Author: MaintenX

A ‘Green Lease’ is an agreement between a landlord and a tenant that defines how a building is to be managed in a greener way.

A green lease connects sustainable building schemes with commitments from both the landlord and tenant to meet ecologically sustainable goals.

Green Lease Roots

The green lease was developed in Australia and is now mandatory for all government-owned buildings there. It has since expanded around the world.

What are the Benefits of Green Leases?

For the landlord:

• The building is maintained in a more environmentally-friendly way
• The owner’s costs of maintaining the building and relevant infrastructure are substantially lowered
• The building is more appealing to environmentally-conscious prospective tenants
• The owner has the benefit of an improved and ‘greener’ public image

For the tenant:

• Safe, comfortable and greener work and/or living environment
• Creates lower operating costs/service charges passed on to the tenant

What are the Basics of a Green Lease?

• Target rating
• Digital metering
• Dispute resolution process

Target Rating

Essentially, a ‘Green Lease’ applies a target rating system into a legally-binding contract between the landlord and tenant which then allows the landlord to legally operate the building in agreement with its environmentally green plan.

This structure lets the building’s owner increase energy performance goals, decrease energy expenditures and give the building and its owner a reasonable gain in the marketplace. The tenants get a healthier and more environmentally-friendly living and/or working environment and the landlord reaps financial and reputational rewards.

Recycling in your facility doesn’t have to be a nightmare to implement. Follow these simple steps to ensure the success of your recycling program.

How Much Waste are you Creating?

Determine how much waste your facility produces to establish a baseline. Goals and action plans can then be developed using this information.

Tracking and Reporting

Determine a tracking and reporting tool that can be used to measure your program’s progress.

Gather Information

Identify a recycling vendor and develop pickup plans. It’s also a good idea to have good communication between your facility and the recycling vendor.

Do a Walkthrough

Carry out a facility walkthrough. Inspect waste disposal practices and procedures. During a walkthrough, you’ll want to:

• Figure out the best recycle container placement
• Document the removal of unneeded containers
• Train workers concerning the new recycling program

Contact Information

Define facility contacts, like department managers who can help you with staff training, communication, and program engagement.

Culture is Key

Culture is the biggest factor in a successful recycling program. Management engagement helps get everyone else in the organization on board. If the leaders aren’t knowledgeable about the program, it won’t be a success.

It also helps to include peers from different departments when designing the recycling program. Custodial staff input is particularly valued, as they are the ones on the front lines of your program and will be the people implementing it the most.

With education, information, proper planning, and engagement, your recycling program is destined for success!

Just as Facility Managers are beginning to feel comfortable with certifications like LEED, a new standard is developing. The good news is that it’s not mutually exclusive; while LEED focuses on resource efficiency, the WELL Building Standard focuses on making workplaces healthier through modifications to the physical environment.

Why the New Standard Was Created

The WELL Building Standard is the first of its kind to focus exclusively on occupant health.

Poor air quality, food choices, and work stress all have implications on the health of building occupants. The WELL Building Standard is a performance-based system for gauging, certifying, and tracking the way buildings impact our health.

WELL is managed and directed by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), an organization created to facilitate the improvement of health and wellbeing of building occupants.

WELL is based on medical research that explores the link between buildings and the health of their occupants. WELL-Certified buildings and WELL-Compliant development projects aim to improve nutrition, sleep patterns and overall health outcomes of the people who live and work within their buildings.

The WELL Building Standard is certified by the Green Business Certification Incorporation, which also manages the LEED certification program.

How does WELL Work?

Three different types of certifications are available: New and Existing Buildings, New and Existing Interiors, and Core & Shell.

The New and Existing Interiors section of the certification is the most relevant to Facility Managers. 36 precondition requirements and 62 optimization criteria make up this section of the certification procedure. Preconditions are required for all Levels of WELL. Optimizations are only required for Gold and Platinum certification areas.

When thinking about all the potential advantages of creating a more sustainable facility, there’s one area that is rarely considered, although it’s vital to your success, reputation, and bottom line: your employees. Here’s why.

Sustainability and Employees

Employees stand to gain a lot from a company that decides to implement a sustainability program. Below are the energy efficiency benefits that are having the greatest impact on employee health, productivity, and job satisfaction:

Bigger Output

Facility energy optimization enhancements to your building don’t just save you money on utility costs. They can often increase your facility’s and workforce’s production capacity, output and cycle times.

Bigger Bottom Line

Lower energy costs naturally lead to higher gains for the business. In addition to signaling to the public you’re making a difference, the initial investment made on sustainability enhancements to your facility will also pay for themselves over the course of their working life. Solar panels, for example, can often pay for themselves in electricity savings in as little as two years.

Reduced Energy Compliance Costs

Administrative expenses and hefty regulatory and government penalties from failure to adhere to emissions codes can eat into the company budget substantially. It’s often much cheaper to pay the upfront costs of getting your facility in line with current standards than to constantly worry if you’ll be fined.

All of this is to say that you should seriously consider the many benefits of making your facility more sustainable. Savings on gas, fuel, electricity, operations, productivity, output, efficiency, employee satisfaction, and overall health of facility structures and the people inside it that make up the heart of your business are only a few examples.

Want to know more about making your facility more sustainable? Call MaintenX today!

Technology is always changing our lives in at what seems like an ever-increasing pace. Looking back just a few years can show the great leaps that have been made in the fields of communication, social media, online retail, medical devices, and industrial manufacturing. Green tech in particular has seen a lot of mind-blowing developments in 2019; here are just a few of them.

Outsourcing Landscape Changes

While companies around the world continue to outsource their facility management needs, the reasons for that are swiftly changing. Instead of just thinking of their bottom line, companies are now privy to the fact that if they outsource their FM functions, their in-house staff can focus on the bigger picture. By using tools like facility management software, vital system and asset information can be relayed to a central hub, analyzed by the software system, then relayed directly to management staff using graphs and tables. With the right tools at her disposal, a savvy FM can identify problems before they occur, schedule needed preemptive maintenance, and save the company money.

Artificial Intelligence

Completely automated processes, instantly available information on any and all facility systems, a facility that schedules maintenance automatically, sends you alerts on your phone when there’s an issue, and even cleans itself—sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? But it isn’t! All of these technologies and more are now at your (and your budget’s) potential disposal. The Internet of Things (IoT) paired with AI technology will bring us many surprising and useful innovations in 2019 and beyond.

The healthcare industry has long been one of sporadic highs and lows. In fact, it’s one of the most difficult industries to accurately predict from year to year. While hugely important aspects of the healthcare industry are hotly debated in the halls of Congress, scientists around the world are making breakthrough discoveries in developing ground-breaking devices and medical methods.

Here are the biggest technology trends in healthcare to watch out for in 2019.

Electronic Medical Records or EMRs

Electronic Medical Records offer more than just convenience for medical staff. Although still slow to be comprehensively adopted in the country as a whole (largely due to for-profit hospitals’ distrust in each other when it comes to sharing patient data), through advances in technology and medical software databases it is now possible to share a patient’s medical records across many platforms instantly.

Blockchain Systems

Blockchain systems are another hot trend to look out for the medical industry. In a nutshell, blockchain technology allows large swaths of data to be stored in a tiny space. This technology is also at the heart of emerging cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Monero, Dash, and Dogecoin. Although these currencies have been existing in the Wild West of legitimacy, Bitcoin in particular has seen the widest level of acceptance. Many companies, including some coffee shop chains, now regularly accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

Smartphones in the Classroom

One of the most surprising trends in healthcare right now is the 180-degree turn that schools and universities are now making towards the acceptance and encouragement of use of smartphones in the classroom. Medical students aren’t hiding their phones underneath their desk anymore, and instead are encouraged to use their smart devices to aid in the learning process.

Want to know more about the biggest trends in healthcare? Call MaintenX today!

Technology is changing at breakneck speed in virtually every single aspect of our lives. Facility management is no exception to that trend. In order to keep up with the competition in this ever-changing environment, it’s important to know the newest and most innovative tools in the industry.

Facility Management Software

If you haven’t jumped on the Facility Management software train yet, you’ve already been left in the dust. Facility management software allows facility managers complete access to all relevant systems, assets, and equipment information. There are many programs available now, and almost all of them compile information in graphs, charts, and other visual aids that can help you get a better picture of the health and well-being of every part of your facility.

Motion Sensors

Motion sensors, when combined with a facility management software program, can give you indispensable information about the use and utility of every room in your facility. That means you can track how often, how much, and when different spaces within the building are being used. Some software suites also come with analytics tools that can help you strategically heat and cool rooms individually. AI technology even allows for facility management software to regulate processes and system function based on trends the software observes, like automating lights in a regularly-occupied conference room. This can add up to a lot of savings on your facility’s utility bills, which is the #1 expense for businesses worldwide.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence isn’t just for sci-fi movies anymore; many industries have been using AI programs for years. As the tech gets more advanced, it will only be adopted by more businesses. That also means these programs will soon be able to automate almost any process you give them permission to.

Want to know more about the newest FM tech trends? Call MaintenX today!

Once you’ve found a reliable independent contractor, building and maintaining a healthy, mutually-beneficial relationship is your next step. Managing and engaging with an independent contractor is quite different than supervising your regular employees.

An important thing to remember is that independent contractors are just that: independent. That means that they can work where they want, they can work with who they want, and they can work when and for as long as they want. That’s why it’s important to maintain friendly and open channels of communication at all times. Here are a few things to consider when hiring an independent contractor.

Define the Scope of Work Clearly

Make sure that you set boundaries, define tasks in a detailed but easily-digestible way, and provide full, comprehensive guidelines that include the metrics used to gauge their performance. When working with independent contractors make sure to have a well-made scope of work, statement of work, and/or a written agreement which clearly outlines the project and includes all relevant information.

Commit to Communication

Before the project even starts, establish a process for communicating with your contractor. Especially at the beginning of a long-lasting professional relationship, you need to create a system for letting the contractor know he or she is competing the tasks you need completed in the proper way. Also, make sure to have an “open door” policy with the contractor in which they can communicate positive or negative feedback to you.

Follow these simple rules, and you’re sure to get and keep the contractors you need.

There are many benefits of energy optimization that exist beyond the obvious. Here are the benefits that are creating the biggest positive impact on the economy and the world.

Increased Productivity

Energy optimization trends often lead to heightened production capacity, rate of output, and cycle times. Better efficiency also leads to a much healthier bottom line for many companies who choose to go green.

Higher Profit Margin

Products marketed as green or greener alternatives have seen a huge uptick in sales. The more green products that are developed and sold, the higher the demand for newer and more energy-efficient products including light bulbs, reusable air filters, recycled paper products, eco-friendly plastic alternatives, carbon neutral devices, and emission-free electric vehicles.

Each dollar saved through the use of energy optimization is one more dollar in operating profits. This makes energy management metrics and tracking statistics more transparent and persuasive to prospective clients and/or customers.

Reduced Energy Compliance Costs

Administrative costs and hefty government and regulator penalties related to carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions are now hurting companies who don’t comply. This has also led to a healthy uptick in companies that strictly comply with, and often exceed, regulator standards. This helps not only the companies’ bottom line, but also makes your business look greener to the public. This has swayed many a customer to the company who is more environmentally friendly.

Want to know more about energy optimization? Call MaintenX today!

To be successful, today’s businesses need access to important information. They also have to keep track of the innovations and tools being implemented by their competitors to stay relevant in an ever-changing landscape.

Staying ahead isn’t easy, though. Data is everywhere, cascading down on facility managers and business owners from a multitude of systems, divisions and regions in real time. That’s why companies need smart technology: so management can make the most-informed and carefully made decisions to stay ahead.

Though businesses have an abundance of data, it isn’t easy to predict the problems that can lead to failure and downtime. Predictive maintenance opens the door to making raw data useful.

Predictive Maintenance and the Future of Facility Management

Predictive maintenance systems take into consideration things like:

• Asset usage
• Wear and tear on assets
• Environmental factors of assets
• Temperature and temperature changes
• Climate and utility usage information
• Motion sensing data

Predictive maintenance IT systems track all of this information to complete many vital tasks, including sensing when a system is in danger of failure or needs maintenance.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is your eye into the inner workings of your facility. Think of it as a doctor who can examine vital signs and symptoms, then give recommendations on how to stay healthy. Predictive analytics can help in FM decision making in the following ways:

• Aid facility managers by helping them monitor, sustain and enhance facility assets for better accessibility, operation and performance
• Predict asset failure to optimize quality and supply processes
• Remove guesswork from facility management staff’s decision-making process

Want to know more about the power of predictive capabilities? Contact MaintenX today!