sustainable facilities vs. Sustainable Facilities

Writing in Facilities Manager, Kevin Folsom asks: "Everything we build will decay, but it may last longer if properly maintained. So here’s a puzzling question….If we build facilities that the natural law causes to decay at fairly predictable rates from birth to burial, why do we not plan for it?" He also notes:

Institutional leadership is not taking into account the renewal needs of their facilities. And, the maintenance operations run on average with about half the funding needed. Meanwhile, as we progress along through the years, we hit a quantum leap in environmental sustainability awareness. Then to everyone’s surprise, leadership begins to see that not enough is being done to support this, mostly in their facilities. As a result, we begin cramming all this new energy saving technology and techniques into old antiquated facilities needing significant renewal. What are we going to do about this? Fortunately, the solution has been used by numerous institutions for 30+ years.needs. Not all state institutions can carry funding over annually, or plan on interest income so we’ll go about this solution differently, but let’s work on the private institutions.

Read more about his solution here (PDF).