OPTIMIZING BUILDING PERFORMANCE GENERATES VALUE FOR GREEN BUILDINGS
Edmonton
o f f i c e
Vac a n c y 2013 - Q3
Citywide:
downtown-Vacancy: 6.6%
BY HAZEL M. SUTTON, BOMA CANADA
T
he many benefits of a green building will not last unless the building’s management and performance receives ongoing attention and care. The Business Case for Green Buildings1, published by the World Green Building Council, clearly outlines the enhanced value proposition associated with managing and operating a green building. Owners, managers and tenants will save money thanks to reductions in energy and water consumption along with lower long-term operations and maintenance costs. Thanks to the public commitment to sustainability, demonstrated through a green building certification such as BOMA BESt, the building will benefit from an enhanced reputation and improved marketability. These buildings more easily attract tenants and command higher rents and sale prices. A superior indoor environment, a key characteristic of green buildings and one of the core principles of the BOMA BESt certification program, can lead to better worker productivity and occupant health and well-being. Investing in your employees is good business – they are, after all, any organisation’s greatest, and most expensive, asset. Finally, a green building may have better resiliency against future regulatory demands, extreme weather event impacts and be better equipped to handle changing tenant preferences, thereby improving the in-
surability of the asset. However, these benefits will only be realized if the building itself is continuously managed for optimal performance. So what does this mean? First, it is important to understand that a building must be managed in a holistic manner, where each aspect of the building’s performance (be it water consumption, waste reduction, etc.) is understood and integrated into the overall management process. Second, building operations are influenced by many variables, with management, operations and tenants being the three primary drivers of performance. Communication, engagement and education across these three groups are essential to ensure that the value of enhanced building operations are understood and supported by all. BOMA BESt, Canada’s leading green building certification program for existing buildings, is managed by BOMA Canada and delivered by the eleven BOMA Local Associations. The program provides users with an accessible framework for assessing and certifying building performance and management. It is a tool that continues to evolve to reflect industry best practices. BOMA BESt certified buildings engage in ongoing improvement, thereby maintaining and even increasing their score at certification. That said, achieving better building performance need not mean purchasing
1 WORLD GREEN BUILDING COUNCIL (2013). THE BUSINESS CASE FOR GREEN BUILDING. RETRIEVED AT HTTP://WWW.WORLDGBC.ORG/ACTIVITIES/BUSINESS-CASE/
7.6%
Financial Vacancy: AA: A: B: C:
6.1% 8.0% 4.2% 7.0% 4.4%
Government Vacancy: A: B: C:
7.7% 10.0% 8.1% 1.7%
Suburban Vacancy: A: B: C:
9.2% 9.0% 8.5% 12.9%
office Space Absorption 2013 Q3 Citywide: 204,259-sf Downtown: 86,736-sf Suburban: 117,523-sf
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www.bomaedmonton.org | BOMA Edmonton Newsletter | December 2013
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expensive new technologies, rather simply establishing an ongoing commissioning schedule to ensure all controls are working optimally may in fact yield large cost savings. Similarly, owners and managers of BOMA BESt certified buildings could invest in the education of operations staff to ensure they are up to date with the Building Automation System operations and its nuances. Such ongoing review of operations and its associated benefits is comparable to maintaining a car to original manufacturer specifications. A fuel efficient car will only maintain its efficiency if the car is properly maintained – in terms of building technologies, even the most high performing air filter will get clogged or dirty over time. As requirements for efficiency continue to rise, building performance must also improve over time. Catching up to regulation is usually more time consuming and costly than planning for it ahead of time. Moving forward on your sustainability journey requires
fostering a culture of continuous improvement within a building’s management and operations team as well as with occupants. When building management practices evolve to represent best industry standards the organisation will ultimately reap the benefits and value associated with these efforts. In short, your building will remain valuable for you, your tenants and future buyers for years to come.
Hazel M. Sutton is the Manager of Environmental Standards at BOMA Canada. She is committed to the development, continuous improvement and delivery of the BOMA BESt program – an environmental management and performance benchmarking certification program for existing buildings in Canada. She is currently working on developing the new BOMA BESt Healthcare module.
THE GENIUS OF DURABILITY BY TERRY ROSENAU
R
ecently, my wife and I returned from a trip to Europe. During our travels we had the opportunity to visit Westminster Abbey in London, the Coliseum in Rome, the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul and Parthenon in Athens. Each of these magnificent monuments was conceived with a function in mind. Westminster Abbey, Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon were established as places of worship. The Coliseum, on the other hand, was a venue for public entertainment. Aesthetically, each of the four structures modeled design features that required the hands of skilled artisans. Sculptures of metal, wood and stone, breathtaking glasswork, as well as columns of marble were readily found. Entire rooms were decorated mosaics. Even the Coliseum, the most utilitarian structure of the group, had archways and marble columns that portrayed the value of style in the mind of the architect. One of the additional intrigues of all four structures, that draws millions of tourist annually, is purely the longevity of them. The Parthenon is the oldest having been completed in 438 BC (2,451 years old) while Westminster Abbey, completed in 970 AD, is the baby of the four at 1,043 years old. Throughout their years of existence the structures have endured war, pillage, storms, earthquakes in addition to normal, everyday, wear and tear. Today we have ongoing discussions about sustainability in our world and a tremendous amount of emphasis is placed on “reduce, reuse and recycle.” It strikes me that durability might be one of the most responsible, sustainable approaches that few seem to be talking about. Would we know of Westminster Abbey had it been constructed with drywall and OSB? As a supplier of floor matting products, Edgewood Matting
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December 2013 | BOMA Edmonton Newsletter | www.bomaedmonton.org
EPCOR TOWER, EDMONTON
daily encounters the challenges of sustainability and environmental responsibility. Marketplace demands for products that are functional, durable, style-sensitive, cost-effective and sustainable abound on every front. Edgewood Matting has partnered with leading manufacturers from around the world to bring environmentally responsible products to the Canadian marketplace. For example, the world class 3M Nomad 8850 carpet matting has been made available through our partnership with 3M Canada. The Supreme Knob product line has an
international reputation for durability, performance and color selection. Waterhog Eco Elite provides a rugged wiper/ scraper alternative with 100 per cent of the carpeted surface being manufactured from recycled drink bottles. Each of these products, if maintained faithfully and appropriately, should provide at least five years of effective floor surface protection in high traffic contexts. The artisans and architects of old demonstrated that with imagination, skill and effort you can turn a piece of rock into exquisite art and build an enduring monument from bricks and mortar. At Edgewood Matting, we believe that we have the skills, products and energy necessary to meet the challenges in the floor matting world with regards to function, design, sustainability and durability. Share with us your dreams and watch us transform your building monumentally.
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EIA’S CARGO VILLAGE HERALDS BIRTH OF EDMONTON ‘AEROTROPOLIS’
T
he past two years have seen Edmonton International Airport in the news quite a bit. In 2012 the airport opened its new US and Domestic-International Departures lounges with considerable fanfare, and at capped the year by landing its first ever non-stop service to New York City with United Airlines. Airport Fever persisted through 2013 in Edmonton, with the surprise announcement of EIA’s second transatlantic non-stop to Reykjavik, the long-awaited closure of Edmonton City Centre Airport and a well publicized spat with Air Canada over the frequency of its London route, which further galvanized public support for the airport. Amid all this, arguably the biggest recent aviation story in the Capital Region has been that of EIA’s unglamourous but economically vital cargo division. While Edmonton air cargo footprint is small compared to global logistics hubs like Frankfurt, Dubai or Seoul-Incheon, EIA is thinking big – and has invested $35 million on the cargo side, most notably in the development of the
airport’s ‘Cargo Village.’ This new development includes facilities for customs, freight forwarders, air carriers, logistics and warehousing. Already the facilities have attracted considerable attention within the cargo and logistics community, with Purolator Courier doubling its operations at EIA and Cargojet Airways and DHL also increasing their operations. The opening of the Cargo Village in late-2012 also coincided with FedEx’s upgrading of its daily Edmonton-Memphis service to a widebody Airbus A310 cargo plane. The first full year of operation for EIA’s Cargo Village proved to be a big one for the airport’s air cargo division. With global air cargo facing difficult economic conditions in much of the world and struggling with flat growth, EIA achieved six per cent growth in its cargo business between January and August of 2013, while attracting a steady procession of new tenants into the new facilities into its Cargo Village. The airport also put itself firmly on the continental cargo map by hosting the “Roads Rails Run-
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December 2013 | BOMA Edmonton Newsletter | www.bomaedmonton.org
ways” Cargo Conference in September 25 and 26, in partnership with the Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association (CIFFA) – on the occasion of the latter’s 65th anniversary. This national conference, the association’s first ever in western Canada, attracted over 260 cargo and logistics professionals and policymakers from across Canada and overseas. For Norm Richard, EIA’s director of air service development (cargo), the conference served to underline the airport’s commitment to sustained growth in a cargo business line that currently ships some 40,000 tonnes of goods out of the Edmonton region every year. “By holding the Roads Rails Runways conference here in Edmonton, we were able to show the world that we’re serious about cargo here,” asserts Richard. “We’re ideally positioned for global cargo and logistics, from our location adjacent to North America’s second-largest energy park and excellent road and rail connections, to our global position along the Great Polar Route. We’re also home to a rapidly diversifying economy, for which access to markets is paramount.” Edmonton’s evolution into a global cargo powerhouse may still be in its infancy, but already the world appears to be taking notice. Noted American aviation industry expert Dr. John D. Kasarda, the man who famously coined the term ‘Aerotropolis’, has identified Edmonton as among the world’s emerging ‘Airport Cities’ – making only one of two such centres in Cana-
PHOTO COURTESY OF EDMONTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
da (the other being Vancouver International Airport). Adding further credence to the ‘aerotropolis’ label is the September announcement of a new partnership with California-based commercial real estate company Panattoni Development to market EIA’s Cargo Village to the world. In addition, work has begun on redeveloping the airport land on the southwest corner of Airport Road and the Queen Elizabeth 2 Highway for a mixed-use commercial zone. “Our reason for being is to serve as a catalyst for the economic prosperity of the region we’re responsible for,” says Norm Richard.
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