Large corporations are being asked to provide a clear sustainability strategy and commitments and they will require those in current leases, facilities management teams will become sustainability experts and will have to understand and be able to speak internally and externally about aspects like:

- Is the building RE100 compliant or what is the path to RE100?

- What is the energy consumption per occupant/m²?

- What is the water consumption intensity per m²?

- What is the split of different types of energy used in the building? How much from renewable sources?

- What is the building’s EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) rating of the property?

- What sustainability/environmental/wellness certifications does the property have (i.e. BREEAM, LEED, WELL, FITWEL, SKA, NABERS…)?

- What is the net zero carbon trajectory of the asset by 2050?

- Is the energy consumption data of the building available for its occupants?

- Has the building done a climate risk modelling?

All these questions are key for larger corporations in order to understand a real estate asset and the impact of that asset in the organization’s sustainability scores, which will define the corporation’s access to loans, its image, its capability to attract customers and employees, its risk, and even its insurability.

Facility Management can impact a lease for it to become Green and help increase sustainability score of the real estate assets and create a green framework and roadmap for the asset and the corporation.

What are some of the most important actions Facility Management must take to be a major input into the organization’s sustainability strategy and how can Nevegy help?

We are separating these in 4 main areas, which will shape the company or building’s sustainability strategy and will get the foundations to be able to achieve the required sustainability certifications:

- Preparation and policies: In this area, facilities management will need to work with EHS and procurement departments, driving policies regarding materials, which is very linked to purchasing and purchasing regulations, only green certified materials can come into the building, will need to work with EHS and other departments regarding reduction of waste, reduction of plastics and aluminum consumables and will have to draw a strategy towards lengthening the life of equipment and consumables.

- Monitoring and Evaluation: In this area, power metering, environmental and occupational monitors will be installed, these monitors will provide the information needed to become transparent about how we use energy in our building and what the health level of our building is, this step is very important since the aggregation of this information will provide us our sustainability baseline and will track the improvements we make in the following steps. Nevegy’s sensors and systems will aggregate and present this information in easy-to-read dashboards that can be used for ESG audits and to present to your management or tenants. There sensors will also become your automation start point.

- Efficiency Improvement: The last step is getting the building to behave as a living entity, the information from the above sensors will not only be used to report, but all the building equipment will be automated to respond to environmental and occupational changes, being capable of automating the major consumers and see how the automation improves our energy efficiency and carbon footprint.

- Communication: Being transparent and communication to your tenants or your organization the real situation makes FM an important part of the organization and increases drastically the impact in how the organization needs to run, becoming the owner and holder of all sustainability data and the main driver towards improved efficiency, sustainability data will become more and more important for any organization and key for landlords that want to attract high quality, loyal tenants.

Image: The 4 main areas to start your sustainability project

1. Preparation and Policies: Become a materials freak.

Hugely important step if we want to address sustainability. Make sure that low emission materials rules are established and enforced for any renovation regarding VOCs, asbestos, etc. both from construction materials
and consumables, this will help you achieve standards like LEED and others and will make your tenants happy.

Encourage that all occupants are aware of material rules and that all your suppliers can provide the tests that
meet environmental criteria so that these are available for your occupants or future tenants.

FM Actions:

- Set up proper materials policies, work with your purchasing team and jointly setup clear supplier requirements.

- Establish periodic audits for your providers ensuring all materials and consumables have the proper green certifications.

2. Preparation and Policies: Love water.

Humans waste ridiculous amounts of water. All sustainability certifications and standards focus on this aspect and in some it is a requirement. Start with a water recycling system, for example from HVAC condensation or rain, and use that water for watering plants in the office, using it for your landscaping or even for cleaning floors.

FM Action:

- Set up a water reutilization plan, try to collect rainwater/condensation and make it available for cleaning, landscaping or any other activity where water needs to be used.

3. Preparation and Policies: Manage your solid waste. Recycle.

Encourage all your staff to recycle, don’t let anything recyclable go to waste. Also think about how to eliminate non-recyclable materials from your purchasing processes. Additionally, think about how to buy, when possible, recycled materials, which have a much lower carbon footprint than new ones.

FM Action:

- Setup recycling plans and encourage your occupants to recycle.

4. Preparation and Policies: Make your space enjoyable and comfortable

Additional to the air quality and water quality requirements, maximize access to outdoor views, natural light, low noise levels and create available areas to concentrate, cooperate and relax. A happy employee is a loyal and performing employee. Comfortable places create loyalty and performance.

FM Action:

- Work with your EHS teams together to rethink workplace and make the workplace enjoyable and comfortable, in the next steps, air quality, illumination and noise are big aspects in the comfort area, we will address them with Nevegy’s environmental monitoring and transparency of data.

5. Monitoring and Evaluation: Measure Energy Consumption.

In order to understand the energy impact of a facility, its different component and its different departments, we need to measure the energy consumption with an important level of granularity.

Energy meters are not expensive, and they provide extremely valuable information about where we are using (wasting) too much energy.

Energy metering is key to transparency and understanding of our carbon footprint.

Nevegy’s energy monitoring and power utilization dashboards are key to setup our energy utilization baseline and the creation of real-time, fully automated energy reports and ESG dashboards which will allow us to see the improvement with each action we take.

FM Action:

- Install Energy Metering Equipment, rethink your power to be able to have a granular understanding of how you use that energy, splitting by departments, types of equipment (HVAC, lighting, sockets, etc.), this will be key to provide proper reporting and to understand how we can improve our facilities and energy expend.

- Become transparent. On top of being a requirement, having information and sharing the information makes organizations smarter and more efficient.

6. Monitoring and Evaluation: Improve Environmental Quality

Ensure the building includes proper filtration and ventilation systems or operable windows and real time air quality monitoring systems, ensure that data is displayed and available for all. If this is not available, we need to install them. Air quality and monitoring is a requirement for all sustainability standards.

Eliminate mold, bacteria, and other pathogens with proper pathogen elimination technology.

Make filtered water available to the occupants, discourage the use of plastic bottles and aluminum can consumptions.

Put up signs showing your occupants the environmental impact of using those plastic and cans.

Nevegy’s air quality monitoring, air purification systems and pathogen elimination systems will solve all these issues, will allow you to have clear air quality information about your building’s air quality and will link directly into your dashboards, being able to provide clear, transparent information to your occupants, stakeholders, and auditors.

FM Actions:

- Revisit your air quality monitoring and filtration systems.

- Revisit your air purification systems.

- Make drinking water available and eliminate plastics and aluminum.

7. Energy Efficiency: Improve Energy Efficiency and reduce Emissions.

There are 2 main areas that are our key consumers in a typical building (HVAC and Lighting), and a lot of energy is wasted by using HVAC and light in unoccupied areas or by using obsolete HVAC or lighting technologies.

Nevegy, through power metering will help you identify where you are wasting too much energy, through automation systems will help you automate and eliminate energy waste and will ensure you are operating at maximum efficiency. The integration in a single system of power monitoring, environmental monitoring and automation capabilities will allow your building to become a living entity that will respond and adapt to any change in occupation or environment aspect.

FM Actions:

- Analyze your HVAC and light consumption per square meter and per occupant.

- Analyze the space occupation levels.

- Analyze your infrastructure and start looking for big wasters (Single frequency chillers, MAUs or FAUs, fluorescent or halogen lights, etc.)

- Set up a plan to turn reduce/eliminate energy waste in unoccupied spaces.

- Set up a plan to replace/update your big wasters according to your ROI requirements.

- Setup lighting, HVAC systems that automate according to occupation and schedules, making sure no lights are on while people are not present or those are dimmed to reduce energy waste.

Continue measuring the impact of all these changes and start on setting a route to maximum energy efficiency without sacrificing comfort levels.

8. Energy Efficiency: Reduce Resource Use.

Make sure maintenance is done when needed, and not based on fixed schedules, automation and knowledge of equipment use will help you achieve longer maintenance cycles, enhanced equipment life and its subsequent drastic reduction of consumables and equipment.

Additionally, activate/deactivate systems depending on the environmental conditions, for example, reduce ventilation when internal CO2, humidity and chemical levels are good and be lenient on those levels if external environmental conditions (Pollution or temperature) will have great impact on filtration or air conditioning use.

Nevegy system along with its environmental and occupational sensors will allow you to visualize how equipment is used, helping you understand hours of utilization per system, helping you lengthen your maintenance cycles and do them according to utilization. Automation will also stop equipment when not needed, helping you understand how systems are used and lengthening the consumable life span. Alerts will also inform you about any equipment having issues, which will allow you to focus on issues and reduce the need for unnecessary maintenance actions.

FM Action:

- Make sure systems are managed, there is information about usage.

- Redo your maintenance schedule according to alerts and equipment utilization times.

- Lengthen your consumable replacements according to air quality, efficiency or hours of operation rather than doing them at set times and throw away consumables that are still in usable condition.

9. Communication: Be transparent, be outspoken.

Green is a journey, not achievable from one day to another.

Be transparent about where you stand and the actions and timeframes in which you will achieve the different steps. Announce those achievements and keep tup he announcements and the motivation of the occupants, make those occupants part of the greening process.

FM Actions:

- Report, inform, communicate, and motivate.

- Share all information about your strategy.

Bonus:

Although in many cases it is out of your control, another important area is understanding the source of your energy, what portion of your energy is green? It is always good to have that information, understand what you can do to change that and understand what you can do to offset the impact of the non-green energy that you use.

All the above will help you create a Green Strategy, from creating policies and a corporate green strategy, through measuring and communicating to improving all aspects of the operation of the facility, the strategy and the achievements of the different milestones will help your company provide clear information about energy efficiency, CO2 footprint and improve ESG scores and overall company’s circularity and most importantly, it is key to define your organization’s strategy to a net zero carbon model.

Pablo Fernandez

Founder – Nevegy

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/pablonieva

About Nevegy

Nevegy is an Environmental Technology company that develops technological solutions to improve real estate asset value by improving asset’s sustainability and occupant’s well-being. Ensuring a healthy indoor environment while reducing overall energy consumption through automation, IoT and AI algorithms, reducing energy costs and helping customers achieve ESG goals