In response to growing concern over the reliability and pricing of power, the national commercial real estate firm of Julien J. Studley Inc., headquartered in New York City, has developed a study on electric power in the United States. The 32-page report, National Outlook on Power: Supply, Demand & Economic Risk, provides a detailed analysis of electric power in 12 U.S. markets while offering solutions for tenants seeking to protect themselves from outages and price spikes.
Economic growth in the United States during the past decade has pushed consumption of electricity to new heights. At the same time, the development of new generation plants and transmissions systems has not kept pace, creating the potential for future outages and price spikes devastating to businesses and prospects focused on future growth. Notes CEO and Chairman Julien J. Studley, "Many national corporations have already begun to examine power when contemplating a move."
The report includes an industry overview and sections on deregulation, price volatility, reliability, technology, tenant savings solutions, strategies for the future, a focus on selected U.S. markets, and more. For more information, call (212) 326-1000 or visit (www.studley.com).
France Designs for Waste Management
What can be done with 31 million metric tons of waste generated every year by building sites in France, at a moment when the demolition of 15,000 low-rent housing units is planned for the country in the year 2003? According to the French Technology Press Office Inc., based in Chicago, the risks and rewards of sustainable development and the toughening of European legislation will progressively cause manufacturers to recycle as much waste as possible and to limit the amount that is dumped.
For this purpose, the CSTB (French Research Center for Building and Construction) has developed an overall approach to waste management, ranging from the design of construction products to demolition operations. It has two objectives:
- To limit at the source the amount of waste generated at sites by studying the environmental characteristics of construction products as soon as they are designated.
- To improve the management of such waste by anticipating their production and collection, and by determining relevant recycling applications during construction, improvement, and demolition operations.
The approach depends on tools developed by CSTB for the acquisition and organization of data aimed at assisting decision-making during the various phases of a building's lifetime.
The CSTB is evaluating the overall environmental performance of construction products using Equity 2 software as a life-cycle analysis tool. It makes it possible to evaluate ways to reduce the amount of waste generated by a product, depending on the execution process, the type of maintenance, or building demolition involved. The GRADE 2 software program currently under development makes it possible to organize improvement and deconstruction sites by predicting procedures and materials required to manage waste, hygiene and safety measures to apply to a site, and ways to limit pollutant emissions and nuisances. To help manufacturers identify a waste recycling activity, CSTB has also designed a "Recycling Diagnosis," which makes it possible to estimate the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility of any raw process that uses secondary raw materials into construction products.
Interested in more information? Contact the French Technology Press Office at (312) 222-1235; Fax (312) 222-1237.
Etcetera
Equity Office Properties Trust, the nation's largest publicly held office building owner and manager has reached an agreement with Atlanta-based FacilityPro, a builder and operator of private procurement marketplaces for the real estate industry. By implementing FacilityPro's procurement marketplace, Equity Office expects to streamline the purchasing process for its maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) products.
Nashville-based MagneTek Lighting Products, a leading manufacturer of electronic and magnetic ballasts, recently announced its name change to Universal Lighting Technologies. For energy-saving solutions, visit the company website (www.universalballast.
com).
Recently, Milwaukee-headquartered Johnson Controls Inc. launched its e-business portal solution to the U.S. real estate market. Called "Bosmart," the portal design integrates reporting tools to create a platform where a corporate real estate team and the outsourcing partner can work more collaboratively. Visit the Johnson Controls' website (www.johnsoncontrols.com).
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