Green Building News & PR

Subway Unveils LEED Certified Stores

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Gallagher) — Tue, 24 May 2011 02:30:00 +0000

SUBWAY® restaurants has announced that two of its recently opened stores in the Raleigh market, one at 10130-300 Green Level Church Road in Cary and the other at 705 Ninth St. in Durham, are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified for being environmentally friendly, and were designed and constructed according to the U.S. Green Building Council guidelines in order to receive their certifications. LEED is a third-party certification program for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings that serves as a benchmark for rating environmental performance and occupant satisfaction for several building scenarios.
“SUBWAY® is committed to progressive environmental causes, and we are proud that these new stores help the company achieve this goal,” said Burhan Ghanayem, local SUBWAY® franchisee. “They are designed specifically to have an overall smaller environmental footprint by requiring less energy and consuming less water than typical restaurants. We look forward to adding more LEED certified stores throughout the Raleigh market.”

IBM Acquisition Accerates Focus on Green Building

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Gallagher) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:58:00 +0000

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held TRIRIGA, Inc., a Las Vegas, Nevada-based provider of facility and real estate management software solutions. The move aims to accelerate IBM's smarter buildings initiatives by adding advanced intelligence that improves real estate performance, capital project management and the outcomes of sustainability initiatives. Financial terms were not disclosed.

TRIRIGA software helps clients make strategic decisions regarding space usage, evaluate alternative real estate initiatives, generate higher returns from capital projects, and assess environmental impact investments.
Greater efficiencies around the operations and management of real estate are critical for organizations with multiple facilities. Property and real estate typically represents the second-largest expense on a company's income statement, after employee compensation. Facilities investments and operating costs can be more than 30 percent of corporate annual spending. Fifty percent of the lifetime ownership costs of a facility can be driven from its ongoing operation.

IBM is working with thousands of organizations globally to optimize the energy usage and equipment efficiency in office buildings, campuses, resorts, hospitals and cities using IBM smarter buildings software, which includes analytics, automation and IBM Maximo Asset Management.

Today many facilities managers, real estate managers and C-level executives rely on separate products from multiple vendors to optimize their facility infrastructure, lease administration, utility consumption, space and occupancy, and facility condition assessment. Each product used by different departments holds silos of information, making it difficult, if not impossible, to share across different operating functions. Similarly, business processes that span multiple groups cannot easily be accomplished when those groups are using different products.

"The combination of TRIRIGA and IBM smarter building solutions will deliver the industry's most comprehensive capabilities that span the needs of all industries for managing facilities and real estate portfolios," said Florence Hudson, energy and environment executive, IBM. "Having one view of building operations worldwide will be a powerful tool to help organizations control and optimize their second-largest corporate expense -- property."

More than 200 clients and thousands of users -- including over one-third of Fortune 100 corporations across every major industry, as well as seven of the 15 federal executive departments of the U.S. government -- use TRIRIGA software to reduce operational costs, increase return on real estate assets and mitigate environmental regulatory risks.
As a leader in the workplace management market, TRIRIGA will strengthen IBM smarter buildings solutions by adding these key functions:

Real Estate Portfolio Management, including strategic portfolio planning and lease management --TRIRIGA allows companies to optimize building use, reduce occupancy costs and improve lease administration. TRIRIGA software helps companies evaluate future space requirements and make long term planning decisions. For example, using solutions from TRIRIGA, managers can determine future space and growth needs and choose the most financially beneficial options among lease or buy alternatives.

Capital Project Management, such as condition assessment, budgeting, construction estimating and project management -- Effectively evaluating building condition and prioritizing investments are important in maximizing a facility's lifetime value at the lowest cost possible. For example, managers can assess whether to replace a roof on a building versus replacing the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment by helping determine which is a better return-on-investment and assessing trade-offs in identifying investment priorities.

Energy and Environmental Sustainability, such as monitoring utility costs and consumption, analyzing environmental investments and setting carbon management strategies -- Tracking and managing utility costs, including electricity, gas and water, is the first step companies must take in driving those costs down. For example, using TRIRIGA software, a company can monitor and track its carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse gases from underperforming facilities. Companies can evaluate the financial and environmental benefit of capital investment decisions focused on energy and environmental efficiency strategies, such as a building retrofit or updating to a more efficient HVAC system.

"Together, IBM and TRIRIGA will offer the most comprehensive facility and real estate management solution for clients around the world," said George Ahn, president and CEO of TRIRIGA. "By combining our intellectual capital with the global reach of IBM, we can help clients dramatically improve their buildings' operations to become more sustainable and cost efficient."

TRIRIGA will be integrated into IBM Tivoli Software and IBM Global Business Services. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2011, subject to regulatory approval and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. TRIRIGA employs approximately 200 people worldwide.
The acquisition of TRIRIGA will help accelerate IBM's growth in the smarter buildings market, a key initiative in IBM's Smarter Planet work. Earlier this month, IBM said Smarter Planet projects are estimated to drive $10 billion in revenue for IBM by 2015.
For more information, please visit http://www.ibm.com/software/tivoli/welcome/tririga

About IBM Smarter Buildings
Since launching its Smarter Buildings initiative in February 2010, IBM has created a portfolio of smarter buildings solutions that integrate with building automation software from across the industry. IBM's real-time monitoring and analysis, facilities and space management capabilities, and advanced dynamic dashboards helps property owners and managers reduce facilities operations and energy expense, and improve asset management and reliability. For more information, visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/green_buildings/ideas/index.html?re=sph

About TRIRIGA, Inc.
Named by foremost industry analyst firms as the leader in sustainability software and in Integrated Workplace Management Systems, TRIRIGA provides enterprise sustainability, real estate and facilities management solutions. TRIRIGA has delivered the industry's most advanced capabilities such as configurable workflow and performance analytics engines to reduce operating costs, increase return on assets and achieve sustainability goals for mid- and large-sized commercial and public enterprises, including more than one-third of the Fortune 100.

Green Building Consultant’s Water Pyramid Designed to Prevent Future Urban Water Crises

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Gallagher) — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:17:00 +0000

What's the best way to understand how to deal with urban water crises, which are increasing in frequency in the U.S.? Green building and water conservation consultant Jerry Yudelson has produced “The Pyramid of New Water Sources,” a new visual representation of critical new opportunities in water conservation, efficiency and new supply.

Yudelson said, “The 'Pyramid' derives from the research for my 2010 book, "Dry Run: Preventing the Next Urban Water Crisis", and organizes opportunities for extending our urban water supplies, going into a hotter and drier future. It represents a conceptual breakthrough and a great tool to help citizens, public officials and water planners visualize the full range of opportunities.”

This new graphic reference tool shows future water supply sources, in the form of a pyramid diagram with ten steps, each of which increases in cost and complexity. In general, there is a greater potential for cost-effective increases in urban water supply for those measures at the bottom of the pyramid.
The Pyramid of New Water Sources ranks the following measures:
1.    Changing behavior, with such measures as public education, effective water pricing, water audits and web-based information.
2.    Low-cost/no-cost measures, such as fixing leaks and retrofitting lower water-using fixtures
3.    Irrigation measures, including native plantings and drip irrigation, along with smart irrigation controllers.
4.    Hygiene, such as water-free urinals and high-efficiency toilets
5.    Appliances, such as water-conserving dishwashers, water softeners and clothes washers
6.    “Extreme Makeovers” that include composting (no water) toilets, hardscape (unplanted) landscaping and onsite blackwater treatment and reuse.
7.    Water heating, one of the biggest energy users in the water cycle, including hot water recirculation loops, efficient water heaters, and solar water heaters
8.    Onsite reuse, including rainwater and graywater collection and reuse for irrigation
9.    Offsite reuse, using reclaimed water from “purple pipe” systems and even “sewer mining” (treating sewage already flowing in pipes)
10.    Desalination of seawater and brackish water; new water sources, such as creating potable water with reverse osmosis treatment of reclaimed sewage.
Yudelson says, “It is important to come up with simple, visual tools that help everyone grasp the essentials of what is truly a complex and multi-faceted subject.” Yudelson hopes that The Pyramid will become an essential visualization and teaching tool and expects it to be adapted for specific localities as well as educational environments.

A PDF file of The Pyramid of New Water Resources can be downloaded without cost via this blog post: http://www.greenbuildconsult.com/blog/pyramid-of-new-water-sources/.

About Yudelson Associates
Yudelson Associates is a leading international firm in green building consulting, water resource conservation and sustainability planning. The founder, Jerry Yudelson, is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading green building and sustainability experts and a highly regarded keynote speaker. He is the author of 12 green building books and served for two years as Research Scholar for Real Estate Sustainability for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a 70,000-member international trade organization. He is a frequent green building speaker at industry and professional conferences and chaired the country’s largest annual conference and trade show, Greenbuild, for six years from 2004 through 2009.
For more information please contact Jerry Yudelson, 520-207-9759, info(at)greenbuildconsult(dot)com or visit http://www.greenbuildconsult.com/.

Green Building Event: DevelopGreen

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Banes) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:09:00 +0000

Visit iGreenBuild.com and learn more about the DevelopGreen conference for Commercial Real Estate.

Washington, D.C. – The National Association of Industrial Office Properties (NAIOP) will stage its inaugural DevelopGREEN: Sustainable Solutions for Commercial Real Estate conference on March 12-13, 2008, at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel in Glendale, Ariz. The conference is a result of a growing demand on the part of the commercial real estate industry for the most up-to-date education and information on sustainable development and renewable resources as the “green building” movement becomes the industry standard.

GreenBuild 2007 Report

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Banes) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:45:00 +0000

By: Sonja Persram - Monday, December 10, 2007

It was a second inspiring GreenBuild for me, in Chicago. Many folks – and I – had not been familiar with the city. Coming from Toronto, I noticed wistfully the great and beautiful variety of architecture; the public accessibility to the waterfront; the publicized civic pride in sustainable buildings; and the broad expanses of native plantings on sidewalks – not just medians - that allowed trees’ roots enough room to take up water. Not at all like the sometimes square-foot, or concrete ‘box’ tree-allowances in T.O.

Read more about GreenBuild 2007.

LEED Certification For GeoStructures

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Banes) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:15:00 +0000

PURCELLVILLE, Va., December 12, 2007 – Shana Opdyke, a sales engineer with design-build contractor GeoStructures, has achieved accreditation for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), part of the Green Building Rating System™ that encourages adoption of sustainable building and development practices.

Read the complete press release at www.igreenbuild.com/cd_3054.aspx.