Sustainability: How facility management companies can contribute towards Net Zero Emissions

[ecis2016.org] The current downtime owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, may be the best time for facility management companies to review their operations and formalise plans aimed at achieving the 2050 net-zero mission

As the impetus on sustainability and the environment takes precedence, it is first and foremost essential to understand sustainability and its importance. Sustainability means avoidance of the depletion of natural resources, to maintain an ecological balance. With rapid industrialisation, rampant economic development and increased contribution from every segment of the world economy, it now must be professed in a different connotation.

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The advancement of technology has propelled faster growth, completely altering the planet’s landscape, creating resource imbalance and deterioration. It is no longer about conserving the built environment. Instead, it is all about doing better and compensating for our past unsustainable actions. The mission now, is to look for avenues to balance or neutralise the developmental impact, while still surging ahead globally with planned developments.

FMs role in helping to achieve Net Zero Emissions by 2050

The facilities management (FM) business has gained recognition and growth in the last few decades in India. The industry has created a stronger affiliation with the real estate sector, as we witness continuous growth in other manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce, hospitality, finance and banking segments. While FM companies collaborate with their clients on all aspects of business operations, these are now becoming the automatic choice to advise their clients, by augmenting and contributing towards the mission of creating a sustainable environment with net-zero impact.

With the global contribution through the United Nations, the World Green Building Council and other such forums, the 2050 targets towards net-zero mission would be a significant step forward, to create a sustainable environment at a global level. Apart from the environmental benefits, such initiatives would also lead to socio-economic benefits for the nations and communities.

The FM sector, through this programme, would be able to create more awareness with its clients and within organisations, to build a mind-set to have the right approach and participation towards the net-zero mission. Regular training sessions and modules focusing on awareness, would assist in having a more extensive reach with all the stakeholders both, within and outside the organisation. At their service delivery points, the FM companies would have to bring sustainable means to provide essential services in all four key focus areas – energy management, water management, waste management and reducing the carbon footprint.

Energy management

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FM companies will need to adopt the latest technological means and platforms available in the market, to monitor and track the energy requirements of the built environment. By having a constant watch, they need to ensure the energy utilisation is optimum for their facilities, which would aid progressive energy conservation, leading to incremental savings.

To eventually have a complete net-zero impact would take some considerable time. An early engagement with all stakeholders and establishing an execution plan backed by investments from clients in renewable energy sources, will surely go a long way in reducing the overall impact. Herein lies the opportunity for creating a roadmap that determines the return on investments, while setting achievable targets. With robust monitoring and tracking, it will indeed surpass the energy goals.

Water management

Water is the next precious source to target, in the FM operations. With the latest technology, we can track and monitor water consumption, to save the precious resource. Methods such as two-bucket systems of cleaning and pre-wet methods, can be significant contributors to facilities’ cleaning operations. On the technical front, water savings gadgets can reduce the overall reduction in water consumption for facilities operations.

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Waste management

FM companies can contribute towards a greener environment, by recycling the organic waste through segregation of the waste at the source itself. The latest available technologies in the market and optimised usage of organic waste composters, can also significantly reduce the recycling time and conversion from waste to manure in a much shorter time.

Reducing carbon footprint

To reduce the carbon footprint and emissions by a significant level, facilities must adopt a sustainable approach and implement greener utilities under transportation, power generation and hazardous or electronic waste recycling. FM companies can create more awareness towards reducing carbon footprint and using sustainable green features, to contribute towards reducing carbon emissions. Adherence to the local, national and global emission norms, can lead to greater participation in the net-zero mission.

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Facility management companies role in green buildings in India

While the emission levels are rising globally, every nation would have to align itself towards the mission of net-zero and sustainability on a progressive development approach, to reach the targets by 2050. Governments would have to draft and approve the policies to create awareness, benefit programs and encourage industry-wide participation in the programme.

In the future, FM companies will need to take an active role of aggregator and integrator and work with the extended stakeholders with the investor or developer group and convince them to get their buildings and infrastructure certified through the net-zero certification process. We can achieve this with minimal investments possible and create sustainable facilities, contributing substantially towards the net-zero mission.

As FM companies partner with their clients and service partners, the below objectives can significantly help achieve our net-zero mission by the year 2050:

• Raising all stakeholders’ awareness and systematically creating greater understanding of the ‘Net Zero’ mission, both, within and outside the organisation.
• Tracking and monitoring the energy, water, waste and carbon footprint periodically.
• Creating avenues and opportunities to save the natural resource of energy and water.
• Collaborating with the latest technology partners, to ensure that resources are monitored, tracked and utilised at the optimum level.
• Training of the operational teams to have an approach towards continuous improvement.
• Promoting green and sustainable products and services to clients.
• Proposing to get the clients’ facilities certified through net-zero certifications.

(Rajesh Shetty is MD, India, REMS and Imran Khan is associate director, Pune, REMS, at Colliers)

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