The Yudelson Associates Blog: What's New

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Green existing buildings using LEED for Existing Buildings to upgrade the value of real estate

According to a story last week, in Toronto, major developers and property managers such as Oxford Properties, Cadillac Fairview and Colliers are pushing for a Canadian version of the USGBC’s LEED-EB program. Oxford Properties’ King Tower in downtown Toronto became the first Canadian multi-tenant building to receive LEED-EB Silver certification, working with HOK‘s Toronto office. The 15-story, 472,000 sq.ft. building replaced all T12 fluorescent lamps with more efficient T8’s and also ran a pipe 83 meters (about 270 feet) below the surface of Lake Ontario to run cold lake water through the building’s heat exchangers, to provide year-round cooling energy.

Posted by Jerry on 11/16/2008 at 08:16 AM

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

Yudelson Illuminates Green Building in Entrepreneur Magazine

In the Entrepreneur magazine article, Yudelson says contractors who want to go green need to educate themselves about the latest trends in the market and get the word out. He suggests these tactics for marketing your green construction business:
* Name it and claim it. Find something you can make your own.
* Hit the green scene. Be visible to people who care about green buildings.
* Green your own business. Green builders need to walk their talk. Consider hybrid cars and biodiesel trucks for transportation. The more sustainable vehicles will reinforce your green brand as you drive them around town.

Posted by Jerry on 11/15/2008 at 06:15 AM

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

As Green Building Speaker, Yudelson Makes the Business Case for Green Buildings

When you consider that people costs are about 100 times energy costs and 10 times rent in a typical situation, any contribution that green buildings with daylighting and better indoor quality can make to increasing employee productivity have a far greater impact on the economics of green than saving even 100 percent of the energy costs. Most research studies are showing 3 to 5 percent gains in productivity, which means that the increased gain from employee well being is three to five times the entire energy bill. Throw in public relations, marketing and employee recruitment/retention benefits, all of which are demonstrably present, and you have a compelling business case for green buildings. There’s a lot more that I talk about; you can see and hear more on the website.

Posted by Jerry on 11/11/2008 at 08:51 AM

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Monday, November 10, 2008

Carbon Footprint Tracking and Sustainability Planning Go Hand in Hand

More than 80 percent of the “Global 250” corporations are tracking greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2008 study by KPMG. Many smaller corporations are also are beginning to account for and report their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many expect that they will be subject to “cap and trade” regulatory requirements within a half-decade.

Why are they doing this? It may be due to a sense of corporate responsibility. It may be due to increased interest from their stakeholders, customers and/or investors. It may be part of long-term risk analysis and strategic planning. And certainly the new political climate in the U.S. makes it ever more likely that GHG emission reporting and reduction will be required within a few years.

Carbon Footprint Calculations

There are three “scopes” of GHG emissions that are generally reported. The first two are generally required by most reporting programs, while the third is optional.

Scope 1 - Emissions from company-owned or controlled equipment (e.g. power generation, boilers, furnaces, vehicles. Emissions from Physical or chemical processing.

Scope 2 - Emissions from the generation of purchased electricity (emissions from both transmission and distribution), gas and fuel in company operations.

Scope 3 - Indirect emissions, excluding those already included in Scope 2 (e.g. employee commuting/travel, leased assets, waste disposal, etc.). The variability of considerations in this scope is the reason that it is optional. Nevertheless, a good rationale for reporting on such activities is that this scope might provide the low-hanging fruit from which to start emission reductions (some possible scenarios include a reducing consulting firm’s employee travel-related emission and possibly those resulting from a mall owner’s waste disposal activities).

To find out more of what Yudelson Associates can do for you, take a quick look at what we can offer.

Posted by Jerry on 11/10/2008 at 08:44 PM

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