TODAY'S STORIES |
Tell your staff how to save energy and watch them do it
No matter how comprehensive your O&M program may be, it is difficult to realize consistent savings if you aren’t communicating your energy-management plan. Through training and the regular sharing of successful practices, procedures and technologies, you can educate your staff—and even your guests—on how to save energy. For instance:
• Teach registration staff how to assign guestrooms during low occupancy periods. Rooms on top floors, at building corners and facing west (in summer) or north (in winter) can be the most energy-intensive to heat or cool; therefore, consider renting them last.
• Plan for arriving guests so only certain rooms are fully conditioned for occupancy.
• Determine an appropriate “standby” thermostat setting for other rooms so that they can be used by walk-in guests.
• Reduce lighting and space conditioning for unoccupied floors, guestrooms, common areas and meeting space.
• Encourage housekeepers to open window drapes and use natural lighting when cleaning guestrooms and to close drapes when exiting guestrooms. This will help to reduce heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter.
• Engage your guests by providing a few tips on ways they can help, such as turning off lights and setting back thermostat levels when rooms are unoccupied.
Once you have laid the groundwork for energy savings by addressing O&M, you can begin to look at other cost-effective measures, such as lighting retrofits, that deliver rapid returns on investment. And, by realizing early savings through proper O&M, you can fund other upgrades down the line.
Source: Anna Stark, national program manager for commercial property markets, Energy Star, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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Mit Shah on cost cutting
"I think there is a fundamental difference with publics and privates in this space and how we approach [cost cutting]. We’re all trying to play offense in terms of looking forward to the future. You have a greater ability to do that on the private side than you do on the public side. Ultimately, a lot of these costs weren’t just bodies; frozen salaries, no bonuses—that’s not sustainable. Members of our teams have already made these tough decisions, and there’s no other place to go. It’s not going from fat to a little bit of muscle, you’re going from muscle to bone to really just blowing up a lot of infrastructure.”
Mit Shah, CEO, Noble Investment Group
Fight Club topic of the week
Designers, have you ever found yourself saying, I just have to have that ridiculous objet d’art? Or that pink paisley carpet? What products have you used in a project that you later wish you hadn’t bothered with? And what would you do different next time?
Give us your opinion on our forum
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