About FM BENCHMARKING
Example Charts and Reports: Sustainability
The examples on this page focus on one of the most important considerations for buildings and facilities managers—sustainability.
Through the Sustainability Survey, building professionals will learn which sustainability initiatives will make the most sense for them to implement, whether they should strive to achieve a specific level of 'green' certification, or just to have a more responsible sustainability program. Additional best practices to reduce one's carbon footprint are provided in some of the Costs surveys (e.g., Utilities, where many ideas are provided to reduce energy consumption; and Custodial, where many green cleaning initiatives are identified). Even if green certification has been achieved, there may be additional best practices identified that would be feasible to implement.
In the Sustainability survey, FM BENCHMARKING first examines what subscribers are doing to reduce their carbon footprint by studying:
* Examples are shown in the next section below.
- Which types of 'green' certifications have been earned (over 20 types of global certifications are tracked).
- When those without such certifications plan to earn them, if at all.
- What reasons there may be for not earning these certifications.
- How companies are using performance targets to reduce energy consumption.*
- Which solutions companies plan to implement to achieve these targets.*
- Water savings performance targets and solutions.
- Recycling performance targets and solutions.
- Which LEED-EB criteria are being satisfied or are under serious consideration.*
By comparing how well your buildings and green practices are achieving sustainability goals to others' buildings and practices, FM BENCHMARKING will help you identify which sustainability initiative you should consider implementing. Several examples of how this can work are presented below.
Energy Savings Initiatives
Knowing what energy savings options to implement is critical. There are 18 options that participants can select (four are shown here). Companies are asked to state: which initiatives have the most bearing on their ability to achieve their energy savings performance targets, which they have already implemented, which they are planning to implement. This is an excellent tool to help identify what others are doing and how this relates to the success others have had in achieving green certifications (this is done through the output reports).
LEED®-EB 2009: Operations and MaintenanceThe LEED worksheet survey replicates the U.S. Green Buildings Council's LEED-EB survey1. A portion of FM BENCHMARKING's LEED-EB worksheet is shown below. Instead of just presenting the LEED-EB worksheet, we have made it much easier to understand with numerous photos and examples explaining the intent of the question, so you should be able to input the data completely on your own—just click on 'More' to see each item expand with a clearly written description and in most cases, an illustration or photo. Here are some of the survey questions with our illustrated examples:
Credit/
PrereqDescription LEED Points Yes No U/C SS Credit 2 Building Exterior and Hardscape Management Plan
more...1 SS Credit 7.2 Heat Island Reduction - Roof
more...1 Credit 4.2 Cooling Tower Water Management - Non-Potable Water Source Use
more...1 Credit 1.4 IAQ Best Management Practices - Reduce Particulates in Air Distribution
more...1
Analysis ReportsNow that your data have been input, you are ready to enjoy the value from the reports that can be generated. Below, we show several examples abstracted from the Sustainability analysis reports.
First, we show the various (over 20) types of green certifications so you can easily see which you satisfy, and which are satisfied by others in your filter set (those types of facilities to which you have chosen to be compared):
In the full FM BENCHMARKING system, we then present a report where you will see the reasons provided by those in your filter set for not pursuing green certification. You can see whether those apply to you—if not, you may want to consider such certification more seriously.
We then provide information about how much energy companies are planning to save next year, categorized by the LEED certification level that they have. One would hope that those without such certification would have more opportunities to save energy, and thus would have a higher savings performance target.
To make more sense of this number, we break down these targets by the percentage of the target that is expected to be achieved through a variety of possible energy-savings measures (18 in all). In the excerpt taken below, we show the results for four of them, including which your company stated it plans to implement:
In the above report, note the median percent selected for all the respondents (including those who are not LEED certified) as well as the median percentages selected by LEED respondents at four LEED certification levels. This type of information immediately tells you what others are doing and if your priority items are consistent with top performing LEED participants. If not, you may wish to modify your priorities.
In addition to this table, we provide a similar table showing the percentages of those who have already implemented each initiative. We then provide a third table with the total of the two previous totals. From the third table, you will be able to compare which items you have implemented to those that others either have implemented or plan to implement in the next 12 months. If you find an item that most others have done or plan to do, especially those with LEED certification, you may very well want to consider implementing this yourself.
The FM BENCHMARKING Sustainability survey has over 20 more sets of data to help identify best practices in water savings, energy reduction targets and recycling.
The LEED-EB Sustainability Analysis report shows:
- Line items where you indicated that you have met the LEED criteria.
- The responses for those without LEED certification.
- The responses for those with LEED certification.
Here are several examples:
With each of these LEED survey items you can see:
- The LEED certification points you have earned.
- The percentage of all participants (both those with and without LEED certification) responding 'Yes' to each LEED criterion.
- The percentage of LEED participants responding 'Yes' to each LEED criterion.
- Which items are under consideration 'U/C' by your organization.
This is a very effective tool for keeping track of your LEED performance and seeing which LEED items others are implementing. FM BENCHMARKING will tell you how many more LEED-EB points your building needs to be eligible to be certified. If you have marked more points than those as "U/C," by studying the percentages of those who have implemented them, you will get a better idea of which may be the easiest for you to implement in your building. And by showing your management that most others have implemented it, it may give you a basis for your request.
Even more importantly, from the information provided by FM BENCHMARKING, you may determine that it would be worthwhile for you to apply for LEED-EB certification for your building:
a) You may see that based on your self-certification, you already qualify for LEED-EB. If so, you should go to the U.S. Green Building Council Web site (www.usgbc.org) and see what you need to go to get your official status granted to you, which can be an excellent way for your company to demonstrate its environmental responsibility.
b) You may see that you are only a few items away from achieving LEED-EB certification, and it may be worthwhile for you to implement these and achieve certification.
c) Even if you are too far from achieving LEED-EB certification or don't have a desire to obtain it, you may find that there are some items that nearly everyone else has implemented, and it therefore may be something that you should consider implementing as well. By seeing that most others have implemented it, this may help you justify doing it for your facility.
In the full Sustainability survey, we show all LEED credit items in the official LEED-EB categories of:
- Sustainable Sites
- Water Efficiency
- Energy and Atmosphere
- Materials and Resources
- Indoor Environmental Quality
- Innovation in Operations
- Regional Priority
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1 - References to the LEED Rating System are not intended to suggest or imply that the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is endorsing or guaranteeing FM Benchmarking's checklist or use of it. All material provided by the USGBC, including the categories for LEED-EB credits below, is copyrighted and used with permission from the USGBC.
