Commercial Allience & Green Buildings for Energy Savings

Alliance to Cut Energy Consumption of Commercial Buildings

Commercial buildings account for 18% of the energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. To reduce that impact, top executives from 19 commercial real estate companies have volunteered to join forces with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to create the Commercial Real Estate Energy Alliance (CREEA).

The alliance includes executives from CB Richard Ellis, Cushman & Wakefield, Grubb & Ellis, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Jones Lang LaSalle, MGM Mirage, Transwestern, U.S. General Services Administration, USAA Real Estate Company, The Walt Disney Company, Wyndham Hotel and Resorts, American Hotel and Lodging Association, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Building Owners and Managers Association, Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, and the Real Estate Roundtable.

“The deployment of new energy efficient technologies and adoption by both public and private sectors are vital to achieving substantial change in building energy use throughout the U.S.,” said Scott Hine, acting program manager of DOE’s Building Technologies Program. “This collaboration will help speed the adoption of high-performance, energy-efficient buildings by the commercial real estate sector.”

CREEA links building owners and operators with applicable research and technologies being developed at DOE’s national laboratories. The alliance serves as a national forum to share best practices and practical experiences in energy efficiency. It is also a collective buying voice for the industry, encouraging building material suppliers to create more energy-efficient equipment.

CREEA is part of the department’s Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building Initiative, which aims to achieve market-ready, zero-energy commercial buildings by 2025. CBI also includes a National Laboratory Collaborative on building technologies, concentrating the efforts of five National Laboratories on the Net-Zero energy goal, and the Commercial Building National Accounts, which conducts cost-shared research, development and deployment for new building technologies among major national companies.

Source: Green Resource Council Newsletter, April 2009