Energy efficiency makes good business sense, especially with rising energy costs and tighter budgets. Consider partnering with other local building owners and managers to take advantage of collective knowledge and resources. In addition, engaging other area businesses, schools, hospitals, government agencies, and other organizations will help the broader community to reduce energy use, thereby contributing to the success of efforts by many local governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within their jurisdictions.
What You Can Do
Establish partnerships with local trade, business, and environmental associations to pool resources and share ideas for energy efficiency improvement.
Encourage competition among organizations to see who can improve energy efficiency the most.
Develop an awards program to provide an incentive and a unique twist to your competition.
Spread the word with ready-to-use communication materials such as energy saving info cards, co-brandable posters and print advertisements, public service announcements, and a wide variety of ENERGY STAR publications and brochures — all downloadable in the ENERGY STAR Challenge Toolkit.
As part of its ongoing commitment to enhance the environmental performance of its properties under management, C&W is also actively engaged in external events and initiatives such as:
Earth Hour – a global call to action organized by the World Wildlife Fund that takes place on the last Saturday of March each year. Participating buildings and homes are asked to turn off their lights for one hour, in order to raise awareness of global warming and the steps that business and homeowners can take to address their climate impact.
Earth Day – each year, C&W issues an “Earth Day Toolkit”, which provides a list of suggestions and resources (including free materials from ENERGY STAR) for planning Earth Day events at the firm’s managed properties.
C&W also participates in real estate industry initiatives such as:
The Building Owners and Managers (BOMA) International 7-Point Challenge, which calls upon participants to reduce energy consumption by 30% across their portfolios by 2012 – as measured against an “average” building scoring a 50 in the ENERGY STAR benchmarking tool.
The Commercial Real Estate Energy Alliance (CREEA), which links building owners and operators with research and technologies being developed at the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories. CREEA serves as a national forum to share best practices in energy efficiency, and C&W serves as a member of the Alliance’s steering committee.
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