Keeping the ship in shape

THE ICBL BUILDING stands out on Roebuck Street with its vibrant purple against white façade and everyone in Barbados knows exactly where it stands. What seems like any other building, belies a machine that is well-oiled and far greener than one would imagine.

Being green at ICBL falls under the purview of Shawn Kissoondath, the facilities manager. He is a fierce advocate for monitoring and maintaining the efficiency of the building and caretaking for all those who utilise the facility.

ICBL is very serious about its green journey and has been constantly flexing their eco-awareness since 2014 when they started acquiring green certificates through partnerships with Green Business Barbados, even before the Government began talks of green initiatives.

As a matter of pride, Green Business Barbados even boasts, “Since their initial approval in 2014, the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL) has outstandingly portrayed what it means to be a green business. The corporation has significantly invested in and implemented several measures, especially in ensuring energy and water conservation and management, and employee well-being and productivity.”

ICBL has also been certified by the Future Centre Trust. In 2022, at their previous assessment of their green endeavours, ICBL achieved Tier 4 and is hoping to garner Tier 5 in the very near future. “Our practices in the building reflect that,” said Kissoondath.

“From 2014 till now, we have continued to build on what we had already – adding more processes and putting more policies in place to minimise our carbon footprint. We decided to put in what it called occupancy sensors so that lights are only on when a room is occupied. Also, we upgraded all of our washrooms to have low full toilets, metered taps, other low-flow fixtures, and high-speed hand dryers,” he added.

ICBL has gone even further to monitor their waste stream in order to minimise the volume that is sent to the landfill. This is achieved through their recycling programme. The ICBL building is fitted with recycling bins throughout and especially around major eating areas. They also have

ICBL IS VERY SERIOUS about its green journey, investing heavily in energy and water conservation and employee well-being and productivity. (GPs) a recycle centre collection point outside of the main building where staff is encouraged to bring recyclables from home to utilise.

“All of our recyclables go to SBRC. We know every month how many kilogrammes of bottles or paper we are recycling. ICBL also owns the neighbouring building which has solar panels on its roof and this year we are placing panels on the ICBL roof as well as starting the initiative to build solar carports,” assured Kissoondath.

In February 2022, ICBL purchased their first electric vehicle. This vehicle is used for their messenger as he undertakes the most miles on behalf of ICBL. “We have hope in future to replace more vehicles with electric or hybrid options. We already have a charging port for the electric vehicle. The last vehicle that we brought on, on lease, is a hybrid as well,” he said.

As facilities manager, Shawn Kissoondath is responsible for the optimal running of the ICBL arena, making sure there are no breakdowns, and seeing to the well-being of the employees and customers that pass through the doors.

“We are in the initial stages of implementing a building management system. This will utilise computer software so that, once I have Internet, I can access the system from anywhere in the world. It allows me to monitor the generator fuel, I can turn on and off AC systems, and programme systems to be timed on and off,” shared Kissoondath.

With the new system, he will be able to monitor every electrical aspect of the ICBL facility. Keeping an eye on energy use is extremely important in the world today. Especially for Barbados, so is the issue of water management.

“As it is now, every rain that falls on this roof goes into our tanks,” asserted Kissoondath. “We have two grey water collection tanks that are roughly 4 000 gallons. That is used for irrigation and for washing cars.

However, we are looking to see how we could use the sink water from the washrooms as grey water to be used to flush toilets. This will aid in limiting our water usage from BWA. We are always looking at ways to chart a path ahead,” he added.