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Office Managers Push Energy Conservation
Tenants urged to turn off lights, raise thermostats to 78
By: Jim Hopkins - USA Today
- May 14, 2001 - As energy costs head skyward, office building managers from California to New Your are scrambling to conserve.
They're shutting off lights and elevators, turning down air conditioners, and asking tenants to use energy-efficient laptop computers and turn off coffee makers and photocopiers at night.
There's plenty at stake: Commercial buildings suck as much as half of all electricity. In California, air conditioning demands this summer are expected to boost the number of rolling blackouts that have already hit.
Bracing for rate increases of 40% or more beginning June 1, California office buildings are taking some of the most aggressive steps including:
Air conditioning. San Francisco's Embarcadero Center, on of the biggest complexes in the West, with 206 office tenants and 115 retailers on 10 acres, is plugging leaks in the exteriors of some buildings to keep cool air in.
At the 52-story Bank of America building, the city's tallest thermostats are being edged up 2 degrees so air conditioning clicks on at 75 degrees. A longer-term goal: 78. Managers also are starting coolers and boilers later in the day, says Stan Roualdes, executive vice president for building manager Shorenstein. The tower's monthly electricity bill averages $250,000. Shorenstein has already seen savings of 15% to 20%.
Lighting. In New York City, where an electricity crunch has some people fretting about summer blackouts, Cushman & Wakefield, which manages 50 million square feet in the city, is asking tenants to shut off lights in vacant conference rooms. The tiny savings generated by flipping each switch across so much property can't be dismissed - especially when the lights are standard incandescent bulbs. Switching to compact fluorescents - a step encouraged everywhere - cuts electricity 75%.
Across California, 25,000 janitors will wear bright green t-shirts reminding tenants to turn off lights, under an agreement announced last week between building managers and the Service Employers International Union. Janitors also will team to clean one floor at a time, so that fewer floors are lit at night. And they'll start work earlier, to take advantage of daylight.
Mike Garcia, local president of the janitor's union, worries that without conservation, higher electricity bills will cost his members jobs. "Our janitors are at the end of the food chain", he says.
Systems. Cushman & Wakefield may shut down outdoor water fountains in the New York area.
In San Francisco, the Embarcadero Center has updated controls so unoccupied elevators don't use electricity. With 98 elevators, the savings mount, says Steve Colvin, a vice president for manager Boston Properties. The firm has already cut energy use nearly 10% at area properties where the monthly power bill is about $800,000.
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