Optimizing Facility Efficiency

Facility managers can create a sustainable future by incorporating biomimicry techniques and products, which for sure gives FMs a blueprint — or, rather, a "green print" — for facility optimization. Two areas where significant savings may be obtained are water and energy management.

Water management is an area where facility managers can save money. Therefore, some of the practices that can be implemented are the following: use of drought-tolerant, low-water native plants, composting of green waste and installation of water-saving irrigation systems.

To obtain energy savings, window film has been used for decades, in order to control solar heat gain through windows. By helping to reduce a building’s cooling load, window film decreases the amount of time that cooling equipment runs to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures. As a result, facility managers typically experience a level of energy savings somewhere between 5 and 20 percent, depending on the building’s glass type, window-to-wall ratio and cooling equipment, as well as the climate and type of window film used.

More details can be found in FMJ, IFMA’S official magazine. One example can be the article “Reduce, reuse, recycle, renew”, November/December 2015 no. The magazine is written by and for professionals who develop and maintain productive workplaces.

The magazine’s topics go beyond sustainability to cover building efficiency, case studies on reducing environmental impact, commissioning, green pest management, indoor air quality, corporate social responsibility and more.

You can read more about saving resources by following the link: