The concept of sustainability has evolved into a mainstream theme in commercial real estate along with financial and operating performance. Water use, electricity use and even waste diversion all fall into the realm of “sustainability” today.
While these indicators of commercial real estate sustainability are well known, energy use is no longer the only “green” metric that can be tracked. Today, a host of sustainability factors—some familiar and some not—are emerging as measurable and quantifiable indicators with the growth of big data.
Direct Sustainability Factors
Data on energy use continues to be a focal point for many real estate organizations and for good reason. Tracking water and heating/cooling use, as well as finding system and operating weaknesses bear the most direct cost impacts for organizations. However, what is new is the speed and detail to which building systems are tracking energy consumption. Data today is more detailed, voluminous and rapid, requiring complex software to track it.
Indirect Sustainability Factors
Beyond key building operating performance indicators, sustainability continues to expand its definition and scope and now includes a host of indirect factors. Recycling, waste diversion and building materials are advancing as measurable things along with energy consumption. Part of this growth has been more detail being paid to the full lifecycle of real estate.
Qualitative Sustainability Factors
One emerging segment in sustainability is understanding the full environmental footprint of a building. How and where tenants commute, how successful wellness programs are from a productivity and work satisfaction perspective and even estimating the sustainability of product supply chains are now able to be tracked.
Capturing This Data
Today, software is allowing firms to perform complex scenario testing and forecasting of multiple variables to drive sustainable practices. Optimization of building energy systems such as HVAC and water is only one part of the picture; optimizing how occupants use the space and energy, as well as understating how different tenants affect consumption, are all growing data points that can be measured. Even understanding how natural light and building design impacts worker productivity is now more understood. Moreover, optimization is expanding into portfolio level initiatives as well, allowing organizations to assess their building performance from a variety of perspectives and levels.
At 4tell, we created iPlan to capture these data streams and optimize the energy, environmental and financial performance of your real estate portfolio. The software consolidates data in a centralized knowledge base, fostering strategic planning and improving bottom line results.
RSS Feed