Building Operating Management September 2011 - FacilitiesNet

28 buildingoperatingmanagement
SEPTEMBER 2011
guru. Transwestern sustainability services
helps the organization’s property
managers use the LEED for Existing
Buildings: Operations and Maintenance
(LEED-EBOM) rating system
and Energy Star rating system to green
their clients’ buildings. But Transwestern
sustainability services also acts as
a sort of side business, working in a
consulting role for other customers
interested in help with LEED certification,
Energy Star, commissioning
or an energy audit. He describes this
function as a “means to an end.” Every
dollar Transwestern sustainability services
earns with its expertise in green
is reinvested back into the company to
build tools and fund other initiatives
that benefit the company at large.
Yet another part of Skodowski’s
charge is “turning Transwestern green
from the inside out,” as he puts it. That
is, he makes the space Transwestern
itself leases — as strictly a third-party
manager with no owned space – sustainable
as well.
But this is no run-of-the-mill
“walking the talk” story. It’s a story
about how Skodowski and Transwestern,
one of the largest privately owned
real estate and property management
firms in the country, use sustainability
as a cornerstone of an effort to standardize
the practices and policies for
a national organization that operates
on a de-centralized, regional basis
and manages more than 770 properties
comprising 192 million square
feet. There are two main prongs of
this standardization approach. One is
what Skodowski calls the “good, better,
best” approach to rating the level of
sustainable performance of the organization’s
portfolio of managed space.
The other is an internal committee, of
which Skodowski is a member, called
the innovation and quality assurance
(IQA) team. Both initiatives work toward
moving Transwestern to what
Skodowski says is its ultimate goal,
that every building it manages meets
LEED-EBOM criteria.
Innovation and Quality
Transwestern was founded in 1978
as a small Texas-based development
company. Throughout the 1980s it
Transwestern’s “Good, Better, Best” Rating System
Not rated Good Better Best/LEED Certified
Energy
Not benchmarked or
Energy Star score < 50
Energy Star score of
51- 65 and data are
current
Energy Star score of 66 - 74
and data are current and
water is metered
LEED CERTIFIED
Energy Star labeled
(score of 75 or above); and
water is metered
Water
Aerators: > 1.5 gpm
Toilets: > 3.5 gpf
Urinals: > 1.5 gpf
Aerators — 1.5 gpm
Toilets — 3.5 gpf
Urinals — 1.5 gpf
Aerators — 1.0 gpm
Toilets — 1.6 gpf
Urinals — 1 gpf
Must achieve 2 of 3
LEED CERTIFIED
Aerators — 0.5 gpm
Toilets — 1.28 gpf
Urinals — 0.5 gpf
Water Systems Submetered
Operations
and
Maintenance
No documented
Building
Operations Plan,
no documented
Preventive
Maintenance Program
Documented Building
Operations Plan OR
Preventive Maintenance
Program
Documented Building
Operations Plan
AND Preventive
Maintenance
Program
LEED CERTIFIED
Documented Building
Operations Plan
AND Preventive
Maintenance Program
Indoor Air
Quality
No Green
Cleaning
Program
implemented
Green Cleaning Program
implemented OR Integrated
Pest Management Program
(IPM) implemented
Green Cleaning AND
IPM Programs implemented
WITH contracts
LEED CERTIFIED
Includes Better plus
Regular Tentant
Communication
Programs implemented
Resources
and
Materials
Recycling Rate: ≤ 25%.
Has a current recyclinghauler
OR waste-hauler
contract
Recycling Rate:
26% - 50%.
Includes paper and cardboard
AND has current
recycle-hauler AND wastehauler
contracts
Recycling Rate: 26% - 50%.
Includes Good plus
3 of these 4: plastics 1&2,
glass, mercury lamps,
batteries. Has current
contracts with waste-,
recycling-, battery/lampsand
lighting haulers
LEED CERTIFIED
Recycling Rate: > 51% Includes
Better plus recycling
metal and E-wastes, or a comingled
pick-up AND tenant
participation in outreach programs
related to sustainability