Author: FM College Admin

  Over 50 years ago, Milton Friedman wrote an article that sustainability advocates like myself love to hate. He wrote that the social responsibility of business is “to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.” (My…

  It is a well-documented fact that the price of engineered carbon removal projects is currently prohibitively high, with the eye-watering costs of building and operating direct air capture (DAC) and other projects that remove carbon dioxide directly from the air a major barrier to the nascent sector’s development. It is equally well understood that…

  Being proactive in long-term maintenance planning helps ensure priorities aren’t constantly competing against each other for funding. Planning for, and keeping up with, facility maintenance can be complex and time-consuming, especially for owners with large building footprints. There can be competing priorities, including users with strong opinions about what should be addressed, and limited funding…

  New buildings are sexy. They allow architects to explore aesthetic ideas and enable sustainability experts to test carbon-free renewable energy. But there’s one big problem: From-the-ground-up buildings are carbon intensive—the extraction of materials, the processing of those materials into building components, construction vehicle emissions and so on. It’s almost a cliché in our industry,…

Restrooms are visible evidence of the overall standards in a building, and with the continuing heightened awareness around hygiene in buildings, restroom upgrade projects are moving up in priority. In research conducted by Zurn Water Solutions into the impact of COVID-19 on the restroom experience, respondents ranked “touching fixtures” as their top concern in public…

Back to Basics is an article series that highlights important, but possibly overlooked, information facilities management professionals should know. With summer in full swing, along with rising temperatures and increased dry vegetation, facilities management professionals should be reminded that this year’s wildfire season has already begun—and it’s becoming a larger problem than in the past….