Going Green

Many corporate tenants mistakenly believe that incorporating sustainability into their buildings is the landlord's responsibility.  In fact, the tenant controls a significant amount of options to improve the LEED rating of their space through interior space design and specifications.

Most just don't bother, often because the tenant finish is completed by the landlord on a turn-key basis.  When was the last time that your specifications stated that the installed lighting would provide the most favorable ROI based on both initial cost AND operating costs over the term of the lease?

I'll answer that for you:  Never.

So, why?

Newton's First Law applies here:  An object at rest tends to stay at rest.  The greatest obstacle to incorporating sustainable best practices into the workplace is usually inertia - doing things the way that you've always done them.  

Here are five challenges that prevent most corporate real estate users from utilizing a green strategy:

1.  Time Investment - While many F500 firms have created positions such as VP of Sustainability, most others have not really made a concerted effort beyond perfunctory meetings to actually investigate simple design alternatives to their standard specs.

2. Lack of Information - Related to #1 above, there is no single source for reliable best practice information and most companies lack internal benchmarking to understand the potential benefits of alternative design options.  

3. Landlord/Contractor Control - Too often construction is predicated purely on initial cost.  Bids are created to provide the lowest cost today with no evaluation of total life cycle costs.

4.  Schedule Planning - If it is time to start construction, you've missed most of the opportunities to provide savings.  Most construction projects end up under a tight schedule, so potential alternative strategies need to be discussed and financially evaluated with your architect and real estate advisors at the commencement of a project or, even better, earlier as part of your corporate strategic planning efforts.

5.  Choosing a Target - Getting started can be overwhelming, especially to a team that already has full time jobs managing projects.  The solution is to focus on a single aspect - reducing energy demands is my favorite because ROI makes it an easy calculation/decision - and incorporate it into all new evaluations.

Yes, it is the right thing to do for the environment.  Yes, you will be demonstrating that your business is a good member of the community.  And yes, your CFO will be glad to see that you've also provided operating cost reductions.  Less really is More.