Using TREES to save the forest
Lots of green building news bouncing around in the past few weeks, which simultaneously disheartening and heartening because of the state of the real estate market. The biggest deal, perhaps, is the fact that the U.S. Green Building Council is updating its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design guidelines. (Here's the latest LEED news.)
New construction, however, is way off, so when it comes to using technology to make buildings greener, there's needs to be a serious ramp-up in retrofit projects and in tools that help companies and individuals figure these projects out logically. The TREES software application from TRIRIGA is intended for businesses trying to get a better handle on the environmental profile of existing buildings, which account for something like 48 percent of all energy consumption in our country. TREES stands for TRIRIGA Real Estate Environmental Sustainability. The company boasts 35 percent of the Fortune 100 as clients, including Gap and Nokia.
The software helps companies measure where their buildings stand today and helps them set scenarios for power consumption and carbon emissions reductions, according to George Ahn, president and CEO of TRIRIGA. In essence, it helps them become carbon-healthy.
"In order to be on a diet you need to recognize your current weight. We're claiming all these goals but really don't know for sure," Ahn says of companies that try to set carbon and power consumption reduction goals in a vacuum.A LEED certification checklist is included in the software, so companies can check themselves against the guidelines. The tool also can pull in information from other point products that might offer information about what a specific operation, such as IT, might be contributing to the bigger picture.
TREES is priced much as a traditional enterprise software application would be priced. Although Ahn declined to disclose specifics, he says an organization really needs to have at least 1 million square feet of real estate under development to make using this software really relevant.