In March 2010, the IFMA international sustainability committee (ISC) launched the IFMA Energy Challenge: ENERGY STAR® which encourages facility professionals to track energy consumption in facilities and embark on a continuous monitoring and energy improvement program. The challenge for facility managers is to save 15 percent of their baseline energy costs by establishing baseline, benchmarking, sharing best practices and implementing energy saving strategies.
The first step is to establish your baseline in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager and share your data with the IFMA master account. Getting started and sharing your data is now easier than ever. There are currently at least three major computer-aided facility management vendors who have linked to ENERGY STAR, allowing users to easily link their data with Portfolio Manager.
The goal is to have 1,500 buildings shared with the IFMA master account by World Workplace 2010 
Conference & Expo. Once building energy use and rating data in place, the ISC will share important energy use statistics and benchmarks that will then allow for the sharing of best practices. In addition, the ISC is working on a program which will recognize participants based on their energy savings results and contributions of their best practices.
There are a number of resources available to help improve facility energy performance including the IFMA Foundation’s sustainability “how-to” guide series. The goal of these guides is to put practical sustainability tools in the hands of facility management professionals.
If you area currently tracking your data, please make sure to share that information with IFMA. If you’re interested in participating, get started today by visiting www.energystar.gov.
* IFMA will not publicize the organization names of those who submit information, only relevant benchmarking data.
