IT giant IBM Corp has committed to aiding the US commercial and government sectors run energy efficiently under a new $11.5 million retrofit contract.
On a global scale, major IT companies are seeing the benefits of running both their own and others’ commercial office spaces in a more environmentally responsible nature with benefits ranging from lower energy bills to higher customer satisfaction, on top of the environmental benefits for the wider community.
In the Greenpeace report ‘How Dirty Is Your Data’, IBM rated extremely well in the level of transparency of their practices. It is now their prerogative to see the US run more efficiently from both technological and built fronts on a larger scale.
The multi-million dollar contract will include the development and installation of advanced smart building technology in General Services Administration (GSA) buildings.
Included in the plan is a smart building strategy, which aims to retrofit 50 of the US government’s ‘brownest’ buildings. Energy efficiency of the buildings will be maximised with the inclusion of cloud-based computing platforms and other such advancements.
The initiative is expected to aid in the running of the buildings and will also remove economic pressure on the US public, with an expected monetary saving associated with the carbon cutting of up to 15 million taxpayer dollars annually.
The overall plan is in line with federal government requirements, which include a 30 per cent energy reduction in government buildings by 2015.
Once the government buildings have been retrofitted, IBM is looking into doing the same for all of the facilities under the GSA portfolio.
Not only will the additional technology create more energy efficient facilities, but monitoring of diagnostics and building energy performance rates will also be included.
“This program connects existing building technologies in new ways to improve building efficiency in over 32 million square feet of real estate,” says GCA Acting Public Buildings Commissioner Linda Chero.
The US industry clearly understands that energy efficiency leads to efficiency of economics. These initial retrofits are simply the tip of the iceberg for the US, who now well and truly understand the power of green building as a tool to aid in the rehabilitation of their struggling economy.
