Blogs

There’s a lesson to be learned from this year’s FMXcellence honorees, but the lesson may not be obvious. ( Click here to read about the honorees. ) This year’s honorees were recognized for very large projects or programs. The enterprise real estate group of TD Bank Group helped meet...

MediFit offers design and management services for corporate fitness and wellness programs. We've consulted with external and internal architects on over 500 fitness center projects, mostly at corporations but also Universities, Hospitals and Community Centers. Our team of four lead consultants share...

Instead of just collecting cigarette butts in indoor and outdoor ashtrays and throwing them away, facilities managers can recycle them to earn money for Keep America Beautiful. Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company partnered with recycling pioneer TerraCycle to launch the Cigarette Waste Brigade, the first...

A lot of people probably overlook greener/more efficient cleaning chemicals as a means to meet preferences under LEED certification, particularly in portion control. We introduced a closed-loop dispenser last year that uses environmentally preferable (and 3 rd party substantiated) ingredients and eliminates...

Fluorescent lamp recycling laws already exist at the state level, and there are federal laws that include certain restrictions about how mercury-containing materials may be handled. What the United States is lacking, however, is a federal law that streamlines the recycling of fluorescent lamps and provides...

Our “Green Office Tip of the Week,” this week focuses on our most popular service, lamp recycling . EverLights works to help businesses understand the value of fluorescent lamp recycling. Not only does recycling lamps help the environment, but your company can also be fined up to $25,000...

Due to the mercury used to create them, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) added fluorescent lamps to its Universal Waste Rule in 1999. This regulation requires all businesses to recycle used lamps , preventing the mercury from entering into the ground, water and air. Although a good amount of...

Take a second to think about all the energy your office wastes on a daily basis. Leaving office and kitchen lights on when nobody is in the room, letting appliances stay on all day and forgetting to turn your computer off at night are just a few of the big energy wasters. There are two key reasons your...

These days it seems like every company is trying to go green, and we’ll be the first to back those efforts up. To prove how supportive we are, we decided to bring back our “Green Office Tip of the Week” segment this week to offer up our thoughts on how your company can improve its recycling...

No one really wants to say this out loud, but the fact is that a LEED design alone won’t give you an energy-efficient building. Architects don’t want to say it because it sounds like they’re not doing their jobs when they design LEED buildings. The U.S. Green Building Council doesn’t...

For the past two years, Building Operating Management has sponsored the FMXcellence recognition program for facility departments. FMXcellence aims to do two things. One is to honor FM departments that are adding value to their organizations. The other is to spread the word about successful programs,...

In the 13 years since the US Green Building Council developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the pursuit of LEED points has become an escalating priority for many facilities managers. Many in the field are already familiar with the program’s basic structure. LEED...

Long before there was LEED , long before Energy Star , there was CBECS . The Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, as CBECS is formally known, provides a statistical baseline for the energy consumption of U.S. buildings. Never heard of CBECS? You’re not alone. But that doesn’t mean...

Next Thursday (01/27), Join Building Operating Management and Maintenance Solutions magazine for a free webcast on Green Products. Click below for more information or to register. This is a 100% free, educational session. http://www.facilitiesnet.com/webcasts/bom_ms_012011_green/default.asp Hope to see...

There is no getting around it - your cleaning business needs high quality cleaning supplies and equipment so you and your employees can effectively do the job of taking care of your clients' buildings. There are several places you can buy the chemicals you need to clean. Over 50% of the respondents...

The Framework for Improving Building Operating Decisions is a research project being conducted at The University of Reading in partnership with Penn State. The goal of the research is to develop a concise and practical web-based decision support tool to help facility managers and facility management...

“A Framework for Improving Building Operating Decisions” is a research project being conducted at The University of Reading in partnership with Penn State. The goal of the research is to develop a concise and practical web-based decision support tool to help facility managers and facility...