Search Results for: environmental

UK public sector leading the way in procurement and sustainable building

by • Comment, Facilities management, Public Sector, Technology

Nottingham City Council's Loxley Building

Nottingham City Council’s Loxley Building

Over the last few years, the UK Government has grown increasingly interested in finding ways of making its £30 billion property portfolio more efficient. Both the last Labour government and the current Coalition administration have been driven by the opportunities offered them with the advent of new technology, new ways of working and new procurement models. They’ve pursued these issues to cut costs by reducing and changing the way property is designed and managed but have also found how that can also help to establish best practice in sustainable building. What is increasingly apparent, especially given recent news from the Major Projects Authority about cost savings in procurement is that the public sector is now leading the way as models of good practice.

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Will the Great Trade Association Merger have any impact on office design?

by • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Workplace design

Ceci n'est pas un bureauAnybody who has been working in and around the facilities management sector for any length of time will know that the FM profession/discipline (delete as appropriate) regularly undergoes protracted periods of existential angst about its role. It strikes me however that this is actually quite an easy question to deal with because the answer is the same as it is for similarly amorphous professions such as marketing. It all seems to depend on who you are and what you are trying to do. That’s the twist. The average facilities manager, like the Urban Spaceman, doesn’t exist. I might think that but it won’t stop the associations and institutes currently working together to establish a new super-body for FM in the UK having to continue the debate.

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Green responsibilities of the built environment highlighted by CIBSE

by • Environment, Facilities management, News

EnvironmentWe’ve already focused today on the role individuals can play in supporting the green agenda of their employers, but for those working within the built environment they may have particular responsibility when it comes to helping to reduce energy consumption and provide for the adaptation of buildings that respond to the challenges of climate change. This is the message from incoming CIBSE President, George Adams Engineering Director for Spie Matthew Hall, in his Presidential address, “Whole Life Thinking” where he stresses the need for a new energy engineering conscience and calls for an increased pace of action to improve the industry and reduce its environmental impact.

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Green Office Week kicks off with a focus on individual behaviour

by • Comment, Environment

elephant-in-the-roomThis week is Green Office Week. Obviously it’s corporate sponsored, self-designated and arbitrarily timed with all the ways that leaves it open to criticism. It also offers pretty standard advice for the most part and many people and organisations will be well aware of it.  What is interesting is that so much of the advice is about individual behaviour, across the daily themed topics. In some ways this is a welcome reminder that the solution to environmental issues is as much about personal behaviour and management as it is  technology. The answer to needlessly burning lights should be somebody remembering to turn them off, rather than a movement sensor. Or it should be both. In practice, people don’t meet their own stated commitments to the environment and there are some pretty good reasons for this.

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New survey reveals risks of cutting costs in corporate real estate

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, News, Property

JLL ReportA new report from Jones Lang LaSalle claims to highlight how those firms who see their property as a driver of added value rather than a cost reap rewards in the form of higher revenue, employee performance and shareholder returns. In contrast, those firms who view their facilities as a cost and seek to reduce those costs for short term gain are, in fact, storing up long term problems and risks. JLL’s report – Global Corporate Real Estate Trends – claims to reveal the top five corporate real estate risks, including negative impacts on competitive advantage and profitability from cost cutting, procurement processes, lack of collaboration between functions and failure to drive productivity.

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Extensive new research launched into leadership in FM

by • Facilities management, Knowledge, Legal news, News

FM Leadership survey launched for Think FM

A new research initiative, focusing on leadership has been launched by Workplace Law, the key findings of which will be presented at ThinkFM 2013, taking place on Monday 10 June at the Royal College of Physicians in London. The theme of the conference this year is ‘The Leadership Challenge: Raising our game, making our case, realising our value’, and Workplace Law’s survey aims to draw the opinions of facilities management clients and service providers across the UK. It covers a range of issues, including talent in FM, sustainability, leadership in health and safety, plus looking at how leadership and performance management in FM can really add value to an organisation. (more…)

Shortlist for green business awards published on Earth Day

by • Environment, Facilities management, News

Earth day celebrations

Green charities, consultancies and a range of businesses that have helped to promote and facilitate environmental progress within the corporate community over the past year have been nominated for a BusinessGreen Leaders’ Award. The shortlist for the green business awards, which celebrate leading businesses and individuals’ contributions to the green economy is published today on Earth Day, when it’s expected that over one billion people in approximately 192 countries will be taking action to protect the environment. The day is being marked in Seattle by the formal opening of the “greenest commercial building in the world,” the Bullitt center by one of Earth’s day’s founders, the environmental activist Denis Hayes. (more…)

Hong Kong’s pioneering zero carbon building wins innovation award

by • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, News, Workplace design

ZCB building in Hong Kong

The Construction Industry Council’s (CIC) Zero Carbon Building (ZCB) in Hong Kong has been awarded Champion of the Innovation Award for the Engineering Industry 2012/2013 by the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE). The ZCB, which is the first of its kind in Hong Kong engineered by Arup won the construction category for its integrated innovations, tailored for the city’s sub-tropical climate. It is the first building in Hong Kong to actively feed electricity back to the grid and has BEAM Plus Platinum status – the highest rating for excellent building environmental performance.

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Better reporting required on employee engagement and wellbeing

by • Knowledge, News, Workplace

Wellness reporting could be improved by FTSE 100

There is a need for more open reporting on employee engagement and wellbeing by FTSE 100 organisations according to an inaugural report into wellness by Business in the Community. The first Workwell FTSE 100 benchmark, which analysed how FTSE 100 organisations manage their 6.3 million employees gave an average score of just 21 per cent, which said BITC was “not unexpected” at this first stage of development.  The highest scoring Workwell indicators were Diversity and Inclusion (at 50 per cent of total marks) and Health and Safety (at 44 per cent), showing how compliance drives measurement and reporting.

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Green business initiatives worthwhile finds U.S. study

by • Environment, Knowledge, News

Green biz

Despite persistent skepticism among U.S. employees about corporate America’s commitment to “going green” the majority of U.S. employees are interested in learning what companies are doing in terms of sustainability (74 per cent) and wish their own company or employer engaged in more sustainability business practices, including social responsibility initiatives (68 per cent). According to the fourth annual Gibbs & Soell Sense & Sustainability® Study, while 80 per cent of sustainability-engaged employees encouraged others to make sustainable choices – the majority were unaware of who at their workplace is responsible for sustainability.

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Will an upturn spark a revival of interest in the idea of employer branding?

by • Facilities management, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

Employer brandingYou may recall that a few years ago there was a voguish interest in the idea of employer branding. This is the kind of thing that has always gone on but can always be defined and popularised,  in this case following the publication of a book on the subject in 2005. By 2008 Jackie Orme, the head of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, was calling it ‘an integral part of business strategy’. Still, it appears to have dropped off the radar a bit over the last few years, a fact we might put down to the effect of the recession. Firms certainly seem to have their mind on other things. Research published last year by PriceWaterhouseCoopers showed that  in 2009, 54 per cent of businesses said they placed a special focus on retaining talent. By 2012 that had dropped to 36 per cent.

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Video: how networks of engaged people can achieve more than nations

by • Architecture, Comment, Facilities management, Property, Technology, Workplace design

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In spite of all its flaws, the Internet can empower people to address specific issues in ways that exceed the abilities of nation states. In this energising talk for the Royal Society for the Arts, Don Tapscott, a Canadian businessman and now one of the world’s leading authorities on the impact of technology on people and societies, explores the idea that engaged and connected people can work together to innovate and solve issues that can seem intractable to the world’s governments and international bodies, including the most serious demographic and environmental challenges we all face.

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