A building doesn’t have to be new to be efficient. Today’s leading building owners are retrofitting buildings, converting existing buildings into models of sustainability. Building energy retrofits are investments in efficient technology during building renovation. While most building owners still pursue single technology improvements, market leaders bundle together energy saving technologies to get deeper savings in a more comprehensive approach. Energy performance contracting is one business model that enables building owners to implement whole building retrofits and significantly lower energy consumption and operating costs. Essentially, the upgrades are paid for through energy savings over time. Photo credit: Jack Amick/Flickr.
Utilities carefully manage the electricity supply to ensure that they can meet customer demand on the grid. Demand response programs can help balance supply and demand by encouraging customers to curtail usage during times of high demand. Demand response began as a way to help utilities and grid operators meet large peaks cost-effectively on a few of the hottest summer and coldest winter days.
Employees want to work for organizations that enable them to behave sustainably, but they don’t want it to burden them or change their work patterns. Women behave slightly more sustainably than men; support for sustainability increases with age. Organizations that want more sustainable workplaces succeed best by showing strong leadership and a tangible commitment to which employees can...
Often, vendors encounter roadblocks when pitching energy efficiency technologies to commercial building owners. Building owners, on the other hand, face similar barriers that make even the most attractive technologies impossible to accept. Daniele Horton, founder and principal at Verandi Partners, and Sara Neff, vice president, sustainability at Kilroy Realty Group, discussed these common pitfalls...
When investing in sustainability projects, investors need to understand the dollar value behind the project. At the same time, organizations undertaking such projects are looking to create environmental and social benefits, in addition to financial impacts. Creating or communicating a business case, for the projects is often a challenge, as many architects, designers and other industry...
Consider two investments of $100,000. Each is to yield $20,000 per year for 10 years – but one has high risk and the other low risk. Which is the better investment? The answer seems obvious – yet businesses often ignore relative risk when comparing investments in energy projects. Energy savings guarantees reduce risk by ensuring that the financial benefits of a sustainability...
Employee behaviors can have a big impact on a company’s energy costs. But what does it take to bring employees on board with energy and sustainability programs – to get and keep them engaged and participating? One tool for doing so is a Sustainability Engagement Navigator created by the Johnson Controls Institute for Building Efficiency. By way of a simple group exercise, it helps...
District energy is gaining attention for its ability to tackle large-scale, global energy problems on a local level, with local resources. District energy produces and distributes steam, hot water and chilled water directly to buildings through a network of underground pipes from a central plant, eliminating boiler and chiller rooms in individual buildings.[1] Heating and cooling in this way...
The Future of Green Buildings: Building Technology, Performance and LEED v4 The expansion of voluntary green building certification is an increasing global trend. In the Institute for Building Efficiency’s 2013 Energy Efficiency Indicator (EEI) survey, 26 percent of respondents had achieved and 29 percent intended to achieve voluntary green building certification for their new facilities and...
A workplace sustainability program will not get far without employees squarely on board. A look at research and the experiences of major companies reveals best practices for building an employee engagement program, putting it to work, and measuring success. An effective engagement program follows five basic steps:
The seventh annual Energy Efficiency Indicator survey from the Institute for Building Efficiency drew more than 3,000 respondents from 10 countries, including 911 from Europe. The survey measures trends in energy priorities and practices among decision-makers responsible for energy use in buildings. Here are the key findings from European survey respondents: