It Doesn't stop at the LEED Certification Plaque: Why Ongoing Building Performance Tracking Matters

Kal Wellman
Associate, LEED
U.S. Green Building Council

It has become widely accepted across the commercial real estate world that LEED certification has the potential to add value by presenting a number of benefits including higher rental yields, lower vacancy rates, reduced operating costs and improved employee productivity. The extraordinary growth of LEED over the past decade is clear evidence of this industry-wide understanding.

Receiving the LEED plaque should not be the end of the process for building owners. The plaque symbolizes the beginning of a building performance journey, one where data is at the center of attention. Having the ability to measure, track and benchmark a building’s energy and water data can help pinpoint operational inefficiencies within major building systems and can help the management team set actual reduction targets. Don’t believe us? See how it helped the Christman Company.

Every Penny Counts: Tracking Building Performance to Save Money and Resources

Lauren Riggs, LEED AP
Manager, LEED Performance
U.S. Green Building Council

This post originally appeared on FacilitesNet.

In today's economy, every penny counts. And as building owners and facility managers know all too well, every penny adds up. When the lights in your 30-story office building are left on an extra hour each day, or the brutal summer heat requires an extra blast of air conditioning, your energy consumption escalates and so does your utility bill. That's precisely why building owners and facility managers are starting to "listen" to their buildings to ensure optimal operations.

Inspired by these attentive facility managers, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) launched its Building Performance Partnership (BPP) in 2009. The organization-wide initiative positions the optimization of building performance as a fundamental goal of the green building movement. BPP engages both owners and facility managers of LEED-certified commercial buildings through data collection, analysis and action. Participants receive annual performance reports, report cards and real-time data interfaces to aid in their building performance goals.

At the end of 2010, 132 LEED-certified facilities, mainly office buildings, had joined BPP. These facilities range in size from 2,000 to 2 million square feet. In 2011, the program grew to include nearly 350 partners, triple 2010's figures. The types of organizations and facilities have grown to include retailers, offices and other building types. These participants are demonstrating their commitment to energy efficiency monitoring and are leading among their peers by sharing their experiences and contributing to the market need for building performance education.

The first year participants represented high-performing buildings from every region of the country. Those buildings eligible for an Energy Star score had an overall average score of 87. Consistent with a high average Energy Star score, BPP participants had demonstrated Source Energy Use Intensity that is on average 41 percent lower than the national averages reported in EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager.

Each year will bring new enhancements to the program and offer increased connectivity to other USGBC programs. This year, all participants that share data through BPP will receive their performance report through an online interface, which will contain an analysis of their current performance, from the most recent 12 months of utility data provided, side-by-side with their benchmarks from LEED certification.

To support the increased interest in building performance, USGBC is implementing automation solutions for data collection and transfer, including establishing an automatic data input and output relationship with EPA's Energy Star Portfolio Manager, and will begin work to automate additional benchmarking solutions.

The goal is for the annual performance reports to act as a helpful reminder to facility managers that their building's performance matters and benefits the bottom line. Armed with comprehensive green building performance data, BPP will enable standardization of reporting metrics and analytics and establish new performance benchmarks, ultimately transforming the way the world views building operations and maintenance.

For more information about BPP, visit usgbc.org/bpp.

Tools for Tracking Building Performance on College Campuses

Kal Wellman
Associate, LEED
U.S. Green Building Council

Increasing utility costs and tightening budgets have led many colleges and universities across the country to rethink the way they manage their energy consumption. Take Western Michigan University for example: Their facilities team has installed 718 sub-meters across 151 campus buildings, allowing the team to closely measure, track and analyze their energy and water consumption on a building-by-building basis. They even went a step further and created an online dashboard which displays this data to the public for added transparency. Pretty impressive, to say the least.

For a number of reasons, not all higher education institutions have the capacity to install sub-meters on campus buildings. The majority of institutions use one or two central meters to track total campus energy and water consumption. However, it doesn’t matter whether your energy management strategy involves tracking performance data at the building level or at the campus level. There are a number of free online tools available to help you along the way. Check out the tools below to get started.