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Keys to Optimizing Your Green Savings
A new energy management program at 520 Eighth Avenue in New York City includes boiler controls, re-insulation of steam pipes, HVAC upgrades and new lighting. |
For the corporate real estate executive or building owner, an energy consultant can be one’s strongest ally when seeking to improve the bottom line by “going green,” according to Ian Marlow, president and CEO of Newmark Knight Frank Global Management Services.
Speaking at a Realcomm CIO Forum in New York City recently, Marlow noted “A 10 percent decrease in energy use could lead to a 1.5 percent increase in net operating income. The old idea was ‘green means clean.’ But we’ve also learned that green means savings.”
Here are several key facts from Marlow:
- Optimal sizing of HVAC equipment and an energy efficient shell can produce a return on investment in two to three years—and all the savings after that go straight to profit.
- Some areas of the country are experiencing escalating water costs; reducing water usage can be seen as risk mitigation, in addition to reducing operating costs.
- Use of energy-efficient design and materials can significantly reduce maintenance costs and facility down-time.
- Green buildings have lower risk than general construction and some insurers are beginning to recognize this fact, rewarding occupants and owners of environmentally friendly buildings.
- Going green is generally appreciated by the public—and by shareholders, who tend to regard it as a way of showing social responsibility.
- Striving for sustainability seems to produce improvements in air, thermal and acoustic environments, as well as in water quality.
Marlow noted that new buildings are being developed fairly consistently in accordance with LEED standards in the past couple of years. The real estate industry has shifted its focus to bringing existing buildings up to those standards—or at least close to them.
For corporations with entire portfolios, an important challenge is the linking and networking of buildings within that portfolio to achieve the brightest shade of green for all. For this, Marlow recommended linking systems that will track and assess energy and water consumption, as well as cost data, within individual buildings as well as across an entire portfolio. This will allow the owner to benchmark building energy performance, assess energy management goals, identify strategic savings opportunities, and verify and track the progress of improvement projects.
Marlow’s firm worked to green an aging office building in New York City at 520 Eighth Avenue, an iconic high-rise office/industrial building built in 1926 in Manhattan’s Garment District. “The owner required an all-encompassing energy management program to reduce operating costs,” he explained. “Newmark Knight Frank proposed a five-year financial benefit plan of more than $1 million, and a nine percent reduction in current consumption and costs. Projects included a new system of energy control and management, boiler controls, re-insulation of the steam pipes, radiator repair, HVAC upgrades, elevator controls and new lighting.”
A new energy management program at 520 Eighth Avenue in New York City includes boiler controls, re-insulation of steam pipes, HVAC upgrades and new lighting.
For more information
www.newmarkkf.com
The Productivity Puzzle
Is incessant cost cutting or innovation the key to greater productivity and profits? For Rowan Gibson, author of the best-selling books “Rethinking the Future” and “Innovation to the Core,” who spoke at a recent CoreNet Global meeting, the answer is a no-brainer…it is innovation.
“Smart companies are not squeezing out dollars but rather creating value,” he explained. He pointed out that Apple’s success, which has seen a 3,000 percent growth in its bottom line, has been due to its evolution over time from Macintosh, iPod and iPhone to today’s Apple Stores, which generate $1.5 billion in new income or 20 percent of total revenue of the company.
“Apple created wealth not by cost-cutting or consolidation but by producing wonderful things,” he said. “It is output that matters.” Many corporate real estate executives would agree that cost cutting has gotten pretty close to the bone. Gibson said that “innovation is the only tool left in the toolbox.”
In fact, there are four lenses that constitute “a toolbox for innovation,” as he outlined:
- Challenge orthodoxies and conventional thinking.
- Harness trends and discontinuities, or clusters of trends.
- Leverage resources, existing strengths, assets, products and competitiveness.
- Understand the unmet, unvoiced or hidden needs of customers.
For more information
www2.corenetglobal.org/home |
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Corporate Office Use to Decline 40 Percent in Five Years
Office use by Corporate America is expected to decline by 40 percent over the next five years, according to an article in Telephony World. The findings were based on a study conducted by Corporate Portfolio Analytics, Boston, Massachusetts of how Alternative Officing (AO) is being implemented by a diverse set of major companies nationwide. AO is a broad term for designing workspaces that do not feature assigned, individual workstations because many workers do not work onsite every day.
Corporate Portfolio Analytics co-founder Martha O’Mara stated: “Based on the experiences of early adopters of AO, companies that today average 250 square feet or more per person in their conventionally designed office portfolios should plan for a 40 percent reduction in office space within the next five years.”
For more information
www.telephonyworld.com
www.cpanalytics.com/index.php
What are the Real Benefits of Going Green? Productivity Boosts, Big Operating Cost Reductions
The increase in employee productivity and the savings in operating costs in a building
or a portfolio exceeds all first costs of going green, stated Suzanne Sanders,
vice president, design and development, The Molasky Group of Companies, and Robert
Bingham, senior associate, KKE Architects, Las Vegas, Nevada, who spoke at development
‘08 about the new Molasky Corporate Center.
“The long-term operating cost savings of the building are enormous compared to the first-costs in. When you hear frightening things like Under Floor Air Distribution (UFAD) costing $10 per square foot, remember that a 38 percent savings over time will be a big payback,” commented Sanders.
Even more critical than the operating costs of the building or portfolio is the cost savings derived from greater employee productivity. Sanders said that studies prove that people are happier and healthier working in a green environment. “They do not leave because they want to stay in that environment,” she said. “If you look at the cost of the salary and benefits of people
compared to the extra first-cost in construction, it is a no-brainer. Long term, it is an investment in people and productivity, wellness and air quality. Some of the nation’s biggest corporations have figured it out as have major universities.”
For more information
www.molaskyco.com
www.kke.com
By Ron Derven, contributing editor of Development magazine |
