Going green leads to economic benefits

Stuart Bent and Garreth Holdstock with Kevin Williams. Photo / Supplied

CB Richard Ellis recently moved to level 14 of 21 Queen St, AMP NZ Office Trust's (ANZO) redeveloped CBD block near the waterfront, which features a green glass exterior.

However, it's not just the outward appearance of the building that's green, CBRE's new office fitout also has green as a predominant colour.

In addition, its fitting that, as an occupant of one of the country's five- star, green-rated buildings, CBRE's asset services team is managing the building with a green approach.

Stuart Bent, the property and facilities management team's national director, says most companies have a philosophy of looking after people and the planet, as well as profit and performance.

"We recognise property owners and tenants are no different and are keen for environmental changes where they can be shown to have economic returns."

Bent, who leads a team of 35, managing more than one million square metres of office, retail and industrial property throughout New Zealand with a total value of about $3.5 billion, says many green initiatives can be applied to buildings.

These include installation of smart metering to monitor consumption and patterns for electricity, water and gas, installation of variable speed drives to fans and pumps, lighting control systems, water restrictors on taps and reduced flushing systems, recycling and educating tenants to minimise energy, water and waste that goes to landfills.

One of the biggest developments has been an online induction system for contractors working on CBRE-managed buildings.

Garrath Holdstock, CBRE's technical services manager, says the building specific induction programme has been developed in conjunction with Safe Access Solutions (SAS) NZ.

"It gives our landlords extra comfort as they can see there is measurable level of compliance with New Zealand's health and safety laws.

"Professional property managers must have processes in place to control and identify hazards and they also need to meet their obligations to induct contractors. A body of case law has been built up saying building owners must take all practicable steps to induct contractors working on their buildings. Most of the time it has been ignored."

CBRE and SAS NZ started looking two years ago at how to make buildings safer. "We started with roof safety and then plant rooms and common areas," says Holdstock. "It has taken time to develop the system and we have now rolled it out nationally."

SAS director Kevin Williams says while there are generic safety induction programmes available, the missing link was having a building specific system integrated with text-based authorisation allowing approved contractors to carry out work on site.

"Previously, contractors could go anywhere they liked in a building. Now they are registered for specific areas after carrying out the online induction programme.

"Every contractor has a code number which they text to SAS NZ when arriving at a site and if the contractor is approved they receive a text confirming they are trained and exactly where they are permitted to work on site. "Under this system the helpdesk knows who is on each site, their mobile number, where they are, what they are doing and when they leave," says Williams.

"If contractors have only done certain modules and go to an area they are not authorised to work in and have an accident the building owner and manager is protected."

Holdstock says a few contractors have been sent away.

Surprisingly, Williams says, there has been little resistance from contractors to the system. "From their point of view we are giving them training they would not otherwise have had."

SAS NZ has more than 1400 contractors on its Auckland and Wellington databases and more than 900 have done the training so far, with numbers increasing every day.