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Let’s face it: Nobody likes getting lost. But facilities professionals, their colleagues in other departments, visitors, and customers often get lost when navigating unfamiliar facilities or even unfamiliar parts of their own facilities. They might also be hesitant to ask for directions, or maybe they just can’t find anyone to ask. There is a strong…

“Was this your dream job when you were in school?” As the first chief sustainability officer for the city of Chicago, I was asked some version of this question many times. And the simple answer was actually “no.” Not because it wasn’t an absolutely amazing job. It was. The role just didn’t exist when I…

  Corporate emissions accounting standards and aligned recognition programs have encouraged many large corporations to invest in more renewable electricity. However, the drive towards a zero-carbon electric grid requires more than kilowatt hours of wind and solar. To enhance the emissions impact of these zero-carbon electricity purchases, it matters where the renewable energy is located…

Living buildings that return resources to the environment are one of the best strategies for combatting climate change. Sustainability is so last millennium. These days, sustainability is the bare minimum on building projects. Climate change has progressed to the point that sustainability alone won’t be adequate for preventing the worst effects. The definition of sustainability…

  In some cases, it makes sense to carry out cleaning and maintenance work after dark. There is less foot and vehicular traffic and fewer distractions and interruptions in most facilities at night, and that can lend itself nicely to a job well done. But, of course, night cleaning brings its own set of specific…

Climate change is disrupting the building and real estate sectors Why are buildings so important when we talk about climate change? Generating nearly 50 percent of global carbon emissions (40 percent in the United States), the building sector has a critical role to play in limiting carbon emissions. Buildings’ embodied carbon — the greenhouse gases…

  Fire Extinguisher Ratings Fire extinguishers are often the first line of defense when it comes to stopping fires while they are still small. A key component of successfully using an extinguisher is ensuring the type of extinguisher is a match for the type of fire. There is the risk of spreading a fire if…

  Healthcare housekeeping (HSK) and environmental service (EVS) work is a hard job. It is also a crucial job. Those two things should be obvious, but that hasn’t always necessarily been the case. “Typically, in the past, the general understanding has been that HSK/EVS are the folks who come in and cleaned up after everybody,”…

  An urgent warning has been issued by the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) about a potential fire safety weakness in a large number of building ventilation systems. The UK’s leading trade organisation for building engineering services contractors has issued an interim technical bulletin (VH001) ahead of a full update of its industry guidance for…

  . As we talk about defining a smart building, our approach from a design point of view has been, what problems are we solving with this? If we buy technology just for the sake of it, it’s just a wasted investment in many ways. We start by understanding what problems are we solving. And…