Flex Your Power - Best Practices Guide for Commercial Office Buildings

California businesses collectively spend more than $15 billion a year on heating, cooling, lighting and other energy uses. Much of this cost is unnecessary. While high and variable energy costs will continue to impact their bottom line, companies of all types and sizes can take action to reduce these impacts.

Organizations that implement energy-efficient measures outperform their competitors by as much as 10%. To remain profitable and gain a competitive edge, companies need to do more than just turn off unnecessary lights and adjust thermostats. They need to make energy efficiency an essential part of their business plan. By doing so, businesses lower their utility bills and help California ensure a reliable energy supply.

To this end, please take a moment to visit the California's Flex Your Power website for the Commercial sector, here; and the Best Practices Guide for Commercial Office Buildings (2005), here (or come by the BOMA San Francisco office for a tangible copy of the guide), for recommendations on how you can sustain the natural environment while saving some "green" at the same time!

BOMA San Francisco's Environment Committee, one of the largest and most active committees within the BOMA membership, is intimately involved in promulgating environmentally sustainable business practices in the commercial real estate industry.  In fact, BOMA has long been a leader in promoting sustainable practices in commercial office buildings:

• Our High Rise Recycling Program began in 1987 and helped bring the city to a nearly 70% waste diversion rate.
  
• BOMA created a green lease, written to engage tenants in taking more responsibility for conserving energy use within their leased premises. 
• BOMA’s Energy Performance Contract was developed in concert with the Clinton Climate Initiative designed to stimulate investment in energy saving equipment.
• BOMA’s 7-Point Market Transformation Challenge was designed to reduce energy consumption in commercial buildings 30% by 2012.
• The BOMA Energy Efficiency Program – a series of six courses, was developed in concert with EPA, designed to improve operating efficiency and to benchmark energy use.  
• BOMA San Francisco’s Earth Awards program grades building performance across critical domains such as Recycling, Composting, Waste Reduction, Toxics and Air Quality Management, Environmentally Preferable Purchasing, Energy Conservation, Water Conservation, Energy Efficient Transportation, and Tenant Education. 
• Our local partnership with the U.S. Green Buildings Counsel to encourage our members to obtain individual LEED Accredited Professional certification, as well as to get their buildings LEED Certified.
• Energy Crisis Assistance – During the 2002 energy crisis, BOMA San Francisco provided energy conservation tips to building owners and their tenants.  For its efforts, BOMA was honored with the Governor’s “Flex your Power” award for outstanding leadership in energy conservation.  To that end, BOMA  eveloped a web resource to provide energy conservation tips and information energy rebate and incentive programs. 
• BOMA helped craft and strongly supports the City’s Construction & Demolition Debris Recycling Ordinance.