In recent years, sustainability has slowly but steadily reshaped the way commercial and institutional buildings are constructed and operated. It is no longer an issue for tomorrow, but a major consideration for today. As FMs pave the way back into safe workspaces, it is extremely important that the FM professionals of today remember their role and impact on energy management while also being guided by the principles of sustainability.
Understanding the relationship of FM with energy management
According to the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), buildings (and construction) are responsible for 39% of all carbon emissions in the world, of which operational emissions (energy used to heat, cool and light buildings) are responsible for 28%.
As facilities management is a vital link in the energy consumption chain, the FM industry is, naturally, one of the largest stakeholders that have a direct and indirect influence on the energy management of buildings. This is corroborated by WorldGBC in a major report that proved FM professionals possess a wealth of data that can be used to help them integrate more green design features in their buildings and facilities so that the occupants can lead healthier and more productive lives.
Sustainability is now an essential part of the facilities management discipline, incorporating not just the lifecycle of the building, but the quality of life of its inhabitants. However, sustainable FM goes beyond managing tangible services, such as cooling, ventilation and lighting. Offering more sustainable ways of working can significantly lower costs, enhance workplace productivity, and help create an organisation with long-term value.
Incorporating FMs at the start of a project
The Green Building Regulations and Specifications (GBRS) is promoting the integration of sustainable principles into various phases of construction and encouraging more investment in green building projects. Leading developers have already begun to take a more rigorous approach on improving the energy performance of their buildings through energy benchmarking of their properties, identifying best practices and developing strategies to increase the efficiency of the built environment.
Integrating FM expertise during the design phase can lessen the environmental impact of buildings through reduced energy consumption, efficient utilisation of resources, and lowered life cycle cost — resulting in a more sustainable facility in the post occupancy stage.
Active energy management
FM’s sustainability initiatives are usually centred on hard measures such as lighting retrofits, glass and insulation upgrades, or enhanced HVAC systems. Although such initiatives do play some role towards sustainability, the impact is mostly marginal.
Legacy solutions are often faced with information silos, as well as cost, time and labour-intensive models. Hence, the solution lies in active energy management with the help of smart technologies such as IoT that can consolidate critical information in real-time which in turn can help FMs gain actionable insights needed for anticipating, troubleshooting and managing issues.
Automation and IoT systems offer a great opportunity for FMs to lessen the capacity for waste, removing the need for office employees to turn off obsolete equipment. This could involve activating in-built ‘sleep’ settings, which turns off electronics after a period of inactivity, or lighting which is controlled by motion capture technology.
Additionally, solar monitors fitted on windows can track levels of natural light and disable unnecessary electronic fixtures, while sensors fitted to windows can be programmed to pause air conditioning when opened in order to avoid wasteful energy consumption. Besides the advantage of energy efficiency, active energy management ensures accuracy in billing and a lower overall cost of energy.
Retro-commissioning existing buildings
FMs can play a significant role even in retrofitting older, existing buildings with energy efficient measures. FMs are often expected to participate in several stages of the retrofitting process, which includes determining retrofit opportunities via onsite audits, liaising with procurement on equipment standards and specs, the retrofitting itself, management and maintenance.
To begin with, FMs can audit an existing building which helps determine what systems might be leaking energy, or what assets adding the most to the environmental burden. It is then easier to monitor energy consumption across seasons, usage, and occupancy situations. Using data from the audit, the next step is to fix energy leaks, investing in repairs and substitutions, and focusing on assets that will make these facilities more environmentally neutral.
Involving stakeholders
Integrating sustainability into daily building operations needs buy-in from all stakeholders which leaves a huge impact on enabling continuous sustainability. An enterprise wide platform with AI and IoT capabilities can boost stakeholder engagement by utilising technology that enables sharing of relevant data, metrics and progress assessed against established targets, as well as keep all stakeholders informed and motivated to contribute toward common sustainability goals. Incorporating sustainability in buildings is no longer just a regulatory obligation, but has now become key to being considered as progressive, modern and environmentally responsible.
Covid-19 has undoubtedly accelerated cost-leadership to the top of the business agenda once again, and for many facility managers, improving energy management can realise substantial cost and energy savings in the immediate future.
While it is natural to assume tight budgets during times of uncertainty, the installation of new software systems and technology, in addition to simple lighting and cooling features can be incredibly effective to enable waste reduction, improve operational efficiency and drive substantial cost-savings. By strengthening their sustainability agenda businesses can pass on these cost savings into other areas such as research and development, employee engagement, talent development and recruitment.