LEARN MORE AT energystar.gov ENERGY STAR® is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency program helping businesses and individuals fight global warming through superior energy efficiency. Bring Your Green to Work with ENERGY STAR® Tips for Building Managers The places where we work, shop, play, and learn spend $200 billion annually on electricity and natural gas and contribute nearly half of our nation's greenhouse gas emissions. With help from EPA's ENERGY STAR program, you can improve the energy efficiency of America's buildings and fight global warming. Follow these steps featured in EPA's Building Upgrade Manual1, developed from more than a decade of experience working with building owners and managers across the country, to get started on the path to savings. Give Your Building a Tune-Up Regularly examine building equipment, systems, and maintenance procedures to make sure your building is operating as efficiently as possible. Tune up heating equipment; inspect ducts and windows and seal any leaks; calibrate thermostats and set them at appropriate temperatures; insulate hot water tanks and piping throughout the building; inspect and clean/change air filters. Improve Lighting Systems Lighting consumes 25-30 percent of energy in commercial buildings. Improving lighting systems can reduce electricity consumption and improve the comfort of occupants in the building. Compare the lighting schedule with building uses to look for opportunities to turn lights off; replace incandescent bulbs for task lighting with ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulbs; use automatic controls to turn lights off or dim lights in naturally lit spaces. Take a Look Inside and Out Reducing the amount of energy used by inefficient office equipment and other products can save energy and money. Purchase ENERGY STAR qualified office equipment whenever possible. Don't waste conditioned air—install window films and add insulation or a reflective roof coating to save energy. Upgrade Fan Systems Air-handling systems move air throughout a building and therefore directly affect the comfort of building occupants. Fan systems can be upgraded and adjusted to optimize the delivery of air in the most energy efficient way. Properly sized fan systems add variable speed drives, and convert to a variable-air-volume system. Raise the Bar for Heating and Cooling Systems Heating and cooling systems are large consumers of energy in buildings and offer great opportunities for saving energy and increasing the comfort of building occupants. Once you've followed the steps above and reduced the building's cooling loads, retrofit or install energy-efficient models and upgrade boilers and other central plant systems to energy-efficient standards. 1 http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=business.bus upgrade manual ------- |