The "Donald" Jumps Aboard the Green Bandwagon

By: U.S. Green Real Estate Council
Date: July 11, 2008

The battle of the sexes takes place more often in the office environment than the bedroom. The reason being that running temperatures vary greatly between males - hotter, and females - colder. Consequently facility managers and HVAC contractors spend a great deal of their time responding to calls from clients to "warm up the place" or to cool it down. Building automation controls (BAC) or building automation systems (BAS) are an outgrowth of computers that can run a home or a multi-building campus. 

The concept is that there are approximately 8 systems in a building or campus. On the commercial side electricity, water, sprinklers/fire control, HVAC, lighting Interior/exterior, elevators, landscape watering, telephone/wifi, and we could add cable, video surveillance, and escalators and door operation, oh and commissary. On the residential side we could add the hot tub, sauna, kitchen - ovens, refrigerator and the outdoor kitchen. A telephone and or an Internet hook up can operate all. The control and inter-relationship of these systems is the concept of BAS and smart homes. 

Solutions

One way of cooling the battle of the sexes in the commercial environment is the use of suspended flooring. Under access flooring was originated with the onset of computer rooms. That was way back when a 150 MB computer occupied a whole garage size room and produced a lot of heat. Wiring and cooling were accessed under the floor. In today's high efficiency buildings under access flooring allows for not only wiring, and outside air to enter, but to utilize the ambient temperature of the substrate - in many cases a concrete slab. Individual air entry controls are located at each workstation in the floor and allow each employee to set the airflow rate according to their individual body temperature comfort level.  

Recently the Trump Organization, a name with worldwide brand recognition has started to green their own facilities. Trump like many developers has realized that "green is green." It is not as much about tree hugging as it is about making a difference to the bottom line in black ink - read ...more profit. 

At Trump World Tower, a major property in downtown Manhattan, NYC, variable frequency drives (VFD's) were installed to control ventilation fans throughout the building. Each VFD had an installation price of approximately $25,000.00. This seems expensive until one looks at the savings over time. At years end, the electrical saving per unit amounted to approximately 50,000.00, note that is per unit.

In an additional effort to conserve energy, Mr. Trump continued to look at energy efficiency and had his Board of Directors approve a plan to install motion sensors in the stairwells of the building. Motion sensors can detect occupancy and instead of the continuous illumination of spaces that are never or rarely used, turn on the lights upon the opening of emergency doors, at which time the entire stairwell illuminates. The savings amount to approximately $45,000.00 per year exclusive of bulb costs.

Michael Cohen, the Executive Vice President, special counsel to the Donald and Treasurer of the Board, says that "These cost saving measures are now being implemented in other Trump buildings; such as Trump Park Avenue." It wouldn't take a professional actuary to extrapolate the energy savings at today’s dollar value if all buildings would incorporate these simple and cost effective energy saving concepts.

Many building operators, facility managers and new construction are incorporating energy saving efforts into their thinking and retrofit planning. LED lighting now comes in many variations to retrofit most lighting applications from fluorescent tubes to city signal lights. Evaporative cooling without using refrigerants (green house gas and ozone depletion contributors) have reached new levels of sophistication and cost effectiveness. 

The Trump organization has endorsed energy saving measures in their properties, but now they are more focused on the lowering of operating expenses. In an energy short world with rising prices for energy any investment at today's prices well reap major cost savings in years to come when energy becomes more expensive.

The cooling the battle of the sexes in the home environment will take a few more years to deliver, but as housing comes back to pre-mortgage meltdown levels more production builders will be incorporating these principles of energy efficiency into their designs.

About US Green Real Estate Council:

The US Green Real Estate Council's mission is to educate all the professionals involved in building, managing and selling all real estate on the value of incremental "green" retrofit and design.