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September is National Preparedness Month — 3 steps for landlords
Steven Dutro Facilities & GroundsSeptember is National Preparedness Month, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a message for everyone: "Don't wait. Communicate. Make your emergency plan today." With that in mind, there are three important steps we can take as landlords to protect our tenants and our properties.
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Marketing your multifamily community: Where to begin
Pamela Treat Abeyta Facilities & GroundsFor the multifamily owner, investment manager or property manager, marketing a community can take a large chunk of time and expense. For the owner who doesn't have a dedicated marketing manager, it can probably be an overwhelming part of your role.
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Working together on a license to chill
Andrew Gaved ManufacturingThe announcement last month that AHRI and the United Nations Environment Program had agreed on co-operative development of the so-called "refrigerant driving license" (RDL) has been greeted favorably in Europe.
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Solar energy trends pushing renewable energy forward
Don Rosato EngineeringMost people no longer ask whether solar energy/photovoltaics (PV) will be a success, the question is now rather which forms of PV will be successful. PV will become cost competitive with a significant portion of new total electricity generation worldwide by 2020. The total global installed PV capacity is fast approaching 100 gigawatts (GW) — up from 1.5 GW in 2000 to 92 GW at mid-year 2015.
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UK heat pump industry warns ‘technology may die’
Andrew Gaved ManufacturingYou may recall I wrote previously about the alarmed reaction of the U.K. HVAC industry to the new government's systematic "ungreening" of its flagship green-building policies. I described how the new Conservative administration had halted funding of the Green Deal program of energy efficiency measures and rowed back from its zero-carbon building targets on the grounds of "saving taxpayers money."
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Report: The evolving use of work order management systems
Bruce Condit Facilities & GroundsWork order management systems continue to evolve rapidly in the world of facility maintenance. Today, these high-tech, integrated tools can access and provide data from multiple platforms and provide both retailers and vendors the information needed to make better, faster decisions that cut costs and improve efficiencies.
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Concrete jungle redefined: How urban agriculture improves wellness
Bianca Gibson Facilities & GroundsFrom urban farms to green roofs and school gardens, urban agriculture's popularity has steadily increased in recent years — and for good reason. Urban agriculture plants a seed of wellness by improving physical and mental health, community revitalization and environmental awareness. Anyone who lives in an urban setting can engage in this movement and begin to take back their land and health one plant at a time.
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Best practices for landscaping RFPs
Kevin Smith Facilities & GroundsAs portfolios continue to expand and the year-round needs of a company's landscaping are addressed, best practices for landscaping requests for proposal become even more important for your business. Sourcing and selecting one or more partners to deliver your landscaping services is a critical initiative, and one that needs to be mapped out. Here we will examine some of the steps to ensure a successful sourcing initiative.
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As UK strips away green policies, HVAC sector takes a big hit
Andrew Gaved ManufacturingIn a time when economic prudence is necessary, the United Kingdom's new Conservative Party government installed in May has wasted no time in taking an ax to policies it believes will be costly to the taxpayer. However, a number of these are high-profile "green" policies, designed to reduce the energy consumption of its building stock. This has seen the new government crossing swords with the HVAC sector, along with the combined might of environmentalists, the construction industry and the renewable energy business.
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How smart technology can put an end to thermostat wars
Michael J. Berens Facilities & GroundsWashington Post columnist Petula Dvorak hit an icy nerve with her recent piece on gender disputes over thermal comfort in office spaces. "Every single woman I talked to in downtown Washington on a hot, humid July afternoon was thawing out," Dvorak writes. "It's the time of year desperate women rely on cardigans, pashminas and space heaters to make it through the workweek in their frigid offices. And their male colleagues barely notice."
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