On Wednesday, October 30, the DowntownDC BID and the District of Columbia Department of the Environment recognized 16 companies that recently completed the 2013 pilot program of the DC Smarter Business Challenge to measure and improve sustainability in buildings. Following the recognition, the BID hosted a panel of industry experts to explore how the Challenge supports the goals of the District’s Sustainable DC Plan, and what to expect going forward. The event took place in the stunning new “Georgetown Downtown” School of Continuing Studies building.
The Smarter Business Challenge was a yearlong pilot program aimed at helping commercial office buildings in their resource management including energy, water, waste and transportation management. Assisted by an interactive website, benchmarking survey as well as in-person resources, the Challenge successfully connected 57 buildings representing over 17 million SF of commercial office space. Keith Anderson, Director of the DDOE, congratulated the Challenge participants and the BID’s ecoDistrict program on the successful public-private partnership. He thanked the BID for the leadership in launching the pilot and building it from the ground up. “We appreciate your support and commitment to making our city a model for urban sustainability,” Keith said.
The panel discussion provided a bridge for closing out the pilot program to looking at the future of urban performance in national downtowns. The panel was moderated by DowntownDC BID Executive Director Richard Bradley and included Uwe Brandes, Executive Director of Georgetown University’s Masters Program in Urban and Regional Planning, Sam Brooks, Associate Director, DC Department of General Services’ Energy & Sustainability Division, Helen Gurfel, Executive Director, ULI Greenprint Center for Building Performance and Tommy Russo, Chief Information Officer, Akridge.
Helen Gurfel opened the discussion with a brief presentation on the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Greenprint Center for Building Performance program and report. Gurfel emphasized the importance of good data collection to improve sustainability. Data measurement, verification, and standardization are critical to successful benchmarking, she noted, as well as the ability to easily report and compare the data. She commended the BID for demonstrating leadership in reducing energy consumption, enhancing economic performance, developing the sustainability of downtown DC, and taking action on the ideals of the ecoDistrict by implementing the Smarter Business Challenge.
Other noted comments and issues from the discussion included:
- Tommy Russo credited Akridge with prioritizing sustainable building practices since 2005, when the company set up the Green Committee and never looked back. “At Akridge, we are ecstatic over the Challenge,” he added. “Now people will have to compare their space to ours!” People are proud to be in an efficient building, he explained. Seeing lobby screens showing data like gallons of water used per person will help clients feel even more connected to their building’s energy performance.
- Sam Brooks is a strong advocate for benchmarking and sees it as the first step to improving sustainability in the 30 million square feet of DC government real estate. “Radically-transparent data is our approach,” explained Sam, describing new and improving energy consumption monitoring at District buildings. Crowd-sourced, collaborative data gathering will help create efficiencies and even generate competition between buildings, he suggested.
- Uwe Brandes recognized how robust data-gathering efforts could be used to improve energy management in the future. While nonprofits have led the way on sustainability in the past, he foresees a transformative opportunity for the building sector to lead themselves. “It’s exciting to see the DowntownDC BID here in Washington begin to own this conversation for itself. The BID is an organization that has the capacity and the sophistication to deliver.”
Coming up next for the Downtown ecoDistrict is the April 1, 2014 Energy Building Summit taking place at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
We want to congratulate and thank all the 2013 Challenge participants:
- Akridge
- American Landscape Architects Association
- American Public Health Association
- Boston Properties
- Brookfield
- Cassidy Turley
- Cushman-Wakefield
- Downtown DC Business Improvement District
- Hotel Monaco
- Hines
- Institute for Market Transformation
- JBG
- OTJ Architects
- Shorenstein
- Tower
- Transwestern
- DC Department of General Services
By declaring the DowntownDC BID area an ecoDistrict, the BID committed to organize major property owners and others to improve sustainability through operational practices and to support and accelerate city and national sustainability goals. – See more at: https://downtowndc.org/news/downtowndc-ecodistrict-enjoys-stellar-year-achievements#sthash.BoQzFyby.dpuf