Measure performance and improve your existing building

While there is a lot of incentive to build new buildings as efficiently as possible, what about the mass of existing buildings that make up a majority of our built environment?  What is being done to improve the energy and water efficiency of these buildings?

The leader in this sector is BOMA (Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada), and its BOMA BESt program which sets “realistic standards for energy and environmental performance of existing buildings based on accurate, independently verified information” (  Thurston Engineering Services has itself seen the benefits of this program:

  1. Reductions in electrical and natural gas consumption;
  2. Reductions in water consumptions (and thereby reductions in sewer and infrastructure charges);
  3. Increases in the % of diversion of garbage to the landfill;
  4. Increased awareness in the daily operations of a building; and
  5. Reduction in the overall GHG footprint a building has on the environment.

The process is simple and effective.  First, register your building to the program.  Upon approval, complete an on-line questionnaire to assess your energy performance, environmental performance, and your management practices.  Within this questionnaire are helpful tips and recommendations, giving you immediate value from the program.  Then, third party verification is needed to add to the BOMA BESt Assessment.

Thurston Engineering has been a service provider of many third party verifications (or audits), intending not only to satisfy requirements of the BOMA BESt program, but also to add maximum value to the process by talking face-to-face with owners and operators and bringing all of our experience to the table: we will provide a priority list of industry-proven recommendations suitable for our climate, our energy cost structure, and your building, so that the owner is left with a smart system improvement and equipment replacement program for years to come.

While certification is great, we believe there should be more benefit to the program than a sticker to put up next to the elevator.

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