn’t so great for the solution, as after as little as a month people of-ten are not using the adjustability and just leave the desk in a sitting position. “Much like when you make a New Year’s resolution to get fi t and you buy all the equipment and a month later it’s all sitting in the basement,” Hedge says. “Usually to make things effective you have to combine not only the products and the places, but put some kind of programming in place that encourages people to use those capabilities.”

Frank says the Center for Active Design has just launched a study with funding from ASID looking at the


BRUCE DAMONTE, COURTESY SMITHGROUPJJR

At the Superior Court of California in San Benito County, Calif., access to daylight and views expands the sense of space in a ght fl oor plan, while the glass facade allows the facility to be more welcoming to the community it serves.


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long-term impact of people who use sit/stand desks.

Focusing on how mechanical systems are impacting lighting, air, and water quality is another front-line strategy for facility managers in existing buildings, says Arias. Facility managers can include considerations such as how well the light from a light fi xture can support circadian rhythms when it comes time for a lighting sys-tem upgrade. Maintaining proper

operation of air fi lters, keeping coils clean, and using operable windows only when the outside air is cleaner than the inside air are all elements to keep in mind. And providing access to fresh water is important, achieved through monitoring water purity, con-sistency, and pressure, Arias says. “The overall plumbing health of the build-ing is highly vital,” says Arias. “Energy is still a participant in the consider-ation, but when you have adequate and high quality water provided, it keeps the occupants optimal.”

Role of Materials in ExposureAnd of course, the classic frontline

strategy of limiting or eliminating toxic exposure through careful

materials selection is always a best practice. “The great thing about reducing chemi-

cal hazards in building products is the science is very solid, and it’s one of the most effective and rigorous ways to improve human health,” says Bill Walsh, executive director of the Healthy Building Network. The market is moving towards ever more transparency and disclosure regard-ing the chemical makeup of products, granting the necessary insight for facility managers to be able to select between products. “More than 100 product manufacturers are involved in the Health Product Declaration Col-laborative, which is the standard for-mat for communicating information about building ingredients and related

health issues,” Walsh says. “That is an-other indication on how the market is focusing on human health and manu-facturers are responding to that.”

An elegant impact of hazard reduc-tion by avoiding certain chemicals in products is that the effects ripple back up through the entire supply chain, Walsh says. Not only do facility occu-pants get a healthier environment, but also facility staff gets a healthier work-place, as do product installers, as do the workers in the manufacturing facility. “All told it’s a very powerful method of producing healthier buildings, health-ier materials, and a healthier material life-cycle chain,” Walsh says.

Pursuing wellness can seem like a tall order, especially given the fact that it is not as readily measurable as energy effi ciency. But despair not. Every facility can take some steps to-wards wellness, regardless of use type, budget, or location. The thing that is the same in every case is the process, says Frank. The fi rst step is to decide what you’re trying to affect — child-hood obesity? Workplace sedentary behaviors? Access to parks? “You can set your outcome and work backwards to identify the strategies that are most likely to result in that kind of impact,” Frank says. “It’s just a case of being aware of it at the outset of a project in order to minimize costs and maximize on the opportunity.” ■


26

Resources

Whether facility managers are looking to increase physical activ-ity of occupants or pursue more comprehensive wellness strate-gies, many organizations are work-ing on creating vetted guidelines to follow. Here is a sampling.

WELL Building Standard — A perfor-mance-based system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health in existing and new commercial and insti-tutional buildings. Currently, WELL v1.0 is geared towards offi ce buildings, with typologies for retail, education, restau-rant, commercial kitchen and multifamily residential in pilot phase. www.wellcertifi ed.com/well

Active Design Guidelines — Building design strategies for promoting active living in commercial buildings, through the placement and design of stairs, elevators, and indoor and outdoor spaces. Also discusses strategies for urban neighbor-hoods, streets, and outdoor spaces. centerforactivedesign.org/guidelines/

Building Healthy Toolkit — Coauthored by the Center for Active Design and the Urban Land Institute, the document covers 21 evidence-supported recommendations for enhancing health outcomes in real es-tate, focusing on physical activity, healthy food and drinking water, and healthy environments and social well being. uli.org/research/centers-initiatives/building-healthy-places-initiative/building-healthy-places-toolkit/

The fi rst offi ce to be cer fi ed under the WELL Building Standard in fall of 2013, while it was s ll in the pilot phase, was CBRE’s global corporate headquarters in

Los Angeles. Some of the features in the offi ce include: air fi ltra on systems, sound damping walls, VOC-free paints, water purifi ca on, ergonomic desks and chairs,

biophilic plan ngs, energy absorbing fl ooring, and smart ligh ng systems.

CBRE


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The Energy Star rating system has helped many facility manag-

ers evaluate opportunities to reduce energy costs and to advertise their achievements. Some organizations have certifi ed multiple buildings — and not just two or three, or even fi ve or 10, but 100 or more. In fact, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the “top certifi ers” — organizations that got the Energy Star label for 150 or more buildings in 2014 — collectively reduced their energy costs by $562 million and pre-vented more than 2.7 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

The experience of organizations that have certifi ed dozens or hun-dreds of buildings can help facility managers start or improve their own Energy Star efforts. Here are six les-sons drawn from conversations with some of those organizations.

1. Understand the Value of Energy Star Certifi cation

Using the Energy Star data for benchmarking can allow a company to spot anomalies and look for ways to improve, says Chris Hartsfi eld, director of operations for Brandywine Realty Trust, which certifi ed 89 buildings in 2014.

A building with a notably low Energy Star score probably has multiple low- or no-cost options available, such as ad-justing setpoints or setting back heating or air conditioning during non-working hours, says David Pogue, global direc-tor of corporate responsibility for CBRE, which certifi ed 406 buildings in 2014. But it’s not just very low scores that present opportunities. “There are literally hundreds of cases where buildings have been able to raise their scores from

the 50s to the 80s with limited capi-tal,” Pogue says.

The combination of low- and no-cost changes plus improvements in lighting and controls, will typically get a building to the 75th percentile neces-sary for certifi cation, Pogue says.

For buildings that make the effort to improve, savings are signifi cant. “There’s almost a 1-to-1 improvement in cost,” Pogue says, referring to the Energy Star score and the percent de-crease in energy use. “If you go from 50 to 75, you’re probably approaching 20 to 25 percent less in energy spent.”

It’s important to realize that the goal of the Energy Star program isn’t to save energy regardless of the impact on oc-cupants. To gain certifi cation, a build-ing has to show that it meets Energy Star criteria for indoor environmental quality. Energy Star certifi cation hasn’t required the Fulton County Schools in Georgia, which has 91 Energy Star cer-

tifi ed schools, to be so rigid that occupants are uncomfortable, says Joseph Clements, executive director for facility services. “We’re in competition to attract good staff,” he says. “They don’t want to be in a work environment that’s uncomfortable.”

2. Recognize the New Expectations According to the Institute for Market Transformation, 14

cities, two states, one county, and the District of Columbia now have laws requiring commercial property owners to disclose their energy use, and the Energy Star system is the tool for dis-closure, protecting both buyers and sellers. Getting a complete report on energy use is now part of due diligence in buying a property. “It’s baked into the deal from day one,” says Kevin Stubbs, director of architecture and engineering for Principal Real Estate Investors, which certifi ed 52 buildings in 2014.

Disclosing Energy Star benchmarks is “now the new normal in many markets,” Pogue says. “Big buildings in big cities have all moved to them.” Smaller properties, with more diffused ownership and less competition for top tenants, have lagged behind, he says, even though they would benefi t just as much.

Lessons From Energy Star LeadersBenchmark your Energy Star benchmarking efforts against organizations that have certifi ed scores of buildings

by david lewellen


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For more about state and local energy benchmarking and disclosure laws, go to http://buildingrating.org

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But mandates are just one factor driving the use of Energy Star bench-marking. Investors, tenants, and clients are increasingly recognizing the benefi ts of Energy Star, according to Jennifer Mc-Conkey, sustainability director for Prin-cipal. Many corporations and govern-mental entities now specify that they can only lease in Energy Star certifi ed spaces, or at least in buildings that have a plan in place to achieve the certifi cation. Ten-ants recognize that an Energy Star build-ing may reduce their operating costs.

As more tenants are demanding Energy Star certifi cation, they are look-ing beyond the nominal rental rate to their occupancy costs, including en-ergy. “We have a very educated tenant base,” Hartsfi eld says, “and that’s a large expense they have to pay.” Now, he says, instead of looking only at the bottom line on the energy bill, “they want to know what rates you’re getting from the utility companies, what you’re doing to oversee your HVAC.”

3. Make Energy Star the RuleCBRE began requiring every build-

ing larger than 100,000 square feet to be benchmarked 10 years ago, and now requires it of all properties, totaling 300

million square feet. The voluntary En-ergy Star program “gave us a beginning place,” says Pogue.

New stores that Staples opens are already design-certifi ed for Energy Star, because the retail chain “makes sure ar-chitects and engineers are dialed in on Energy Star qualifi cations,” said Bob Valair, the company’s director of energy and environmental responsibility. The company, which certifi ed 201 buildings in 2014, has three basic designs for dif-ferent climates, with differences in roof design, insulation, and heating source.

“Benchmarking is the foundation for everything we do today,” Valair says. Sharing the information with employees, he says, allows wide participation, and actions as simple as turning off lights and copiers at night, and setting the energy management system back to standards if it has been overridden, can result in en-ergy savings of 2 to 3 percent. Through regular multi-channel communication, Staples makes sure its employees under-stand protocols and the need for contin-uous improvement. “We don’t ever want to hit the Energy Star score of 75 and say, ‘I’m done,’ ” Valair says.

4. Don’t Give Up On Older Buildings

Surprising as it may seem, experi-ence shows that new buildings don’t have an unfair advantage over older ones when it comes to qualifying for Energy Star certifi cation. “A well-run property, regardless of age, can score better than a building that’s brand-new,” says Hartsfi eld.

Fulton County Schools didn’t earn Energy Star certifi cation for 91 buildings because the school system has a fl eet of new buildings. Fulton County Schools went through a construction boom in the 1990s, producing many buildings built on similar plans, which made com-parisons easier. “We could fi gure out why good performers performed good, and replicate that,” Clements says. Ful-ton County Schools found that the cul-prit was often climate control running at unnecessary times; nonprofi t groups often use the schools after hours, and it was easy to leave the air conditioning running even after they left.

Even if a building’s age affects its effi ciency, it may not always be for the worse. Pogue points out that older buildings may have windows that open,

less glass, and thicker walls, all of which can be helpful — but the grand old soaring lobbies pose a problem.

Some buildings can’t achieve Energy Star levels of effi ciency as they are. For example, a Manhattan offi ce tower in Principal’s portfolio has a curtain wall of single-glazed glass that would be cost-prohibitive to replace. But in the normal course of the capital improve-ment cycle, HVAC or control upgrades may let more buildings achieve the designation. Around 30 years, Pogue says, tends to be “the sweet spot” when a building’s systems should be replaced anyway, offering an opportunity for big energy savings. Retrocommissioning an older property may pay for itself in one to three years, Hartsfi eld says.

5. Engage Tenants Pogue says about 50 percent of a

building’s energy use comes from light-ing and plug loads, which fall inside the end users’ space. Working with tenants to install motion detectors or turn off computers at night can improve the scores further.

If tenants that pay their own utility bills aren’t required to share utility bill information with property managers, that can be a barrier to achieving certi-fi cation for multitenant facilities. Harts-fi eld says new leases are being written to refl ect the owner’s need for tenant utility data, and many tenants with pre-existing leases are happy to share


County schools have started to say, “I want my (Energy Star) recogni on too.... It’s a li le like their standardized test scores.”

— Joseph Clements, Fulton County Schools

“We don’t ever want to hit the Energy Star score of 75 and say, ‘I’m done.’ ”

— Bob Valair, Staples


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the information when they recognize the benefi t to themselves.

At most of its locations, Staples is a tenant, but Valair says, “We have good lease language, and good rapport with our landlords.” In their case, he says, they have sometimes been the one con-vincing the property owner that sharing data and working together to reduce energy use was worth it.

Geography can play a role in unex-pected ways. Brandywine has concen-trations of properties in Philadelphia and in Austin, Texas, and Hartsfi eld says that Austin tenants are “much more sav-vy when it comes to Energy Star,” possi-bly because the businesses are younger and more technology-oriented.

6. Use Energy Star To Make a Statement

As more cities and states require buildings to disclose their energy use, Energy Star is a well-understood report-ing tool, and a high score can demon-strate a commitment to sustainability.

“We understand the EPA’s brand and our brand, and how to commingle them and make a stronger brand,” Va-lair says. “It’s a great partnership, but it also makes good business sense.”

“It’s not just about the labels,” Harts-fi eld says, “but about being conscious of energy effi ciency. Labels are an achieve-ment, but our actions are making sure we have properly running buildings.”

Energy Star is “a great vehicle to demonstrate to the taxpayers of the county that we’re using good fi duciary responsibility to operate the building,” Clements says of the Fulton County Schools. “We’re being good stewards of tax money.” As the number of certifi ed buildings began to rise in recent years, schools “started saying, ‘I want my rec-ognition, too.’ … It’s a little like their standardized test scores.” ■

David Lewellen is a freelance writer who covers facility issues.



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Facilities Respond toCalifornia’s DroughtFacing the governor’s water-reduction order, facility managers are fi nding innovative ways to save water, both indoors and out

by ronald kovach, managing editor


WATER EFFICIENCY

In the face of California’s severe water crisis and a man-datory-water-reduction order from the governor, what’s a

facility manager to do? As it turns out, the state’s facility and sustainability people have responded in many interesting and effective ways, including cutting way back on watering, installing new equipment with better design and technolo-gy, changing vegetation, feeding reclaimed water to cooling towers, and capturing rainwater and runoff for irrigation. In addition, communication initiatives at some facilities have aimed at making employees more conscious about water consumption and leak-reporting.

Many of these approaches were underway before Gov. Jerry Brown announced mandatory water-use cuts in April, but some were taken in direct response to it. In his April ex-ecutive order, the fi rst such action in the state’s history, Brown directed the State Water Resources Control Board to impose a 25 percent reduction on the state’s 400 local water supply agencies over the coming year. The agencies were directed to come up with water restrictions and monitor compliance.

One reaction that is not justifi ed is throwing up one’s hands in shock and desperation, in the eyes of Larry Mor-gan, senior facility manager at SAP, a big software company. “This drought cycle we’re in right now is nothing new,” he says. “In fact, there have been decades-long, severe drought periods in recent history. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise, and if you do two things you will be better prepared for the next cycle: One is to submeter water (for that matter, all

utilities), where physically and fi nancially feasible, so you can manage the data. You have to have the baselines of what the consumption is related to. If someone says, ‘Cut 25 per-cent,’ and you don’t know what it means, it’s pretty tough to manage things. The second thing is, once you understand the baseline data, what can you realistically use it to do?”

Taking ActionAt San Diego Unifi ed School District, a facilities team

huddled after the April edict and came up with a plan to signifi cantly cut back on watering ornamental lawns, which are just there for looks, but to avoid hurting trees. “So there’s a balance there. Some manual watering is done, but the ma-jority is controlled through an irrigation control system,” says Darin Vey, energy utilities program supervisor.

The district’s 185 schools and 15 or so additional facilities mean there’s a lot of lawn and plants to water. But largely through the reduction in irrigation, the district managed to cut its water use in half, when comparing mid-year 2015 to mid-year 2013, according to Vey and Tom Wright, whose du-ties include environmental compliance. Some district lawns have gone brown, others haven’t, depending on the climate.

At the University of California, Merced, which has about 6,300 students, a multi-department stakeholders meeting was held soon after the governor’s April announcement and the grounds became a main focus of water-saving, says Var-ick Erickson, campus energy manager. The school replaced roughly 700 sprinklers with a design that minimizes evapora-tion, overspray, and runoff, he says. The facilities department reduced the amount of watering everywhere on campus, and worked with the athletic department to manage the recre-ational fi elds with less water, while also keeping them safe.

The department began using an evapotranspiration (ET) irrigation control system in 2014. ET is a measure of how much moisture is lost from the ground through evaporation and from plants through transpiration. Very hot, dry weath-er, for example, will have a high ET rate and more irriga-tion will be needed. The system is programmed with plant types and sprinkler rates, and adjusts watering times based on daily ET rates obtained from a weather station. “We got lucky there because we had been piloting this system just

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before the governor’s mandate and we fast-tracked it,” Er-ickson says. “Typically these systems save 30 percent on ir-rigation. We’re getting more than that, because we’re some-times overriding it to reduce water even more.”

The facilities department also piloted a leak-reporting system based on QR codes to greatly simplify and speed the process. Someone seeing a leak can now scan the code lo-cated nearby, which will quickly kick out a work order.

As part of its pursuit of drought-tolerant landscaping, Manco Abbott, Inc., a property management fi rm serving Central California, has used hydrogel at commercial and multi-family properties to extend water feed to the grass, says Robin Adcock, energy and sustainability coordinator. Once the gel is injected into a lawn, grass roots attach to the mate-rial and feed continuously on its sponge-like beads, she says.

“You just need to water enough to keep the gel hydrat-ed,” she says. She had hydrogel installed in Fresno at a large commercial building, which cut water use and run time over the last year by 43 to 47 percent. “The cost is around 25 cents per square foot and the gel lasts fi ve to seven years. We had several days of 106 to 108 this year and my lawns remained green,” she says, despite watering restrictions.

Rigorous Water ReclamationAt California State University, Stanislaus, no potable wa-

ter at all is used for irrigation, says Louie Oliveira, manager and chief engineer. Anything that comes off roofs, parking lots, streets, and sprinkler overfl ow is collected, pumped through fi lters, and used for irrigation throughout campus.

The 9,000-student school, located in Turlock amid the agriculture-rich Central Valley, sits on 220 acres of fl at ter-rain. The school’s water reclamation system collects all rainfall and pumps it into a refl ecting pond and on-campus lakes, which together store more than 12 million gallons.

Oliveira and building service engineers have installed a sophisticated system that measures and controls all the wa-terfl ow. “A few months back we had a half inch of water fall

and we collected over 2 million gallons of water,” he says.In response to the governor’s edict, the university has

completed a project to tap into the campus irrigation loop to send reclaimed water, after fi ltering and cleaning, to the cooling towers. That change has worked well and is pro-jected to cut campus potable water use nearly 20 percent.

Similarly, Nvidia, a visual-computing company based in Santa Clara, is in the permit application phase of connecting to the local utility’s reclaimed water supply for data center cooling towers, according to Bruce Thorpe, head of global energy and critical environments. After commissioning, he estimates use of the reclaimed water will save over 8 million gallons of potable water every year.

When the governor’s edict came out, the Irvine Compa-ny, a property management fi rm, appointed its vice presi-dent of environmental affairs, Dean Kirk, as chair of its new water conservation task force and charged a multi-division team with understanding the new water requirements and how to meet them. The water emphasis was nothing new at Irvine, Kirk says; the company has long had a strong com-mitment to water conservation and recycled water.

Still, the team “dusted off” Irvine’s portfolio of 500 build-ings, which range from skyscrapers and resorts to retail and apartment facilities, and went looking for new exterior and interior conservation opportunities, he says. These have in-cluded installing high-effi ciency sprinkler systems, irriga-tion controllers, and smart valves; seeking areas where turf might be replaced with landscapes that are more drought-tolerant; and managing the overall system more effi ciently.

Irvine says its measures cut outdoor potable water use by about 30 percent and 37 percent, respectively, at the two biggest water agencies it uses — the Irvine Ranch Water Dis-trict and the city of Newport — over June, July, and August.

At Stanford Health Care, in Palo Alto, the organization had undertaken many water-reduction efforts well before the April edict, starting with free, detailed water audits done in 2009. The audits provided a clear understanding of


64%

Saving H2O in CA

58%

81%26%25%

submeter water use

have specifi c goals for water-use reduc on

have educated occupants about water effi ciency

get water from alterna ve sources like gray water,

rainwater, or condensate

Water-saving ac ons in California facili es that describe water conserva on as a high priority 51%have conducted

a water audit

use reclaimed water from a wastewater

treatment facility

44%have a formal water conserva on plan

Source: BOM survey


water use and supported the develop-ment of conservation priorities and investments, says Krisanne Hanson, director of sustainability. The latter in-cluded installation of over 700 laminar fl ow restrictors, a reduction in exterior watering, and the shuttering of non-critical outdoor water features.

But the biggest step was a major upgrade of the huge cleaning and sterilization system for surgical instru-ments, which began saving the orga-nization 12 million gallons of water a year and was a key factor in its achiev-ing a 38 percent year-over-year water reduction, Hanson says. Every year the medical center sterilizes about 18 million surgical instruments. Under Stanford’s previous systems, steam sterilizers generated hot condensate that needed to be cooled before dis-charge into the sewer system. In 2012, Stanford began reaping big water sav-ings by installing a closed-loop system which contains and cools the conden-sate and eliminates the need to cool it with domestic water, Hanson says.

Another big water-user, the com-mercial dishwasher, is getting new scrutiny in California. At the Univer-sity of San Francisco, a more effi cient dishwashing system in the campus kitchen installed last summer has re-duced water use by 720,000 gallons, says Craig Petersen, director of opera-tions. “Ultimately,” he says, “the savings are three-fold: less water used, less en-ergy required to heat the water, and less wastewater (sewer) disposal fees.”

Hidden Water UseAt San Ramon’s Food Service Tech-

nology Center, a new study of water and energy use in large dishwashing machines found the equipment uses two to three times the water expected, says research engineer Amin Delagah. The machines are often water-ineffi -cient, he says, but outdated or aging equipment is not the only big prob-lem. Other factors are at play too, he says, including poor commissioning of new equipment, inadequate train-ing, careless operating practices, oper-

ator turnover, and poor maintenance.““It’s not just that it’s old equip-

ment. You put a brand new machine in there, it’s going to have problems if the same old habits carry over to the new machine,” Delagah says.

At SAP, water efforts have included moving into a xeriscape program that removes non-native vegetation and redesigns landscaping to add drip systems and native vegetation that re-quires less water, fertilizer, and main-tenance, Morgan says. The company, with 4,000 workers in California, is installing a submetering water pro-gram in its cafeterias as a means of providing the quantitative data that allows qualitative decisions. One way to get employees’ attention about wa-ter use, Morgan suggests, is to describe its effect on company profi t margins and hence bonuses. “Economics,” he says, “is a powerful approach that has cross-functional impact.” ■

Send questions and comments to [email protected].


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Any facility manager knows it’s easy to fi nd products that make

some claim of environmental friendli-ness. What’s more diffi cult is determin-ing just what the claims mean, and how credible they are.

One primary goal in assessing the “green-ness” of building products is determining the impact they can have on the health of a building’s occupants, as well as the people who manufacture, install, and maintain the products. An-other is evaluating the environmental impact from the moment the materi-als are sourced or developed, through manufacturing, distribution, and ap-plication, until the product reaches the end of its current life.

The fl ooring industry has been one of the leaders in improving the sustain-ability of its product offerings, creating

ways to reclaim and reuse materials at end of life, and also in adopting more transparent product declarations. As a result, facility managers are left with a vast assortment of possibilities in the realm of fl ooring that are good for the environment as well as facility oc-cupants. To fi nd the product that best suits a project’s needs while also reduc-ing impact on human health and the environment, facility managers can focus their research on several areas, such as materials use, product content, and third-party certifi cations.

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ing’s impact on the environment is to follow the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra and use fewer materials, says Cindy Davis, director of research and information center and LEED certifi -cation with Callison Architecture. In some locations, that may mean opting for, say, polished concrete rather than a fl ooring system, she says.

Along those lines, durability should be a key consideration when a fl ooring system is installed. “It’s equal to any other green strategy,” because it also minimizes the amount of materials used over time, Davis says.

Similarly, carpet tile can minimize the use of materials by enabling easy replacement of just the areas that re-ceive the greatest use, says Anica Lan-dreneau, director of sustainable con-sulting with HOK.

What a facility will do with a fl ooring product once it has reached end of use-ful life also enters into the materials-

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use considerations. Ideally, any materials will fi nd a second life after they’ve been used once. For instance, a number of carpet manufacturers will take carpet that’s reached the end of its life, separate the carpet fi bers from their backing, and recycle each component into carpet or other materials, Lan-dreneau says. Some carpet materials can be recycled mul-tiple times. More than 500 million pounds of carpet, or 14 percent of the 3.7 billion pounds of total discarded carpet, were diverted from landfi lls in 2013, according to the non-profi t organization Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE).

STEP 2 SUSTAINABLE CONTENT Thinking about how materials can be disposed

or reused at end of life naturally leads to considering mate-rial content in the fi rst place. A common designation facility managers will come across is a listing of the recycled content in a product.

Flooring systems made from recycled or reclaimed material, whether old wood beams, discarded carpets, or empty soda bottles, reduce the impact on the environment that results from extracting, processing, and transporting virgin materials.

An added bonus: Some systems “are steeped in cultural history, and that can resonate with clients,” says Anthony Brower, LEED AP BD+C, sustainable design director with Gensler. For instance, wood beams reclaimed from a local landmark and incorporated within the fl oor of a new offi ce building can lend it cachet, and even be a selling point with prospective tenants.

Besides recycled content, high degrees of bio-based prod-ucts can be desirable. Bio-based products are derived from plants and other renewable agricultural, marine, and forestry materials, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They can minimize the use of materials that contain sub-stances, such as carcinogens, shown to have harmful effects on health, Davis says. In addition, they can reduce the need

for products made from petroleum, which often need to be transported from great distances.

One example is an old standby: linoleum. Its main ingre-dient is linseed oil, which comes from the fl ax plant. “It’s the most commonly used sustainable hard surface,” says Ruth Janssen, director of interiors with Leo A Daly.

Closely related to bio-based content considerations is the product’s “rapidly renewable” content. LEED considers ma-terials rapidly renewable if they’re derived from plants with a harvesting cycle of no longer than 10 years. Among the fl oor-ing products that tend to fall within this defi nition are cork, bamboo, and linoleum. Cork, for instance, comes from the bark of the cork oak tree. After the bark is harvested, it grows back, maintaining the health of the tree.

However, any calculation of the environmental impact of these materials needs to account for transportation, Brower points out. For instance, many of the largest concentrations of cork trees are in countries around the Mediterranean. Shipping rapidly renewable products long distances can make “the environmental calculation good for the product, bad on transportation,” he says.

STEP 3 CHEMICAL EXPOSUREThe content of fl ooring material also potentially

has a direct, and long-term, impact on indoor environmental quality and human health exposures.

When it comes to evaluating the sustainability of fl oor-ing and other building materials, “we think human health should be top of mind,” says Maria Rutland, senior market-ing manager for the environment with UL Environment Inc. “It’s how the people in the space where the product is used will be impacted.”

Using low-emitting products is one of the easiest ways to contribute to a healthier indoor environment, Rutland adds. This not only benefi ts tenants, but can reduce the number of complaints facility managers receive.

In addition to limiting exposure through the chemistry of a fl ooring product, care should also be taken to avoid creating VOC exposure through the cleaning methods used. “The idea of sustainable fl ooring and maintenance go hand in hand,” says Juli Schroeder, senior associate and senior interior de-signer with Gensler. This includes the methods used to clean a fl oor and how frequently cleaning is required.

Some manufacturers warn that the use of harsh clean-ing products may not only bring unwanted chemicals into a building, but also negatively affect how their fl ooring materi-als perform, Davis says.

STEP 4 THIRD-PARTY CERTIFICATIONFacility managers can be forgiven if their heads

spin a bit from all that could be used to deem a fl ooring prod-uct “green.” But thankfully they don’t have to do all the home-work from scratch. One way to distinguish legitimate claims of “greenness” from more questionable ones is by checking for any certifi cations a fl ooring product has earned. Certifi -cation shows that “the claim the product is making can be trusted, and the product has undergone a third-party, scien-


The Fairfax Community Center at Fort Belvoir, Va., used salvaged wood fl oors, which in addi on to reducing the environmental impact of the fl ooring can add cachet to a space.

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tifi c evaluation,” Rutland says. Among the certifi cations facility man-

agers might come across are these:FSC Certifi ed: The Forest Steward-

ship Council (FSC) has developed 10 principles for FSC-certifi ed forests, such as forest management shall “maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest.”

Cradle to Cradle: The Cradle to Cra-dle Certifi ed Product Standard “covers the environmental impact of a product over its lifecycle,” Landreneau says. It looks at material health, material reuti-lization, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness.

Greenguard UL Environment: One focus is certifi cation for low-emitting products, Rutland says. Product samples are tested for about seven days, and mod-eling is used to understand off-gassing after installation. Greenguard also docu-ments what the emission sources may be during manufacturing, Rutland says.

Green Seal: Green Seal certifi es adhe-sives and fl oor-cleaning products, as well

as paints, coats, and sealers, says Linda Chipperfi eld, vice president of marketing, focusing on product lifecycle impact on human and environmental health.

NSF International/American Na-tional Standards (ANSI): Two standards, NSF/ANSI 140, Sustainability Assess-ment for Carpet and NSF/ANSI 332, Sus-tainability Assessment for Resilient Floor Coverings, are relevant when assessing the sustainability of fl ooring. Both are multi-attribute standards that cover a number of green characteristics, includ-ing recycled content, the use of bio-based materials, and low VOCs, says Jenny Oor-beck, general manager, sustainability, with NSF International. They also con-sider the manufacturing process.

Floorscore: Floorscore certifi cation shows that a product meets the VOC emissions requirements of the California Section 01350 Program, “the only health-based building material specifi cation,” according to the CA.gov website.

LEED: Although it’s not a certifi cation program for products, LEED v4, which is scheduled to become mandatory for new

LEED projects in October 2016, contains several signifi cant changes from the pre-vious version, LEED 2009, changes that can help facility managers evaluate the environmental impact of fl ooring and other products. These include the Envi-ronmental Product Declaration, or EPD, and the Health Product Declaration, or HPD. With both, the fi rst goal is greater transparency, Landreneau says. Greater transparency should lead to materials optimization, she adds.

Landreneau acknowledges that some manufacturers are leery of publicizing the ingredients that go into their products. In lieu of disclosing this information, manu-facturers can obtain a Cradle to Cradle cer-tifi cation. This shows that the manufactur-er not only disclosed the ingredients, but had them evaluated by experts. ■

Karen M. Kroll, a contributing editor for Building Operating Management, is a freelance writer who has written exten-sively about real estate and facility issues.



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In the pages of this magazine, as in the trade media at large, you

frequently read success stories about fancy, new ultra-effi cient high-per-formance buildings. These buildings push the envelope on what’s possible in terms of how buildings are de-signed, built, and operated. But then, silence. There’s rarely any follow-up to explain how these buildings con-tinued performing after the scrutiny ended and the ink dried on all the breathless magazine stories about them. So to remedy that, what fol-lows are updates on two government buildings, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) Research Support Facility in Golden, Colo., and GSA’s Federal Center South Building 1202 near Seattle. In both cases, these buildings have continued to meet ef-fi ciency goals.

NREL’s Research Support FacilityHailed as the largest net-zero en-ergy building in the world, this now 360,000-square-foot facility (it opened in 2010 at 220,000 square feet, but a third wing has since been built) was a subject of coverage in February 2010 and again in October 2012. The LEED Platinum building is net-zero energy — its energy use intensity (EUI) has been consistent for the last fi ve years, at about 35-36 kBtu/sqft/yr.

“The key is not to rest on your lau-rels,” says Shanti Pless, senior energy effi ciency research engineer for NREL. So the building has been able to main-tain its ultra-effi ciency with a range of high-performance operations initia-tives. Many have been focused on oc-cupants, as the building has fi lled to

more than 95 percent capacity — the headcount is about 1,300.

One important strategy was retool-ing the dashboards in the lobby to make it clearer to non-engineers how the building is performing. “Even the di-rector of NREL didn’t understand,” says Pless. “So he tasked us with developing a next-generation dashboard so he can know in fi ve seconds if the building is on track.” (See “NREL’s Dashboard: Be-fore and After” on the facing page.)

Also, to get occupants involved, NREL developed a Building Agent App for everyone’s laptop which allows oc-cupants to provide feedback. The origi-nal purpose of the app, says Pless, was to tell occupants when they should and shouldn’t open windows. It’s evolved from there, though, to allow for satis-faction surveys, feedback on whether a space is too hot or cold, and any

High-Performance In Action Two high-profi le government buildings improve operations to hit their energy effi ciency targets

by greg zimmerman, executive editor


GREEN GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS

NREL

Maintaining an EUI of 35-36 kBtu/sq /yr, the Research Support Facility is the largest net-zero energy building in the world.

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other issue facility managers should be aware of. “We’ve learned a lot about how buildings can talk to occupants and vice versa,” says Pless. “We want to engage occupants to do good if they want to, but not all occupants want to.”

As an example, occupants have to turn lights on manually everywhere, either task or overhead — the default mode for all lighting is “off.” If they leave a space or their desks, vacancy sensors turn lights off. “We think this is the right combination of occupant engagement and controls,” says Pless.

Additionally, because plug loads are such a high percentage of the total en-ergy spend for a net-zero energy build-ing, occupants use smart power strips that provide power for 11 hours. The oc-cupant pushes a button on the strip to get 11 hours of power and then it shuts off all devices. If occupants need more, they simply press the button again.

The goal regarding occupants, says Pless, is to create localized solutions that work for individuals. “Everyone’s different, so there’s no single solution for everyone,” he says. This includes glare controls and glare screens, desk-tops fans that run from USB ports, task lighting, and fl exible offi ce furniture.

“The building was supposed to be smarter than the occupants, but we soon learned that wasn’t the case,” says Pless. “No one ever gets controls to be perfect.” So giving occupants the ability to control their spaces and pro-vide feedback has been a key to not only the building’s net-zero energy goals, but also occupant satisfaction.

The building also now has a so-phisticated fault detection system that alarms if a control sequence is manually overridden. And Pless says a major ini-tiative in the last six months has been to convince IT staff to be more aggressive

in decommissioning old equipment in the building’s data center. This has had a big impact on energy use, he says.

Keeping a more careful eye on the PV systems has also been a focus. “We only have 365 days of production, so if you lose one day, that can be impactful to net-zero goals,” says Pless. Although the PV system is still grid-tied (meaning it doesn’t work if power is lost), Pless says one of the plans for the future is to create a micro-grid and therefore the ability to island the building. “We’re investigating this possibility now,” he says. This, like being as effi cient as possible (especially in the data center, where the power us-age effectiveness, or PUE, is about 1.2), is a resilience strategy — the more effi -cient a building, the longer it can run on

backup power. Soon, Pless says, he’d like the building to be net-positive — to be able to either store energy or to send it back to the grid.

“We are continuously striving for improvement, for both meeting our net-zero energy goals and to demon-strate to the building industry how it can be done,” he says.

Federal Center South Building 1202Our cover story in June 2014 examined this building’s unique design-build contract structure. Part of the contract was a guaranteed level of performance for the building one year into its op-eration — a guarantee on which the design-build team staked 0.5 percent of the contract. The January 2013 through January 2014 performance period al-lowed designers and operators to fi ne-tune and optimize the building and hit its design targets.

Today, despite increases in plug loads, increased occupancy, and some changes in operating hours, the build-ing uses about the same amount of en-ergy it did at the end of its performance period nearly two years ago — about 35 kBtu/sqft/yr. The contract on the build-ing was to hit a target of 26.8 kBtu/sqft/yr, and when GSA adjusted for some factors (longer operating hours and higher plug loads) not included in the performance requirement, the EUI was 25.7 kBtu/sqft/yr. Today, using the same adjustment, the EUI would be 26.0 kBtu/sqft/yr.

Over the past two years, GSA has gone through some belt-tightening and reduced space by 10 percent with-out reducing head count. That space — about 20,000 square feet — is being taken by Veterans Affairs. The occu-


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GSA’s Federal Center South Building 1202

uses GSALink, a sophis- cated energy analy cs

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NREL’s Dashboard: Before and A er

> At the Research Support Facility, the dashboard was redeveloped to make it easier to tell quickly how the building is performing. The top photo is the old dashboard, the bottom is the new one.

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pancy for the building sits in the high 600s, according to Kurt Spieth, building services specialist for GSA.

The building’s year-long perfor-mance period — when engineers, designers, and consultants were still involved in the day-to-day fi ne-tuning of the building — continues to pay divi-dends, says Marty Novini, mechanical engineer with the facility.

“The big impact that the method of contract had was that the design-build team was engaged to make sure the building performed optimally before they left,” says Novini. “It’s a benefi t that will pay over the life of the build-ing.” Novini says the design-build team was also instrumental in training cur-rent operators in running the building.

Additionally, the operations team has installed a program called GSA-Link, a sophisticated energy man-agement and analytics system which includes fault detection. “It’s a pro-active approach to fi nding defi cien-cies,” says Novini. “We review all the data on a monthly basis, and con-

tinue to adjust building parameters as necessary.”

Spieth says GSALink’s biggest bene-fi t is that it helps remove the possibility of human error. “Analytics know best, computers know best,” he says. “Just let the building run, don’t override, don’t make needless changes.”

Facility managers have also added smart power strips to try to reduce the higher-than-expected plug loads. If engineers need all-night power for security updates, they can bypass the power strips.

Additionally, the facilities team uses what is the home screen for everyone’s computer to provide updates on the building and offer energy tips. This helps get the occupants involved with the building’s energy goals.

Sunny DaysBut it hasn’t been all sunny at Feder-

al Center South — or, more accurately, it’s been too sunny. This year, spring came much sooner than normal, with more sunny days and with the sun at an

angle not predicted by the design soft-ware tools. Therefore, the sun poured into the heavily daylit building at unex-pected angles, forcing many occupants to use umbrellas to reduce glare. Novini says the team is working on some shad-ing strategies to fi x this problem, which may only get worse as the climate con-tinues to change, he says.

As well, because of the extremely low airfl ow in this high-performance building, plants in the atrium were dy-ing en masse. Novini says the building is replacing the live plants in its atrium to correct this unforeseen issue.

Overall, however, GSA is still ex-tremely pleased with the building, and the fact that its energy use, after nearly three years of operation, has remained consistent is a testament to the effec-tiveness of the unique design-build contract structure and the smart, de-liberate thinking about the building’s operations during design. ■

Send questions and comments to [email protected].


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Every year, Oxford Dictionaries releases its Word of the Year, or WOTY, identifying a word or term that has become a part of the mainstream over the past 12 months. Recent examples include gif (2012), selfi e (2013), and vape (2014). The staff broke new ground in 2015 when it identifi ed an emoji as the offi cial WOTY. While the 2016 votes are far from being cast, the term Internet of Things (IoT) is sure to be in the running.

The phrase has been everywhere lately (including in a special section of this magazine in October), emphasizing the emerging role of network connectivity and the ability of an array of technologies to send and receive data. In facilities, the promise of IoT is already being realized as many buildings already feature networks of sensors to gather data from the real world, in real time.

While IoT waits for the Oxford committee to de-liberate, the acronym gets its time in the spotlight at the upcoming NFMT 2016 Conference & Expo, taking place March 22-24 in Baltimore. A track dedicated to IoT in buildings will feature in-depth discussions of how technology is elevating the role of data in optimizing facil-ity and equipment performance.

The track kicks off with a presentation from Julien Stamatakis of Senseware, who will deliver a talk on “The Internet of Things Is Coming, Is Your Facility Ready?” and identify the challenges and potential solutions IoT tech-nology can offer. Other sessions in the track include “The IoT of Energy Management” and “The Role IoT Will Play in the Facility of the Future.”

“The Internet of Things has the potential to truly transform facility management,” says Amy Brown, director

of education for NFMT. “In order to get the most from IoT technologies and strategies, facility managers have to have a fi rm grasp of how and why to harness building data and apply it correctly. Our new IoT track is a defi nite step in that direction.”

Find more information about NFMT 2016 at www.nfmt.com. The three-day conference and expo is free to attend. ■

Email comments to [email protected].

Now Trending: IoT

by wendy dietzler, vice president of education and conferencing

PREVIEW NFMT BALTIMORE

NFMT Baltimore Schedule At-A-Glance

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