Category Archives: Economics

USGBC Green Building Tours – October 3-8, 2016

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GREEN BUILDING TOURS

Green Building tours are one of Greenbuild’s most popular and exciting features, providing the opportunity to explore green buildings ranging from government facilities to zoo exhibits. This year in Los Angeles, Greenbuild tours will help attendees learn outside the convention center walls and present the best of the area’s sustainable buildings and neighborhoods.

The Greenbuild Tours Program is developed by the Greenbuild 2016 Host Committee, USGBC-LA.


Descanso Gardens

About Greenbuild International
Conference & Expo – Oct. 5-7, 2016

 Greenbuild is the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. The ideals and passion of the green building community come alive at Greenbuild. The buzz is contagious.

Greenbuild brings together industry leaders, experts and frontline professionals dedicated to sustainable building in their everyday work, and a unique energy is sparked. Participants are invigorated. Inspired. They find themselves equipped to return to their jobs with a renewed passion and purpose.

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LADWP SummerShift Program Increases Incentives July-September 2016

Screen Shot 2016-07-03 at 7.59.41 PM“With the current moratorium on new injections of natural gas from Aliso Canyon there is a heightened threat of outages this summer, especially during times of extreme heat when gas and electricity are in higher demand. Customer participation in SummerShift will help minimize the risk of rotating outages, which could result in serious health and safety risks, as well as create financial impacts to our customers.”  – Board President Mel Levine.

To avoid power outages this summer, LADWP has announced that the incentives for large commercial customers who decrease their summer demand for energy  has been greatly increased.  The first-of-its-kind program is effective immediately until the end of September 2016.

SummerShift (flyer) is just one of several measures being undertaken by the utility to mitigate the risk of outages caused by the moratorium on gas injections into Aliso Canyon.

SummerShift benefits include:

  1. Receive significant incentives (through a bill credit) of $10 per kW for energy saved or shifted away from the peak period
  2. Avoid cost impacts and inconveniences of electrical service interruptions
  3. Partner with LADWP in preventing power outages this summer affecting all customers

Other measures include:

  • Making operational changes to maximize flexibility of gas-fired power plants to preserve natural gas for critical periods.
  • Maximizing use of alternative fuel sources, including renewable energy.
  • Public outreach to residential customers to reduce their energy use, and participate in Flex Alerts, such as the one issued Monday.
  • Expanding Demand-Response Programs to provide discounts for participating large commercial and industrial customers to reduce and shift their energy use away from peak periods.

To participate in LADWP’s Demand Response Program, businesses must meet these criteria:

  • Have an existing Building Energy Management System
  • Be able to curtail load by 100 kilowatts (kW) for each DR event
  • Be able to adjust operations to participate during the DR season – June 15 to October 15
  • Be able to adjust operations between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. PST
  • Be able to participate with day-ahead or two hour advance notification

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LACI Host “LaunchPad” Welcoming 25 Israeli GreenTechs

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Gov. Brown & PM Netanyahu’s MOU on Israel-CA Cleantech Collaboration in Action

Two exciting collaborations are taking place starting today in Los Angeles – efforts to combat the drought and fight climate change through Israeli-California collaboration – which will build off the landmark MOU signed between Governor Jerry Brown of California and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.

A delegation of field-proven Israeli companies will engage in the first-ever Israel California Water (ICWater) Conference. The list of attendees includes an impressive collection of key stakeholders, policy makers, city officials, corporate leaders, and investors.

Immediately following the conference, a select group of pioneering Israeli energy and water technologies will participate in “LaunchPad” at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), an intensive “bootcamp” program designed to help prepare the companies to launch into the California market. LACI will also be hosting a high-level event, where the companies will have the opportunity to pitch their ventures to the LACI Leadership Council.

For background on the Israel-CA Green-Tech Partnership and to sign-up for their blog.

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Energy Efficiency Keeps Electricity Affordable

Fingering Coins

 

In a story written by Steven Nadel, Executive Director, ACEEE announced two studies that show energy efficiency not only keeps electricity affordable but it reduces environmental compliances costs. On March 18th, they released:

  • “How Much Does Energy Efficiency Cost?” includes results from studies by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, ACEEE, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Finds that energy efficiency is consistently a lowest cost option for meeting electric demand. One of the studies finds that the costs of energy efficiency have been level in recent years.
  • Energy Efficiency Lowers the Cost of Clean Power Plan Compliance looks at the results of three studies, all finding that including energy efficiency as part of state compliance plans will lower costs to utility customers. One study finds that an energy efficiency scenario reduced electric bills by 17%. Another study shows that in most states using energy efficiency for compliance with the CPP will reduce bills by more than $10 per month.

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Top Ten Ways to Save on Home Energy Costs

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Did you know that solar power is not the only remedy for your high energy bills? Sure, it’s a fundamental part of any energy efficiency effort, but there are many other steps you can take to drastically reduce your utility bills.

This article provides details on some of the most efficient ways to positively impact your energy

  1. SOLAR POOL HEATING

  2. ENERGY STAR EXTERIOR WINDOWS

  3. COOL WALL COATINGS

  4. EFFICIENT LIGHTING

  5. COOL ROOF

  6. SOLAR PV SYSTEM

  7. RADIANT BARRIERS

  8. ENERGY STAR AIR CONDITIONING

  9. INSULATED DUCTS

  10. HIGH EFFICIENCY VARIABLE SPEED POOL PUMP

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10 Smart Building Myths Debunked

SmartBldgMythsSmart buildings have been proven to save energy, streamline facilities management and prevent expensive equipment failures. Yet to many property owners and investors, the value of smart buildings remains a mystery.

The reality is that in most buildings, one can demonstrate a strong business case for strategic investments in smart building systems and management technologies. Not everyone, however, is aware that the tremendous advantages of today’s affordable smart building management technologies easily justify the cost. See infographic (PDF).

Leo O’Loughlin of Jones Lang LaSalle has ennumerated 10 myths about smart buildings that need to be debunked in the marketplace. Briefly they are:

10. Smart building technologies are expensive

9. Smart buildings are only about energy

8. Smart buildings and green buildings are the same thing

7. Industrial facilities or laboratories can’t become smart buildings

6. Smart buildings can only be new buildings

5. Smart building technologies are not interoperable

4.  Smart systems don’t make a building more attractive to tenants

3. Without a municipal smart grid, a building can’t really be smart

2. Smart buildings are complicated to operate

1. Smart buildings are a no-brainer

Leo O’Loughlin is Senior Vice President of energy and sustainability services at Jones Lang LaSalle.

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PACE Now: Lender Support Study

TreePeopleCenterPACENow is pleased to release the Lender Support Study, which surveyed national, regional and local mortgage lenders whose interests in buildings could be affected by PACE financings. PACE programs in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco retained PACENow to develop and implement the survey, with grant support provided by the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.

There is apprehension that lenders will be hesitant to support permitting PACE financing to current mortgages.

The Lender Support Study’s goals included gauging lenders’ awareness and understanding of PACE, educating them, addressing their concerns, and developing insights that will enhance efforts to gain their support for individual PACE projects. Click here to download the study that summarizes the findings of interviews conducted with 35 individuals representing 25 different lending institutions.

Key findings and recommendations:

  1. Surveyed lenders generally expressed no blanket opposition to PACE. Their right to consent to projects is of paramount importance to them, but they appear open to approving projects that benefit their customers and improve the value of their collateral. Lender partnership and education from the start is the key in improving probability of lender consent.

  2. Lenders support energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in concept, but have little firsthand experience financing them and are wary of underwriting the resulting projected savings and benefits. Education based on standard industry data and results from comparable projects is necessary to increase ease of approvals and create streamlined the processes.

  3. Lenders understand property taxes and assessments and factor them into underwriting models decisions. There was broad acceptance of PACE as an assessment, which limits lien exposure only to unpaid assessments, distinguishing it from a loan.

  4. Complexity in applications contributes to increased costs and may make some projects economically unfeasible. The size and scope of a PACE assessment should determine the degree of supporting documentation. A simple, streamlined approval process for small projects (representing less than 3% of building value) should be developed with the lender community.

  5. Consistency of programs across states and the nation, standardization of data sources, and creation of project related insurance policies will improve the consent process as lenders (and PACE finance providers/investors) can create national approval platforms and review projects with fewer resources.

  6. Existing commercial mortgage lenders have only an indirect revenue benefit from providing consent. As such, applicants have the onus of making the approval process easier for lenders until revenue streams across banks are properly aligned or existing mortgage lenders begin to provide PACE financing.

DOWNLOAD THE STUDY…

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Overcoming Market Barriers to Advance Energy Efficiency

EEMarketBarriersU.S. energy use is approximately half of what it would have been if we had not improved our efficiency over the past 40 years. Still, there are large, cost-effective opportunities to increase energy efficiency much further, thereby helping us to cut energy bills, reduce pollution, and encourage economic growth.

While there is disagreement among politicians about the role of government spending and government regulations to spur cost-effective energy efficiency investments, politicians of all political stripes agree that knocking down market barriers that keep Americans from saving money is a worthy task.

Within this context, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released a new report on Monday highlighting 16 policies that would use market forces to spur additional cost-effective investments in energy efficiency while helping to surmount market barriers that hinder these investments. In total, these policies could save consumers and businesses nearly $1 trillion over the 2014-2030 period, considering both the energy bill savings and the cost of the energy efficiency investments.

The new ACEEE report, Overcoming Market Barriers and Using Market Forces to Advance Energy Efficiencydiscusses several targeted policies that leverage market mechanisms in order to address specific market failures, without requiring substantial spending or government mandates. For example, the development of a comprehensive building labeling and benchmarking program would allow purchasers and tenants to identify efficient homes and commercial buildings and could save consumers and businesses approximately $60 billion between 2014 and 2030. Even more impressive are the benefits gained from adjusting corporate tax legislation to remove hidden barriers in the tax code. These adjustments would encourage the replacement of inefficient equipment and remove regulatory barriers to combined heat and power projects. These two policies alone could save the economy close to $300 billion.

Recommendations fall into 7 categories:

  1. Improving information to aid decision making

  2. Removing exiting regulator and legal barriers

  3. Addressing externalities

  4. Increasing the salience of energy use at point of purchase

  5. Reducing energy waste in government

  6. Investing in precommercial R&D

  7. Enhancing energy efficiency finance

READ ABOUT 16 POLICIES THAT COULD SAVE THE U.S. ECONOMY ALMOST $1 TRILLION…

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How Energy Points Help CFOs Budget for Sustainability

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Where Simplicity Meets Accuracy…  Energy Points is a simple, accurate and actionable solution that allows organizations to manage and plan the consumption of energy resources across their operations, products and supply chains using the first data driven universal metric.

Ory Zik, founder and chief executive officer of Energy Points, believes many CFOs shy away from even thinking about sustainability because they struggle to determine the most cost-effective solutions. A Deloitte survey of 250 CFOs of companies with more than $1 billion in revenue in 2012 found that superior sustainability information is still somewhat elusive. Only 12 percent of CFOs believed they had “excellent” sustainability information, while 37 percent rated their information “good” and another 37 percent called it only “adequate.”

Sustainability reports are emerging as a critical driver of shareholder value. According to a January report from the Governance & Accountability Institute, 53 percent of the S&P 500 issued sustainability reports in 2011, a huge increase from 2010’s 19 percent. But Zik believes most of these reports are all but unintelligible.

The universal sustainability metric

The problem is that businesses that look at greenhouse gas emissions, kilowatt hours for electricity, BTUs for gas and gallons for water — and then keep them separate — are bound to get confused. What Energy Points does is to use a gallon of gasoline as a baseline. Its algorithms convert all other types of energy — electricity, water, oil, natural gas — into a metric relative to that gallon of gasoline. In that way, a CFO can derive one number to determine his organization’s energy use no matter what kind of energy is critical for the business, and track that cost, using it to drive strategic decisions.

With Energy Points’ application, what CFOs see is an interpretation generated by that algorithm that is easy for them to understand. “It’s like the iPhone,” Zik says. “The front is intuitive; the complexity is inside.”

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Commercial Property Lease Terminology

ComlLeaseTerminologyThere are numerous forms of leases. The most common of these is the Triple Net lease. In a Triple Net lease, the tenant is responsible for their proportionate share of property taxes, property insurance, common operating expenses and common area utilities. Tenants are further responsible for all costs associated with their own occupancy including personal property taxes, janitorial services and all utility costs.

If the space is part of a larger building, the common area maintenance charges (CAMS) will be divided among the tenants of the building, generally based upon the tenant’s square footage percentage of the overall complex. In general, the landlord will be responsible for the structural integrity of a building.

NET LEASES

As with modified gross leases there are numerous forms of net leases. The most common of these is the Triple Net lease. In a Triple Net lease, the tenant is responsible for their proportionate share of property taxes, property insurance, common operating expenses and common area utilities. Tenants are further responsible for all costs associated with their own occupancy including personal property taxes, janitorial services and all utility costs.
This type of lease is rarely utilized in a multi-tenant office building. As with a modified gross lease, a modified net lease is also available. There are no set standards as to what costs may be excluded in a modified net lease; the lease is usually customized according to need.

Types of Net Leases
Net leases define the responsibilities of the landlord and the tenant differently.  The following are types of net leases:

  1. Single Net Lease – A single net lease is a net lease where the tenant agrees to pay a monthly lump sum base rent as well as the property taxes.  The landlord is responsible for all other operating expenses of the premises.

  2. Double Net Lease (NN) – A double net lease is a net lease where the tenant agrees to pay a monthly lump sum base rent as well as the property taxes and the property insurance.  The landlord is responsible for all other operating expenses of the premises.

  3. Triple Net Lease (NNN) – A Triple net lease is a net lease where the tenant agrees to pay a monthly lump sum base rent as well as the property taxes, the property insurance, and the maintenance.  Under a triple net lease there are a few legal defenses which may relieve a tenant of his responsibilities.  For example, a triple net lease may relieve the tenant of his responsibility if the property is subject to an eminent domain proceeding.

  4. Absolute Triple Net Lease (Bond Lease) – An absolute triple net lease is a net lease where the tenant agrees to pay a monthly lump sum base rent as well as the property taxes, the property insurance, and the maintenance.  Under an absolute triple net lease there are no legal defenses if a tenant fails to meet his responsibilities.

REALTECH is dedicated to providing the best investment commercial real estate and representing clients who are interested in purchasing commercial property. Interested in applying the philosophy of efficiency and business ethics in residential or commercial real estate business.

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