FS Energy Featured in IMT Study on Energy Disclosure and Job Creation
New York, NY (PRWEB) March 29, 2012
FS Energy, LLC, a leading independent provider of comprehensive energy solutions for multi-family residential properties, and a subsidiary of FirstService Corporation [NASDAQ: FSRV; TSX: FSV and FSV.PR.U], announced today that it has been featured as a pioneering business in a new report on energy disclosure and job creation by the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), a nonprofit in Washington, DC. The report, Energy Disclosure and the New Frontier for American Jobs, profiles business leaders in the emerging field of building energy management who are adding jobs and expanding their client rosters.
The report shows how a new kind of energy policy is creating skilled, export-proof jobs in cities across the U.S. Under this type of policy, called building energy rating and disclosure, owners of large buildings track exactly how much energy their properties are using. Armed with this information, they can make changes that reduce both their utility bills and those of their tenants and residents— a win-win situation for all.
“The secrets to our success include benchmarking and transparency,” says David Diestel, senior vice president of operations for FirstService Residential Management. Last year, before New York City’s Local Law 84 Benchmarking law took effect, FS Energy developed its own energy scorecard, known as the Building Energy Rating Guide (BERG), and applied it to over 400 of FirstService’s managed properties in New York City.
“Before we issued scorecards, our clients were not motivated to implement efficiency improvements,” Diestel explains. “Yet as clients began to understand how their buildings were performing relative to other properties, the demand for efficiency improvements began to skyrocket, and continues to rise today.” In addition, an innovative financing package offered by FS Energy, in which clients pay for energy efficiency upgrades through utility bill savings, helped spur the transformation.
Growing from fewer than 10 retrofit projects completed in 2009, FS Energy currently has 30 retrofit projects in progress and expects to have another dozen completed by year-end. These projects will help clients reduce their energy costs by millions of dollars and shrink their carbon output by tens of thousands of metric tons.
Five cities and two states have already adopted similar energy disclosure policies. IMT research has found that implementation of a comparable national energy policy would add 23,000 net new jobs in 2015 and 59,000 jobs in 2020.
According to David Kuperberg, the CEO of FS Energy, making a building’s energy use transparent through grades posted online or shared in real estate transactions, is comparable to affixing an MPG sticker to its façade. As a result, consumers can shop for office space or a new apartment with an eye towards their future utility costs. In turn, this will motivate owners to make their buildings more efficient, creating demand for specialists who can work with property owners to reduce energy use.
The report, Energy Disclosure and the New Frontier for American Jobs, is available at http://www.imt.org.
CONTACTS AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT:
David Diestel, Senior Vice President, Operations
FirstService Residential Management
T: (954) 926-2924
E: ddiestel(at)fsresidential(dot)com
David Kuperberg, Chief Executive Officer
FS Energy, LLC
T: (212) 634-8910
E: david.kuperberg(at)fsenergyservices(dot)com
ABOUT FS ENERGY
Based in New York City and founded in 2009, FS Energy is the energy management and advisory subsidiary of FirstService Corporation. FS Energy is successfully reducing energy costs and carbon while increasing the asset value of FirstService managed properties through customized energy management strategies. FS Energy takes a cutting edge approach, leveraging its portfolio size and groundbreaking proprietary data collection to determine the most appropriate cost and carbon reduction initiatives. Already a leader in New York City, FS Energy is well on its way to achieving its goal of reducing energy cost and carbon by 25% across its New York City portfolio by 2013. More information about FS Energy is available at http://www.FSEnergyServices.com.
ABOUT FIRSTSERVICE
FirstService Corporation is a global leader in the rapidly growing real estate services sector, providing a variety of services in: commercial real estate, residential property management, and property services. As one of the largest property managers in the world, FirstService manages more than 2.3 billion square feet of residential and commercial properties through its three industry-leading service platforms: Colliers International, one of the largest global players in commercial real estate services; FirstService Residential Management, the largest manager of residential communities in North America; and Property Services, including Field Asset Services, one of America’s largest providers of property preservation and distressed asset management and FS Brands, one of North America’s largest providers of property services through franchise networks.
FirstService generates over US$ 2.2 billion in annual revenues and has more than 23,000 employees worldwide. More information about FirstService is available at http://www.firstservice.com.
ABOUT IMT
The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting energy efficiency, green building, and environmental protection in the United States and abroad. Much of IMT’s work addresses market failures that inhibit investment in energy efficiency. For more information, visit http://www.imt.org.
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