The Green Building Imperative

The Time is Now for Green Buildings

Corporate environmental sustainability initiatives are more valuable and necessary today than ever before, thanks to five major reasons: compelling evidence of human-induced climate change, escalating costs of energy, imminent regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, stakeholder-driven environmental reporting mandates, and the positive financial returns that make environmental sustainability a sound business practice.

The first reason, clear and compelling evidence of global climate change, includes documented record increases in numbers of major weather-related disasters and wildfires, receding polar ice caps, and a rise of ocean levels that threatens vast populations and current coastal landmasses. Such evidence is driving corporations and federal agencies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent over the next 30 years. To achieve that goal, they must take action now.

The second reason is that energy prices have reached record levels (cited by U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, January 2008) and continue to escalate due to the increased demand of an expanded global economy. Energy economists warn that after 2015, the global supplies of gas and oil will be insufficient to keep up with demand-a trend projected to further increase energy prices and organizations' operating costs.

Third, caps on carbon dioxide emissions are now a matter of when, not if, and will continue to drive the cost of nonrenewable energy higher, not lower. The U.S. Senate is poised to vote in 2008 on a 70 percent cut in carbon emissions with interim goals set for 2020 (Senate Bill S.2191, also known as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act).

The fourth reason is that investors are pressuring the world's largest companies to disclose carbon emissions. In 2007, the Carbon Disclosure Project compelled more than a third of the companies in the Fortune 500 to disclose carbon emissions as a factor of their revenue, and it is becoming a fundamental valuation criteria and measure for investors. The fifth, and perhaps most compelling reason, is simply this: environmental sustainability makes good business sense. Corporations such as GE, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, Wal-Mart and Nike have achieved tremendous returns on their investments in green strategies that reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Many companies are achieving yield life-cycle savings of as much as ten times their initial investment.

Buildings Generate Nearly Half of All Greenhouse Gas Emissions

For most corporations and federal agencies, buildings are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases and represent the best opportunity for corporations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent over the next thirty years. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that buildings account for a staggering 48% of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Green buildings not only reduce the environmental impacts of natural resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, they also provide economical benefits, such as reduced costs, improved bottom-line performance, and increased shareholder value. Green buildings also improve worker productivity, which in turn improves financial performance. The net result is that organizations reduce costs an average of $1 per square foot of building space and increase revenue by $10 per square foot based on improved worker productivity alone.

Investment in environmentally sustainable buildings provides significant and compelling returns, which include environmental, financial, and societal benefits. Corporations and federal agencies have begun to recognize such rewards and have successfully implemented three critical strategies to achieve environmental sustainability through workplace (building) management:

Need for an Integrated Environmental Management System

Corporations and public organizations today understand the benefits and returns of green buildings and have set aggressive environmental sustainability goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next three to five years. Some have already implemented building retrofits for existing buildings and sustainable development of new buildings and have invested millions of dollars at a premium.

Very few organizations, however, can effectively measure and manage their actual progress to these goals. They miss critical opportunities to reduce environmental impact and increase financial returns because they lack an effective system to identify environmental opportunities. Instead they depend upon manual processes that are time-consuming, data-intensive, and complex to collect massive amounts of data across multiple geographies, locations, and data sources. These manual-oriented approaches are inefficient and ineffective, and often result in inaccurate information, and miscalculated savings and costs of environmental programs. As a result, organizations lack the critical information they need to select and implement the right environmental programs and to accurately monitor and effectively manage performance to their goals.

Implementing the right environmental management system has become a critical component to achieve environmental sustainability. Organizations that do not consider and implement a system as part of their overall strategy struggle to achieve their goals. Products such as TRIRIGA Real Estate Environmental Sustainability (TREES) automate and consolidate energy and emissions data, then measure, manage, and reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas production of workplace operations and assets.

Corporations realize the importance of buildings to achieve environmental sustainability goals. Buildings are the largest consumer of energy and the largest producer of carbon emissions and therefore provide the best opportunity to reduce environmental impact. Green buildings also provide proven returns across the triple bottom line: profit, planet, and people, especially in operating costs and shareholder value as energy prices continue to escalate and carbon restrictions are mandated. An environmental management system for workplace assets and operations has become a critical component to achieve environmental sustainability goals.

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