Citation
(2012), "Sustainability", Facilities, Vol. 30 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/f.2012.06930iaa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Sustainability
Article Type: Editorial From: Facilities, Volume 30, Issue 9/10
The modern sustainability movement, as it emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, suggests three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. This issue of Facilities presents several papers that address topics of concern in sustainable facility management from all over the world, including sustainable FM practices in Nigeria, energy-led refurbishment projects in the UK, urban historical conservation projects in Hong Kong, guidelines for carbon emission in Hong Kong, and indicators to measure energy performance of hotels in China.
The research by Adewunmi et al. aims to identify environmental practices and strategies that can be adopted by facility managers in Nigeria in their pursuit of improving the sustainability of their facilities. Interviews of Nigerian facility management professionals revealed that they believe little is done to address sustainability issues. By obtaining buy-in from strategic heads of organizations and disseminating the benefits of sustainability throughout organizations, Nigeria’s facility managers will gain the support they need to improve the impact their facilities are having on the environment. The paper by Adewunmi et al. demonstrates that a commitment to sustainability needs to be made at a policy level in order to encourage corporations to invest in sustainable facility solutions.
Decision Support Tools (DSTs) are often used by property managers or facility managers who manage energy-led refurbishment projects. A paper by Strachan and Banfill identifies an opportunity to develop a new set of DSTs that are specifically designed to help improve energy performance in such projects. The authors characterize the key features of available DSTs and outline a new approach for the energy-led refurbishment of buildings, according to which a 7-step process is proposed. The paper by Strachan and Banfill emphasizes that DSTs enabling the tracking of these seven steps is needed to manage energy-led refurbishment projects.
The research by Yung and Chan identifies the critical “social sustainability” factors that come into play when conserving a historical building in a dense urban setting. Four factors were identified to form the basis for evaluation of such projects. Those involved in the planning, management and implementation of urban historical conservation projects can improve the success and increase the community support of their projects by understanding the factors that promote social sustainability. Yung and Chan demonstrate that a developed framework will provide a useful basis to assess the social component of sustainability in the conservation of built heritage in a real life context.
A paper by Lai et al. reviews and compares the world’s top-ranked carbon audit guidelines and policies in Australia and the UK against those in Hong Kong, and applies these guidelines to perform an empirical audit of a hotel building in Hong Kong. Since no legislation requiring organizations to report their carbon emissions exists in Hong Kong, this makes it extremely difficult to develop any carbon emission benchmarks. Therefore, the paper by Lai et al. suggests that much work is yet to be done in Hong Kong to encourage facility managers to reduce the amount of carbon generated by their buildings.
Research conducted by Xu et al. addresses the issue of a rapid increase in the percentage of energy consumed in commercial and industrial buildings in China. The study sets out to identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess and measure the sustainability of Building Energy Efficiency Retrofit (BEER), as they apply to hotel projects in China. Eight KPIs were identified as driving the interest in improving energy efficiency and sustainability of China’s hotels. By considering these KPIs, hotel administrators and facility managers can determine the best approach to achieve improved energy performance for their buildings.