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Facilities Management

Why facilities managers shouldn’t roll over on their recycling obligations…
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Nick Oettinger, The Furniture Recycling Group, comments on obligations to recycle bulky waste and how the circular economy model presents an alternative to landfill

It can often be a difficult task for facilities managers to remove, transport and dispose of mattresses from properties and figures show that in the UK, only a small percentage of mattresses are recycled responsibly, with 7.5 million discarded to landfill sites – usually the cheapest, quickest option.

From a policy point of view, end of life (EOL) mattresses have long been perceived as a problematic waste product, not least because of their size and cumbersome nature. Difficult to handle, mattresses fall under the category of bulky waste; awkward to manoeuvre, expensive to transport and breakdown. All in all, a chore to recycle and as a result, fewer than necessary are disposed of in this way within the FM industry.

Every year in the UK we throw out around 1,600,000 tonnes of what is defined as bulky waste. Approximately 19 percent of this falls into the textile category, largely made up of sofas and mattresses, with the majority of items being sent to landfill instead.

Despite landfill tax having pushed up the costof putting rubbish in the ground in the last 10years, it remains arguably the cheapest and most straightforward option for bulky waste. However, the UK is experiencing an over dependence on landfill. Due to the worrying impact this over dependence has on the environment, bans have already been imposed in many EU countries, with Governments and policy makers realising that alternative, more environmentally friendly solutions are required if countries are to meet their carbon footprint reduction obligations.

With regards to mattresses in particular, an on-going European Union Waste Management Policy Review Process may soon affect UK Government policy on mattress recycling, with the bed industry, and those connected with it, such facilities managers, set to face – at some stage – a legislative requirement to dispose of EOL mattresses in an environmentally acceptable way.

Headway is already being made, with statistics showing that in the UK 450,000 mattresses were collected for recycling in 2012 and just a year later, this had increased by 30 per cent, but despite the increase, this still only accounts for a small percentage of the total mattress disposal in the UK.

While on the surface, the reasons for this slow evolution and widespread acceptance of mattress recycling among facilities managers are largely cost associated as there is no doubt that landfill remains the cheaper option, other barriers do exist. These include the lack of outlets and services that could help facilities managers and their teams dispose of mattresses, as well as the uncertainty around the design and composition of mattresses to recycle their components.

Spotting a gap in the market as well as a clear environmental demand for a solution to this problem, The Furniture Recycling Group perfected a dismantling process, which separates the 14 different material types. Using specially designed tools, the ticking, comfort layers and insulator pads are

removed separately ensuring no cross contamination of fibres. Stitching and staples are also removed. This process is manual, as currently, no machine in the world can accurately separate the likes of cotton polyester mix from denim polyester mix. Our highly trained staff work across two material handling points to ensure that contamination is minimised. We have perfected our manual processes, providing accuracy of segregation of recyclate with excellent throughput due to our handling and material movement system.

Once we cracked this, our main activity was to source sustainable outlets for all of the materials generated.

Having already recycled 700,000 mattresses since launch, The Furniture Recycling Group has identified both a social and business case for partner industries in the FM sector to take notice of their responsibilities regarding mattress disposal. We offer FM organisations the chance to put in place a policy, ensuring they are best placed to respond to any new legislation that comes into force, or perhaps to be seen and credited as leaders and trailblazers in the industry – paving the way for responsible business practice and advocates of the circular economy.

We are keen to work with partners in the FM sector to draw on the principles of a circular economy – where resources are recovered and recycled back into new resources – to educate and inform on the benefits of making good on old mattresses.

It is our vision that the UK’s end of life mattresses be turned back into the very products they were – increasing environmental sustainability and tackling the landfill problem.

With over 700,000 mattresses recycled so far, The Furniture Recycling Group has an average recycling rate of 96 per cent, with the remainder going to energy from waste providing 100 per cent landfill diversion.

 

For more information on recycling mattresses responsibly and efficiently, click here

Heathrow Airport awards Balfour Beatty with £170 million deal…
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The international infrastructure group, Balfour Beatty, has announced that it has been awarded a £170 million deal by Heathrow Airport in a bid to modernise its baggage handling process.
Awarded through the Heathrow Airport Limited Delivery Integrator Framework project, to which Balfour Beatty was appointed in 2014, the deal will involve the installation and upgrade of Heathrow’s baggage screening and handling systems at its eastern baggage facility.

Furthermore, the agreement will also allow the company to use its extensive technological expertise — including the latest Building Information Modelling techniques — to determine an efficient approach to design, as well as manage logistics and to interface with live airport operations.

 

Guest Blog, Pete Mills: Can BMS go the distance? Achieving efficiency gains through remote monitoring…
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As facilities managers come under pressure to implement energy saving measures, remote communication within wider Building Management Systems (BMS) is helping to deliver efficiency gains. Here, Pete Mills, commercial technical operations manager at Bosch Commercial and Industrial, explains the role of remote monitoring in the future of buildings.

Facilities managers are faced with the challenge of recommending heating and hot water systems which have the ability to maximise efficiency. This requirement extends beyond saving on utility bills to limiting the number of site visits and even reducing equipment downtime. Intelligent Building Management Systems (BMS) – with the added advantage of being monitored off-site – advocates flexibility and are vital to achieving these goals.

 

Another hour in the day

A key benefit of the latest generation of BMS, which often boasts remote communication capability, is its ability to deliver high quality results without the necessity for a site presence. Remote monitoring may not be a new concept and systems using analogue phone lines to report faults are relatively common. Today, however, intuitive web-based systems are being developed which allow facilities managers and manufacturers to access their own platform and monitor a system’s performance data via a web browser.

Through remote monitoring integrated within BMS it is possible for automatic restarts of equipment to be actioned from off site. We have found this particularly useful in the area of Combined Heat and Power (CHP). Our system for example, allows a CHP unit to be restarted under certain fault conditions, where there is supervision, without the need to send an engineer to site.

Such holistic systems provide the potential to effectively monitor more than one site. Users can remotely access a site’s usage data and even receive text message alerts should a system encounter an error. This cuts down not only on the time spent at each site, but also the travel distance between.

 

Reducing equipment downtime

With preventative maintenance holding the key to avoiding equipment downtime, a BMS can help monitor performance shortfalls. This creates opportunities for equipment to be repaired proactively rather than in response to a breakdown. Maintenance systems can also offer warnings on equipment. In the past, system warnings rarely provided a specific prognosis, however modern systems allow facilities managers to delve into a monitoring platform to view alerts as well as access important maintenance information such as when a service is due.

 

Payback potential

As well as limiting downtime, BMS which incorporate remote communication elements have a positive impact on payback periods. One of the main benefits of monitoring a system remotely is that all concerned parties can be notified via text message or email immediately, should a system or module stop working for any reason; enabling them to resolve the issue as promptly as possible.

As payback periods continue to play a greater role in the UK, guaranteed availability contracts are set to become more common. This means that many service level agreements are stipulating that a site’s equipment must run for a guaranteed percentage of running hours each year. Monitoring systems help place the onus back on the manufacturer to manage and react to individual requirements as and when they occur.

 

Diminishing bills

Monitoring technology can also benefit utilities costs. It is often desirable to have access to proportion usage charges within a building. Modern systems are helping tenants to receive a more representative energy bill without the need for additional monitoring visits.

On a personal level, I think it is exciting to see just how intuitive the monitoring systems of the future will become, but one thing which is already coming to the fore is the inclusion of remote monitoring within the service concepts of today.

 

For more information on Bosch Commercial and Industrial and its range of products and services, please visit www.bosch-industrial.co.uk or call 0330 123 3004. Alternatively, follow Bosch Commercial and Industrial on Twitter (@BoschHeating_UK) and LinkedIn (Bosch Commercial and Industrial UK).

 

Pete Mills has been in the HVAC industry for over 37 years, having started off as an apprentice heating engineer at just 16. Since then, he has gone on to be a technical liaison officer, and is now a commercial technical operations manager at Bosch Commercial and Industrial.

Industry Spotlight: Why sustainable business practices can be quantifiable…
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The CEO of EMCOR UK, Keith Chanter, discusses the company’s committed and successful approach to working with customers in identifying and implementing sustainable business practices, resulting in measured and quantifiable outcomes…

Sustainable business practices contribute to our customers’ success — as well as ours — and can minimise or reduce the impact of operations on the environment. ‘EMCOR EnergyWise’, a bespoke energy model, aims to significantly, and cost effectively, reduce a customer’s energy use and carbon emissions by deploying industry leading knowledge and experience. EMCOR UK ensures collaboration with relevant occupants of the buildings we service when implementing the model, and achieving buy-in from all involved also helps maintain momentum, longevity and maximum efficiencies.

The priority of energy efficiency and supporting customers’ requirements, accordingly, forms an integral part of everyone’s role within EMCOR UK, spanning wider than the company’s core energy team. For example, for one of our real estate customers, we rolled out the ‘one team approach’ and, in doing so, we identified our company’s champions on each of their sites who were responsible for capturing ideas for savings from across the client’s operations. In the first year, this resulted in 89 identified and costed energy saving initiatives all aligned with the customer’s energy reduction strategy. This resulted in potential savings of 1,359 MWh and 4,000 tonnes of CO2.

Alongside energy saving techniques, EMCOR UK is also committed to innovation; we recognise and reward employees to innovate for customers. Recently, an employee developed a retro fitted system that revolutionises mandatory weekly testing of automatic fire sprinklers, saving customers water and money. The device simulates the flow of one sprinkler head in operation, thereby only discharging 25 litres of water versus 8,000 (max.) litres without the system, resulting in an annual saving of approximately 400,000 litres of water per sprinkler valve set. We also provide ‘energy roadshows’, designed to inform and engage all building occupants, communicating our customers’ objectives in a compelling and interactive way.

In addition, our Surbiton based office has recently been awarded the Fairplace Award, an ethical workplace accreditation by the Ethical Property Foundation which covers a wide range of indicators including; sustainability, employee health, well-being, and welfare.

EMCOR UK has taken a leadership approach in the development of a multi-faceted education programme and is a founding member of the Facilities Management Sustainability School, a unique collaboration to develop sustainability competence in the supply chain. As a founding member, we’re seeking to share and advocate best practice in this arena.

The practises we implement in our day-to-day work make good commercial sense because they enhance our customers’ success whilst reducing the impact on the environment. A recent survey carried out by BIFM of facilities management professionals revealed a 20 per cent decrease among businesses in how effective they perceive their organisation to be at executing sustainability policies compared to 2014. This would indicate that there is a need to implement further energy efficiency and sustainability measures across the facilities management industry.

 

EMCOR UK provides facilities management and specialist support services for a diverse range of private and public sector organisations. For further information on EMCOR UK, please visit www.emcoruk.com or telephone 0845 600 2300.

 

JLL awards Interserve with £60m FM contract…
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The support services and management company, Interserve, has landed a three-year facilities management contract worth an estimated £60 million with the commercial and residential property services company, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

Currently managing 60 shopping centres across the UK, the contract will see Interserve provide integrated facilities services to 18 of JLL’s shopping centres, and more than 300 people will TUPE transfer to Interserve to deliver security, customer services, cleaning, window cleaning, pest control and electronic security system maintenance.

Chief executive at Interserve, Adrian Ringrose, commented on the deal: “We have a strong relationship with JLL having provided a range of facilities management solutions to them for many years. We look forward to helping JLL create the best possible experience for visitors and employees at their nationwide shopping centres and workplaces across the capital.”

Industry Spotlight: FM managers will enter water contracts ‘with confidence’…
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In regards to utilities, water is often considered to be the ‘poor relation’ to gas and electricity, as described by the leading specialist water management company, Waterscan. The moderately low cost of water supply and waste water management – coupled with an inflexible marketplace – has led to it being somewhat misunderstood. However, with relatively recent developments and industry analysis, this is expected to change one year from now.

Although the Water Bill was passed over two years ago in May 2014, it is expected that it is set to ‘revolutionise’ the water market landscape in the UK for the foreseeable future. It provides all commercial and other non-household water users the opportunity for the first time to switch suppliers, negotiate contracts in terms of price and service level, and is hoped to result in improved customer service levels. For bigger, multi-site organisations, the move could also potentially reduce administration due to a ‘cohesive, consolidated’ approach to billing.

OFWAT has cited climate change leading to more droughts and floods, increasing environmental standards and a fast growing population as key drivers for this initiative. The focus is all on water efficiency and this is sorely needed as significant risks to water availability have been reported. According to the Water Resources Group, the global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40 per cent by the year 2030.

Making less water go further will not only help to make the supply chain more resilient to future demands, but it can also help to reduce bill costs. As the director of Waterscan, Claire Yeates, explains: “The open water market comes into force in April 2017 and that seems a long way off, but negotiations with water suppliers is scheduled to commence in October 2016 – less than 12 months from now. In order for UK businesses to get the best deal, we cannot stress enough how important it is to be prepared – and that preparation needs to start now.”

She continues: “We are encouraging companies to collate 12 months’ good quality water data and to get under the skin of their water consumption. Knowing the detail behind your bills – how much water you use, where and when – will empower facilities managers to enter negotiations with confidence and structure their water contracts in the most profitable and environmentally sustainable way. These are the companies that will see the greatest benefits from the market reform.”

Waterscan suggests that the problem is that much of this information is buried in what could be as many as 27 different water contracts if you’re a multi-site operation, and all water companies have different ‘charging mechanisms’ making accurate price comparisons ‘difficult at best’.

As a company, Waterscan provides a variety of consultancy services including a free and detailed ‘Water Check’ service which helps clients fully understand their current operational water footprint and importantly, to put it into context by benchmarking against industry norms. With minimal input required from clients, this exercise helps Waterscan to take swift action to address any inefficiencies and correct billing errors, which often results in tens of thousands of pounds saved.