LEED Program Drives Growth in "Green" Buildings

The LEED environmental sustainability initiative has helped spur a boom in green building development throughout the United States. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. The nationally accepted LEED rating system provides standards for the construction and operation of buildings that minimize the impact on the environment by conserving water, timber and other resources, and promoting energy efficiency. According to the Council, LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance.

The Green Building Council reports that as of 2006, there were 515 LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. Previously, cities on the East and West coasts led in the development of green buildings. Now, data shows that Midwest cities such as St. Louis and Chicago have risen up the rankings of LEED-certified building projects.

To receive the LEED certification, green projects must be registered with the Council and meet all required environmental criteria. Different versions of the LEED rating system are available for various building project types. LEED-NC (new construction) is one of the most commonly held ratings – focusing on the commitment to deliver a building that operates in an energy efficient and environmentally-friendly manner. LEED-EB (existing buildings) expands on this initial certification, providing benchmarks for ongoing operations and maintenance in existing buildings. Recently, a building owned and operated by a company named Planning Design Build, was one of the first multi-tenant buildings in the Midwest to achieve the LEED-EB certification.

Real estate and facility management industry experts note that green construction is quickly moving beyond the fad stage. Previously, seen as vehicle for marketing and promotional purposes, green buildings are becoming more of a necessity given rising energy costs and other issues.

According to the Green Building Council, U.S. cities with the most LEED certified projects include:

U.S. City		Number of LEED Projects
Seattle		20
Portland		16
Pittsburgh		13
Atlanta		13
Grand Rapids		11
Chicago		10
St. Louis		9
Washington, D.C.		6
Austin		6
San Francisco		6

Sources: U.S. Green Building Council, St. Louis Post Dispatch, FMJ Online

BIM Technology Could Play Influential Role in Future Facilities Management

According to an article in the Facilities Management Journal (FMJ), data convergence is a trend that could have a formative role to facilities management in the long term. One such technology currently in limited use in facilities management is building information modeling, referred to as BIM. A BIM is a 3D model or digital prototype of a building that is created in the design and construction phase. BIM models house structural and design information, enabling architects, engineers and designers to easily and quickly optimize building performance during the design process.

As the FMJ story points out, facility managers can leverage BIM models to gain quality structure and design information without having to spend or resources to create it. The resulting benefit is the seamless integration of building and renovation data into a facilities management system. This allows for more efficient management and maintenance of the property as significant cost savings, according to FMJ. In addition, the use of pre-existing design and structural data, in conjunction with distributed and easy-to-use interfaces, opens up facility management data to be used for other complimentary ways such as emergency management planning and response.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has taken a lead role in the use of BIM technology. The GSA’s recent implementation of BIM standards for all new government building and renovation projects signals that BIM models should become more accessible to facilities managers.

Metrics and Facilities Management: Improving Performance via Benchmarks

Facilities managers are increasingly turning to metrics to provide benchmarks that can guide decisions and demonstrate facility management success. Good metrics can also translate into innovation in facilities management strategies. An article in Building Operating Management highlights two case examples where metrics played an invaluable in facility management decision-making:

Measuring classroom use revealed that a landlocked university had thousands of square feet of available space and led to new ways of controlling that space. In another example, one health care organization uses a metrics-based standard for use of space. The standard specifies that if an area is not scheduled for use at least 50 percent of the time, the organization will look to see whether that space can be shared with another clinic or department.

How can you make metrics an integral and value-added component in your facilities management program? The International Facilities Management Association (IFMA) points out some guiding principles that can be applied across the metrics spectrum. As noted in FMJ Online, these guidelines can inform and shape your metrics processes and help improve the quality of its outcomes:

• Internal benchmarking is more important than external benchmarking
  Internal benchmarking allows you to sift data with a finer filter and look at operations and indices that are unique.
  
  
• Identify sources of differences and measure them
  In order to identify the sources you will need to analyze and understand the appropriate processes and identify the differences in outcome or methodology. Once the differences have been tagged, the effort will turn to measurement.
  
  
• Best measurements look at cost drivers
  When crafting your measurement system, look closely at things that cause cost, not just the cost itself.
  
  
• Metrics should spot efficiency problems and provide data across operating units
  Your efforts should be detailed enough to spot efficiency issues within individual sites and broad enough to provide data for comparison across units or sites.
  
  
• Automate data collection to improve quality and accountability
  If you build a system that is dependent upon manual data collection, then it will be one that ultimately costs more to maintain and is less reliable.
  
  
• Set up periodic reviews by executive management
  Routine executive involvement will help keep staff focused on the metrics effort, demonstrate ROI, promote improvement initiatives, better maintain a culture of continuous improvement, and help facilities executives build credibly with executive management.
  
  Sources: FMJ Online, IFMA