A Clear Vision for the ‘Swamp’

IREM has been named a 2018 ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year, the second consecutive year that the association has received the prestigious award offered by the U.S. EPA. IREM won the award in the Energy Efficiency Program Delivery category for its education programs, industry research and the IREM Certified Sustainable Property certification, which incorporates ENERGY STAR tools and resources.

IREM representatives recently accepted the award at the ENERGY STAR Awards ceremony in Washington D.C. Attending on behalf of IREM were Angela Aeschliman, CPM, CCIM, LEED AP ND, Sustainability Advisory Board chair and senior vice president, Property and Asset Management, The Missner Group; Todd Feist, IREM’s sustainability program manager; and Charles Dilks, executive vice president, Colliers International, AMO.

ENERGY STAR Partners shared success stories and best practices at the Commercial & Industrial Buildings Partners Meeting, prior to the award ceremony. Speakers included:

• Al Scaramelli, managing director, Beacon Capital Partners, LLC, who shared a success story from a large office building in Chicago. Occupants were bypassing the revolving door and entering the building through the side door, resulting in energy loss and uncomfortable lobby conditions. Carefully designed window stickers reminding occupants to use the revolving door resulted in $50,000 in annual energy savings and corrected the lobby temperature issue. Scaramelli also described a project in which elevators were retrofitted with regenerative elevator drives.

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• Bill Perhacs, associate director, Global Energy Services, Bristol-Myers Squibb, who imparted best practices for running Energy Treasure Hunts, where cross-functional teams identify energy efficiency improvements. Bristol-Myers Squibb employs Energy Treasure Hunts at its facilities.

• Sam Stockdale, vice president, Global Real Estate, JPMorgan Chase & Co., who reviewed the company’s massive LED retrofit in its bank branches. According to Stockdale, the retrofit represented the largest purchase of LED lighting in history.

Other speakers discussed energy information, waste and materials tracking, community engagement on energy efficiency, and ENERGY STAR Charter Tenants.

The award ceremony featured speeches by Bill Wehrum, assistant administrator, Office of Air and Radiation, U.S. EPA; Carolyn Snyder, director, Climate Protection Partnerships Division, U.S. EPA; and Patricia Poppe, president and CEO, CMS Energy Corporation and Consumers Energy Company, an ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year – Sustained Excellence award winner.