Expert Columns

Google is launching a first-of-its-kind clean energy partnership built around a new clean transition rate that can be replicated in many electricity markets across the United States. Over the past two years, the company has worked with partners across the U.S. to create a new, scalable pathway for utilities and large energy users to invest in clean firm capacity and accelerate the commercial deployment of advanced, clean technologies like geothermal energy.

Did you know certain refrigerants have a global warming potential over 10,000 times that of CO2? Refrigerant emissions don’t get the fanfare that buildings and renewable energy generation do, but in this column, Second Nature's Bridget Flynn explains why campuses are the right target to take responsibility for these fugitive emissions.

Microsoft has issued a Datacenter Community Pledge to build and operate digital infrastructure that addresses societal challenges and creates benefits for communities. In this column, Noelle Walsh, Corporate Vice President, Cloud Operations and Innovations, explains the Pledge's focus on three core areas: contributing to a sustainable future, advancing community prosperity and well-being, and operating responsibly as a good neighbor.

Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) became the first water utility in the nation to have all of its water treatment plants—three, in this case—certified to ISO 50001 and SEP 50001. The utility has an energy policy that commits financial and labor resources to achieving continual improvement in energy performance. Read this column from Better Buildings Solutions Center to learn how DMWW improved its energy performance by 19%.

The U.S. Department of Energy issued the Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCMs) Joint Policy Statement to provide guidance on how to advance high-integrity VCMs and fully achieve the potential of these markets. This column summarizes voluntary principles that U.S. market participants, including corporate buyers, should embrace as they engage in VCMs.

At Amazon, artificial intelligence is helping solar-plus-storage projects provide power even when the sun isn’t shining. Amazon teams are currently developing an AI model that will leverage machine learning capabilities, along with performance data from Amazon rooftop solar arrays, to help its San Bernardino Air Hub and other buildings minimize energy usage.

General Motors (GM) has publicly committed to reducing its energy consumption, water consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions across its 118 U.S. sites. All sites were tasked with evaluating potential contributions to the goal, as well as mapping glide paths to the targets. This column from Better Buildings explains how GM developed a new Energy and Carbon Optimization (ECO) Metrics Dashboard to standardize the process and help energy managers and plant leadership track monthly performance for energy, water, and emissions and estimate site-specific potential savings from their existing project roadmap.

Over the past 10 years, Green Lease Leaders has evolved to encourage continued green leasing best practice enhancement and encompass a wider range of property types around the world.  In this column from IMT's Diana Lee, we celebrate the program's milestone anniversary and its role in strengthening relationships between landlords and tenants in service of advancing asset-level decarbonization and sustainability initiatives,

To stay on track with their energy commitments, Pace University created a Coordinated Energy Management program that is focused on eliminating wasteful energy behaviors. In this column from Better Buildings, learn how the university brought on two full-time energy specialists to improve building management systems by matching HVAC equipment to occupancy, providing continuous audits of building space, enforcing a set point policy, and alerting facilities staff of equipment that may be wasting energy.