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SRS uses this blog to share information and generate discussion on current opportunities and solutions impacting commercial and public building stakeholders related to the assessment, benchmarking and optimization of energy and sustainability performance.

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  • City of Seattle Sends Letters to Owners of 8,000 More Buildings to Benchmark Performance

    Posted on November 23rd, 2011

    http://srmnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/Seattle_Press_Release_Benchmarking_Phase-2_11-21-11.pdf

    City Program Expands, More Buildings to Improve Energy Efficiency
    Seattle, WA – The City of Seattle is sending letters to the owners of 8,000 buildings this week informing
    them of its new building energy-efficiency program. The program aims to help building owners and
    managers reduce their energy costs through benchmarking – or measuring and rating a building’s
    energy performance. By benchmarking, owners get insight into how their building uses – and wastes –
    energy and can begin identifying opportunities to improve energy efficiency and increase savings.
    The City’s Building Energy Benchmarking and Reporting Program is currently underway for
    nonresidential buildings over 50,000 sq. ft. This next phase will require nonresidential buildings over
    10,000 sq. ft. and multifamily buildings with five or more units to benchmark and report their energy
    performance by April 1, 2012.
    The City has developed a series of educational materials – including hands-on training workshops,
    webinars and a step-by-step “How To” guide – to help owners with benchmarking and provide them
    information on utility energy-saving programs, rebates and other financial incentives to save energy.
    To make the benchmarking process as seamless as possible, the City has partnered with local utilities to
    provide owners with the building energy consumption data they need in a convenient format. Using the
    free online tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, owners will be able to easily see their building’s
    energy performance and how it stacks up against similar buildings. Having this information at their
    fingertips is the first step towards improving building energy performance and reducing energy costs.
    “Buildings consume more than 40% of the energy produced in the U.S. but there is a huge opportunity
    to lower energy costs through better building efficiency”, said Diane Sugimura, Director of Seattle’s
    Department of Planning and Development. “The City successfully launched the first phase of the
    Building Energy Benchmarking program earlier this year and we’re excited to begin reaching an even
    larger pool of buildings. Helping building owners track their energy use is an important step towards
    improving building energy efficiency, reducing energy costs, and invigorating the retrofit market to
    create good local jobs”, she said.
    This second group of buildings represents a diverse group of building owners and types including offices,
    schools, restaurants, retail outlets and more. These properties make up a significant portion of
    Seattle’s building stock and a great opportunity for increased energy savings.
    Many owners and managers already familiar with the benchmarking process see it as a good business
    practice that helps lower operating costs and boost bottom lines.
    City of Seattle
    Department of Planning and Development
    Office of Sustainability and Environment
    “The more information and knowledge you have about your building’s energy performance, the more
    power you have to control it, “ said Lynda Carey, Construction and Asset Manager at Bellwether, an
    affordable housing organization in Seattle. “For us, benchmarking and making energy-efficiency
    improvements isn’t just about helping the environment, it is also a good business decision. Our mission
    is to help families afford more than rent, so the more we can do to lower our energy costs and keep
    housing affordable, the better.”
    The City is working to ensure that all buildings are benchmarked on an annual basis, and that building
    energy use information is available to potential tenants, buyers and lenders during real estate
    transactions. That way, building owners, businesses and residents alike can make more informed and
    cost-conscious decisions when upgrading, buying or renting property.
    “The key is education. Once an owner understands how their building is performing and how improving
    energy efficiency impacts their bottom line and productivity, most jump right in and start making
    improvements,” said Kevin Dingle, President of Sustaining Structures – a green building consulting
    company in Seattle.
    “Part of managing properties properly is providing as much cash flow to investors as possible. And a big
    part of that is managing utility costs,” said John Speirs, Senior Vice President at KG Investments – a
    Seattle-based real estate investment and property management company that regularly benchmarks its
    properties. “Energy is one of our largest expenses. The lower we can keep our energy costs, the more
    we can bring to the bottom line, and the better our return on investment. We support the efforts the
    City is making to expand the use of benchmarking and think it’s a great idea.”
    For more information about the program, visit the City’s Energy Benchmarking and Reporting Ordinance
    website: http://seattle.gov/dpd/Energybenchmarking or email: energybenchmarking@seattle.gov.


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  • Energy Savings Insurance and the New ASTM BEPA Standard

    Posted on November 18th, 2011

    http://www.srmnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/Whitepaper_ESI_BEPA_11-15-11.pdf

    SRS Sponsors New Whitepaper:
    “Energy Savings Insurance and the New ASTM BEPA Standard”
    How Energy Savings Insurance Policies Reduce Underperformance Risks from Energy Efficiency Retrofits
    TRUMBULL, CT – NOVEMBER 16, 2011 – Sustainable Real Estate Solutions, Inc. (SRS), the industry leader in on-demand building energy assessment and proprietary benchmarking software, today announced it will sponsor a new whitepaper: Energy Savings Insurance and the New ASTM BEPA Standard. Published by Building Energy Performance Assessment News (BEPAnews) this new research report is the fifth in its Critical Issues Series and is available at no cost.
    The paper is focused on how emerging energy savings insurance (ESI) policies can reduce the risk of underperformance from energy efficiency retrofits in commercial buildings. It also describes how the ASTM Building Energy Performance Assessment (BEPA) Standard methodology (to calculate the building’s baseline energy use and evaluate the performance of the installed energy conservation measures), can be coupled with ESI to simplify the energy retrofit financing process. (download paper).
    “SRS is proud to sponsor this research paper that provides commercial building stakeholders with insight to how ESI can help mitigate the principal barriers to energy efficiency retrofit investments, noted Brian McCarter, SRS CEO. He added, “ESI introduces another powerful tool
    to help the commercial real estate market unlock the full-potential of their building’s energy savings and monetization opportunity. Furthermore, the combination of ESI with long-term energy retrofit financing can fill the void that has been limiting large-scale market adoption of commercial building energy retrofit investments.”
    About Sustainable Real Estate Solutions, Inc. (SRS)
    SRS, an industry leader in on-demand building energy assessment and proprietary benchmarking software, delivers Sustainable Real Estate Manager® an Internet-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) workflow platform enabling building stakeholders to assess, benchmark and optimize the energy and sustainability performance of their properties. Its Peer Building Benchmarking™ database contains over 120,000 buildings nationwide encompassing 15 property types comprising 3.3 billion square feet, over $7.8 billion in annual energy costs and $635 million in annual water/sewer costs and has reinvented commercial real estate’s energy efficiency benchmarking best practice. For more information, visit www.SRMnetwork.com.
    # # #


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  • Benchmarking – Retrofitting Existing Buildings for Compliance

    Posted on November 15th, 2011

    Retro Grades

    Benchmarking laws going into effect in some of America’s largest and most progressive cities point toward a new industry in retrofitting existing buildings for compliance—an industry that some entrepreneurial firms intend to corner.

     
    Several years ago, I wrote about a commercial building whose lighting designer had struggled to keep energy use low. The designer explained the painstaking process of creating an engagingly luminous lobby while following strict maximum-wattage codes developed by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers and adopted by New York State.

    Yet the lobby was lit up like an operating room. The owner, apparently hoping to attract tenants, was keeping the lights on a special, high-intensity setting—designed solely for nighttime clean-up crews—around the clock. What it illuminated best was the gap between the designer’s intentions and the owner’s practices.

    In the debate about how to make America’s buildings greener, there is one thing everyone seems to agree on: Designing buildings in order to conserve energy isn’t enough. It’s essential that buildings’ actual energy use, post-occupancy, be measured and disclosed.

    Happily, cities and states are taking the first steps toward requiring building owners to measure their properties’ energy use, and, in some cases, to make the results public. So far, five cities and two states have passed laws requiring energy benchmarking (that is, determining how a building compares to similar structures) and periodic energy audits. New York City was the first out of the gate. Under Local Law 84, the owners of 16,000 properties larger than 50,000 square feet (both commercial and multifamily) had to submit their energy data to the city by Aug. 1.

    Next up is San Francisco, where some buildings must submit benchmarking data starting Oct. 1. The city’s ordinance complements a California state law that will require owners to disclose energy use when selling, leasing, or financing nonresidential buildings. Similar laws will soon take effect in Austin, Texas; Washington, D.C.; and Seattle (where a Washington State law is already in place), according to Andrew Burr, director of the Building Energy Rating Program of the Institute for Market Transformation.

    These new benchmarking rules—even in their early stages, with compliance dates still mostly months or years off—already apply to far more buildings than have been certified by the LEED program over its 13-year history, according to Burr. That not only means great things for conservation but for architects who are poised to evaluate and modify existing buildings. Barry Hooper of the Private Sector Green Building Program in San Francisco’s Department of the Environment said that some 70 percent of owners who conduct energy audits will take action to improve their buildings when appropriate incentives are in place.

    So far, the laws require little more than simple calculations and data entry. Benchmarking is facilitated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager, which relies on a national database of buildings’ energy consumption compiled in 2003 by the Energy Information Administration.

    But architects may use mandated energy reviews—benchmarking as well as the more involved auditing process—to prove their value to potential clients. “If you build an intimate knowledge of an organization and a building, when the owner needs other services, you’ll be in the best position to provide them,” says Nash Hurley, AIA, of San Francisco’s Vital Environments. An architect who has worked for SHoP Architects and Perkins+Will, Hurley formed Vital with Taylor Keep, a mechanical engineer, and Ian Kelso, a structural engineer, to provide retrofitting and other services to building owners.

    The firm rejects the traditional building model, in which an architect’s role ends when the client moves into the building. That’s not just bad for the environment—“How do you deliver performance if you don’t even know the guy who’s running the facilities?” Keep says—but it’s bad for architects, who could be exploiting new opportunities. The new San Francisco ordinance, for example, requires that, once every five years, owners of buildings larger than 50,000 square feet perform ASHRAE Level II audits. The auditors must list potential capital improvements and identify potential costs and savings. To achieve that, Vital expects to get to know the building and its occupants and understand the owner’s business strategy.

    “If we get 200 benchmarking jobs, and 20 lead to further engagement, and five of those lead to actual building projects, we’ll be happy,” Hurley says.

    For one client, Vital undertook a three-month study that involved not only examining building systems but interviewing employees about their energy consumption and how it helped (or didn’t help) them do their jobs. You can only save so much energy by making changes to the buildings, Hurley and Keep explain. The rest requires working with building occupants.

    In Washington, D.C., the D.C. Clean and Affordable Energy Act of 2008 requires large commercial and multifamily buildings to make their energy consumption public. And there in D.C., global architecture firm HOK has been reaching out to former clients, including the 100 or so for whom it has completed LEED-rated buildings over the past decade. Proving that even large firms can be nimble, HOK is offering to provide energy auditing and benchmarking services.

    “We take a life-cycle approach to buildings,” says Anica Landreneau, Assoc. AIA, a senior associate and the sustainable design practice leader in the firm’s Washington office. “We like to stay in contact with our clients, and let them know that we’re always around.”

    Among those clients is the Nature Conservancy, which occupies a 12-year-old HOK building in Arlington, Va. The conservancy is considering applying for LEED Existing Building certification—a designation introduced in 2004 and revamped in 2008—with HOK guiding it through the process. At another building, the Nationals Park baseball stadium, completed by HOK Sport (now Populous) in 2008, the firm gives “green tours” of the stadium, positioning itself as the expert on not just how the building was designed, but on how it functions.

    Of course, helping owners obtain LEED-EB status is a job to which architects can do much more of, says Gunnar Hubbard, AIA, an architect and energy consultant based in Portland, Maine. His firm, Fore Solutions, has helped Vornado Realty Trust, one of the largest property owners in Manhattan, obtain LEED-EB status for 10 of its properties, including the vast One Penn Plaza and Two Penn Plaza office towers. The process involved everything from working with cleaning crews to establish green protocols to creating a website on which building occupants are required to post their own energy use for Vornado, and other tenants, to see.

    Hubbard hopes that the public reporting will have a “Prius effect,” meaning that tenants will want to show off their good energy stats. For building owners motivated by profit as well as the desire to do good, energy efficiency reduces operating costs. The lower its energy bills, the more a building will command at resale.

    As buildings age, energy prices rise, and benchmarking laws take effect, architects will benefit. Some more so than others. “It’s an important part of our business model,” says Hurley. “It’s what’s going to make us a success in the next couple of years.”

     
     
     


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