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When the Empire State Building began their $500 million retrofit in 2009, they partnered with Jones Lang LaSalle’s Sustainability Team to create economically viable energy efficiency retrofits in the existing built environment. This enabled the Empire State building to reduce energy consumption by more than 38% in a project that pays for itself in about 3 years.
Here at PK Metals, we take pride in our commitment to sustainability. We have over 80 employees spread over 20 acres on Long Island, NY working to recycle electronics, metal, and plastic. We reached out to Jones Lang LaSalle because they are known for having one of the most robust sustainability initiatives in the industry. PK Metals is R2/RIOS cerifited electronics recycler, and our subsidiary e-Green Recycling Management LLC is R2, 14001, and NAID certified. We appreciate Jones Lang LaSalle’s commitment to sustainability.
To learn more about Jones Lang LaSalle’s Sustainability initiatives, we reached out to Dana Schneider, Senior Vice President, Energy and Sustainability Projects, to learn
We work on behalf of owners and occupiers to improve energy and water efficiency, measure and improve carbon footprint, certify buildings and offices, and enhance sustainability in general. Our services include portfolio energy management, lighting and whole-building retrofits, solar power installations and LEED certification. And we have specialized expertise to help corporate clients with sustainability in their workplace design, green standards in their leased space, and even their supply chain.
Our mission is to help real estate investors and corporations develop green strategies that help them meet their business goals. Investors are always looking for higher occupancy and rents, and a lot of tenants are looking for buildings with high Energy Star scores and LEED certification. Corporations are also motivated by low energy costs, and they’re becoming more aware that a well-designed, well-managed workplace can improve employee productivity. Even a small improvement in productivity is a big payback in terms of the cost of implementation. So companies want natural light and good air quality, and they want a way to measure and report progress. We help with all that.
So even though Jones Lang LaSalle doesn’t own buildings, we help owners save more than $100 million in energy costs every year, which translates to more than 500,000 tons of greenhouse gases.
Are there sustainability programs for tenants (such as recycling days)?
Most of our property management teams have ongoing tenant engagement programs. They may be fairly simple things, like battery recycling or an educational event on Earth Day, or newsletters reminding tenants on ways they can reduce energy and waste. Some buildings have more highly developed programs. For instance, at Aon Center in Chicago our property management team got the building’s largest tenants—including our firm–to commit to significant energy reductions in their spaces in part by involving employees. The building gained the highest recognition in the city’s Green Office Challenge, and the program has served as a model for other buildings we manage.
Employee engagement is really important to the sustainability efforts of our corporate clients, and since we’re usually the facility manager, we have a lot of involvement in those efforts. Just to use one example, Jones Lang LaSalle set up an employee car-pooling and van-pooling program for Yahoo! used by 17 percent of their employees at three or their biggest sites.
Can you discuss your work with the Empire State Building?
The work we’ve done at the Empire State Building has been truly innovative. It started with the owner, Tony Malkin, and conversations he was having with the Clinton Climate Exchange about whether a whole-building energy retrofit could be financially viable. For most owners, an energy project has to pay for itself within three or four years through reduced energy costs to be considered a good investment. Tony and CCI brought together teams from Johnson Controls, Jones Lang LaSalle and Rocky Mountain Institute to develop a process for analyzing the cost and payback of energy retrofit opportunities, to see if a retrofit that significantly reduced energy and carbon would make financial sense. One unique thing was the decision to publicly share all the documentation and tools we used during the analysis, so owners around the world could replicate the process. The entire team has been dedicated to showing corporate, public and investor owners how to make energy retrofits work by analyzing everything and choosing the right strategies in the right order.
