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Sustainability

Top 5 global FM suppliers revealed by Technavio…
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Basing its findings on key factors such as ROI, sustainability, customer satisfaction, floor occupancy rate, pareto analysis and consistent performance measurement framework, a new report deriving from the global technology research and advisory company, Technavio, has affirmed the top 5 performing global facilities management suppliers up until the year 2020.

The report acknowledges that the FM market is dominated by large ‘global players’ as a majority of supplier companies are getting involved with mergers and acquisitions to achieve maximum international reach; in addition to enhancing their service capabilities. Therefore, it has been suggested that organisations prefer to outsource their FM services and the suppliers are developing environmental management plans to adhere to the industry’s regional and global regulations.

In order, the top 5 global FM suppliers are:

  1. Sodexo: Provides facility management and food services across different industries worldwide. The company serves more than 75 million people every day. It provides more than 234 services for the benefit of clients’ employees. In March 2016, Sodexo was awarded a 10-year contract by Rio Tinto to deliver facility management services for its operations in Australia. 
  2. Compass Group: A global leader in food services and FM support services. K-12 (part of the Compass Group) serves more than two million students every day in the US alone. Approximately, one-third of the top business schools in Europe are served by the company, and the Compass Service Framework was designed by the company to enhance their service capabilities and provide high-quality service to customers. 
  3. Aramark: Currently maintains approximately 1 billion square feet of facilities across multiple industries worldwide. It owns over one million square feet of meeting space globally. The company manages over 45 unique world-class residential and day centers across the US and Canada. In April 2016, Aramark won Citi’s Sustainable Partner Award in recognition of the high-value services provided to the Citi Group. 
  4. ISS A/S: Generates three million work orders on an annual basis. Annually, the company serves 13,809,467 square metres of office and industrial space globally. It caters to a large and diversified portfolio of B2B customers across industry sectors. The company performs 30 billion square meter of cleaning activities globally.
  1. CBRE: One of the largest FM service providers across the globe with a total workforce of 25,000 EFMs and 13,000+ engineering professionals. It caters to a client base of 25.8 million occupants and tenants in the global commercial real estate market. The company employs 300+ HSSE professionals, 40+ OSHA, and 501 trainers for health and safety as well as environmental management.

 

To request a sample report, click here

BBP launches sustainable property management publication…
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In a bid to develop a more ‘consistent’ approach to sustainable practices, members of the BBP Managing Agents Partnership have come together to produce a practical document of sustainability provisions, setting out to ‘form the foundation’ of how sustainability is incorporated into any property management service offering.

The ‘Integrating Sustainability into Property Management Services: Core Provisions’ aims to provide clear and concise information on core strategies that should be undertaken by all property management agents in their offerings to clients; as well as detailing how agents can proactively introduce these activities into their daily schedules.
Download the publication here

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.

 

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.