​Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from the May/June 2011 edition of APPA’s Facilities Manager magazine. The issue focuses on community colleges. APPA has allowed CC Times readers to view the full article for free.

With capital project funding at a premium, community college facility managers will need to build a convincing business case for recommending a high-performance building approach to their school’s next project. Below are steps to help make that case.

• Identify mission-critical factors. The best business cases link decisions to the college’s mission and objectives. Consider how adopting high-performance strategies can contribute to the school’s success by creating an improved learning environment. Also consider how a system failure would negatively impact mission effectiveness.
  
  
• Quantify economic impact. To the extent possible, estimate the economic impact of each factor on the college. For example, what is the positive impact of reducing absenteeism rates? What is the negative impact of preventable failure of a building heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HAVC) system?
  To help green economy, colleges must do more than train workers   
• Conduct a critical building systems audit. A critical systems audit (CSA) helps facilities managers determine the current level of performance of critical building systems such as HVAC, water, lighting, electrical, mechanical, controls and instrumentation. Many community colleges engage a third party, such as an energy services company (ESCO) to help conduct their CSA.
  
  
• Gather and analyze energy and operating costs. An ESCO can help acquire and analyze energy use over a period of several years, which can be compared to aggregate data for similar sized schools and best-in-class facilities. A wide range of benchmarks are available, including the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey, a nonbiased source of energy information, analysis and forecasting.
  
  
• Calculate average maintenance costs. Estimate the average annual costs of planned and unplanned maintenance, using several years of actual cost data, if available. Also calculate the cost of responding to an unplanned failure, including the cost of repairs made in a reactive mode. Consider the disruption to normal operations that an unplanned failure can have and its associated costs.
  
  
• Evaluate operational benefits. Consider the value added with a high-performance approach in such categories as student and teacher performance, productivity, property values and brand a reputation.
  

Harris is the vertical market leader responsible for Trane, a global provider on indoor comfort systems and services and a brand of Ingersoll Rand. Maldeis is a energy engineering manager for Trane.