How tightly does your organization embrace sustainability? If you are a maintenance and engineering manager in higher education, chances are your answer is different than the answer from a manager with a health care or a government organization.
When I discuss sustainability with managers, the conversation usually goes one of two ways. If I'm speaking with someone in higher education — as I did with Cary Avery, the associate director of grounds and landscape maintenance at the University of California-Davis for this month's cover story — the emphasis tends to emphasize working with management, other departments on campus, staff, and students. But if the manager is with a health care or government organization, the answer often describes challenges related to enlisting peers to support sustainability efforts related to maintenance and engineering priorities. Avery is a strong proponent of building a team to achieve sustainability goals.
"We've created nice gardens, using all the skill from the different groups on campus and integrated all the knowledge from around campus to have a good situation here," he says.
When assessing your facility's sustainability practices, think about who is on your team. Then consider who should be on the team. Incorporating a variety of voices and opinions on sustainability is likely to help your facility reach its goals more quickly — and help the environment in the process.
Dave Lubach offers insights gleaned from conversations with managers who make key maintenance and engineering decisions in commercial and institutional facilities.
Agree? Disagree? Have something to say? We want to hear from you. Visit myfacilitiesnet.com/davelubach, and start a conversation.
