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Houston — Nov. 11, 2014 – Transwestern announced that it is in 17th place out of 84 teams at the halfway point in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2014 ENERGY STAR National Building Competition: Team Challenge.
In the first six months of the competition, from January 2014 to June 2014, Team Transwestern has reduced energy consumption by 4.1 percent and water consumption by 6.1 percent.
“This competition brings sustainability and energy conservation into the national spotlight,” said Al Skodowski, Transwestern managing senior vice president and director of LEED and sustainability services. “It’s very exciting to rank so high in a competition of this caliber, and we look forward to how much more progress we can make in the second half.”
As of mid-year, Transwestern manages 917 office buildings totaling 231 million square feet. The firm has reduced the annual electric usage in its managed portfolio by 96,697,560 kBtu since second-quarter 2013, avoiding 17,325 metric tons of CO2.
This year’s competition is modeled after popular weight-loss competitions, in which buildings will lose energy and water “weight” through improvements in efficiency. Competitors list their “weigh-in” results on the EPA website.
Competitors measure and track monthly energy consumption using the EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager tool, make improvements to building energy performance and share progress. In April 2015, the EPA will select the individual and team competitors that demonstrate the greatest percentage-based reduction in energy use intensity and the competitors with the greatest percentage-based reduction in water use intensity.
The EPA will also recognize a top building by building category using the same metric, as well as all individual and team competitors that reduce energy or water use by 20 percent or more.
According to the EPA, energy use in commercial buildings accounts for nearly 20 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and energy use at a cost of more than $100 billion per year. On average, 30 percent of the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted.
Thousands of businesses and organizations work with the EPA’s ENERGY STAR program and each year are saving billions of dollars and preventing millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions from entering the atmosphere.
Transwestern’s in-house sustainability team has hands-on experience in many areas of sustainability and provides a variety of services, including energy audits, commissioning, ENERGY STAR benchmarking, LEED certification services, and sustainability education. As of mid-year 2014, the team has LEED-certified 88 properties totaling 26.8 million square feet, and its efforts have saved 47.2 million gallons of water, 303,852 tons of CO2 and 336,060 tons of waste.
Transwestern is a privately held real estate firm specializing in agency leasing, property and facilities management, tenant advisory, capital markets, research, and sustainability. The fully integrated global enterprise leverages competencies in office, industrial, retail, multifamily, and healthcare properties to add value for investors, owners and occupiers of real estate.
