CH 4
VOLUNTARY PILOT RUN
HKGBC Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings
37
Selection
of
Indicators
A lot of factors in a buildling affecting its consumption of resources including
HVAC, lighting, elevators, devices, and most importantly human behaviour. As
the development of the plan hinges on the availability, usability and comparability
of data, it is essential for the stakeholders to standardise and agree on a certain
type of indicator to be used. Consequently, there are several
determinants of
indicators
that must be considered during the selection process:
1. Nature of Tenancy
A main determinant of indicator revolves around the ability to accurately
measure the performance between the natures of multiple tenants. For example,
Tenant A operates an accouting firm, whereas Tenant B operates a website
hosting company. It is assumed that
electricity per occupant (kWh/employee)
is
used as a standard to determine whether or not the companies are operating
efficiently. For Tenant A, due to its business nature as an accouting firm, it employs
a large amount of accountants so allowing it to achieve low kWh/employee
values. On the other hand, Tenant B is a website hosting company, which operates
servers to support its hosting services. As Tenant B only requires staff to maintain
the servers, the amount of labour required will be much lower. If this indicator is
applied to both Tenants, there will be skewing within the results which will suggest
that Tenant B is less efficient. This might not be a true repesentation of Tenant B's
sustainability. Henceforth there is a need to obtain a suitable indicator which can
be used to express the performance of these two tenancies correctly.
2. Consistency of Data
Once an indicator has been standardised, the consistency of data collection
should also be ensured. This is particularly vital when comparing between data
across different tenancies or with previous data. A good example reflecting the
need to maintain an appropriate indicator would be the comparison of data for
electricity usage between this year and the previous year. If the data from last
year was measured in kWh/occupant, whereas the data this year was kWh/
Lettable floor area, it will be almost impossible to compare and measure
performance gains due to the inconsistencies.
