Engage Occupants Before They Move In
In the design phase, architects, contractors and civil engineers work
together to establish projections, calculate expected energy usage and
determine environmental efficiency goals. Many high-performance
buildings will host an eco-charrette, a kick-off meeting of sorts,
including members of the design team along with the general contractor,
maintenance staff, tenants and neighbors to collaboratively contribute
ideas to the building's design and functions.
By engaging tenants, as well as others involved in an eco-charrette,
there’s a predisposition to understand the functionality and importance
of established performance goals. Including future occupants, when
possible, in planning processes is a valuable means to ensuring their
commitment from the beginning stages.
Take A Holistic Approach
Josh Radoff, Principal at YR&G Sustainability, believes that a holistic approach to encouraging occupant compliance is ideal.
“There’s a mistake of focusing solely on energy and water. While
they’re important for a lot of people, they’re abstract ideas. It’s hard
to get too far only focusing on energy,” says Radoff.
Some organizations are having success by offering holistic programs
that emphasize overall health and well-being. These may include cooking
classes, composting, instruction on sustainable foods and more. By
establishing holistic ideals in an organization, the occupants become
more likely to participate in energy-saving campaigns.
“Communicating about sustainability isn’t only about austerity. A
holistic view is far more likely to bring people in,” concludes Radoff.
Measure with New Technologies
One innovation that’s demonstrating a positive response is a software product from Lucid
called Building Dashboard. It’s a social energy management tool that
helps occupants compare their energy use with their peers. It sets
reference points, or benchmarks, encouraging compliance and
competitiveness among tenants.
Lucid’s journey began in 2002 at one of the nation’s first modern green buildings at Oberlin College.
“Our goal was to engage occupants and visitors by showing real-time
environmental performance of the building and landscape,” says Michael
Murray, Lucid’s CEO and Co-Founder.
Lucid’s Building Dashboard has several interactive applications that
are both engaging and user-friendly. For example, attractive graphs
display current trends in energy and water use. They reveal real-time
energy use, measuring kilowatt-hours, BTUs, gallons, carbon dioxide
emissions and the actual cost of energy.
Building Dashboard also integrates social networking, allowing a a
seamless connectivity to Facebook and Twitter, which makes occupancy
usage accessible and publicly visible. Facilities management software can be a valuable tool in managing environmental performance goals.
Provoke Competition
With social media integration and dashboard implementation, facility
managers can create competitions between occupants, whether it be within
a single building, among several buildings, or even between floors in a
high-rise.
By clarifying goals, occupants are more likely to participate. For
instance, a building may establish a goal to reduce the overall carbon
footprint by 20%. With live data reporting in dashboard features,
competitors can view up-to-date statuses on consumption levels in
comparison to opponents.To know more visit our site
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