Facility managers are key to running buildings efficiently. But soon, there is expected to be shortage of experienced professionals, especially with the commercial real estate boom happening across the U.S. and in Asia.
The International Facility Management Association reports that the average age of facility managers is 49. According to a report in the San Francisco Examiner, “nearly half of the commercial real estate workforce nationwide is expected to retire in the next five years.”
To help meet the demand for trained professionals, BOMA has been working with San Francisco State University to offer courses leading to a certificate in commercial real estate.
In this market, sustainability experts will be increasingly crucial in their ability to help new entrants to the real estate market, like graduates of BOMA’s courses, understand the full experience of what it takes to run a building efficiently, particularly in resource management.
“This is the nuts and blots of what we do everyday to help building managers understand all the resources being used or misused in a building: water, energy, and what has historically been called the waste stream – a complex array of materials such as reusable goods, recyclables, compostables, hazardous materials, and trash,” says Todd Sutton in Great Forest’s San Francisco office.
According to the recently released 2015 Commercial Real Estate outlook report, sustainability continues to be key in the industry, and that “adoption, measurement, and reporting is a business imperative.”
“Running a building is a big job and sustainability experts work hand-in-hand with facility managers to get best out of each building,” says Sutton. “This new generation of managers will need to be in tune with sustainability best practices to stay on top. What a building does or does not do in terms of sustainability will have wide implications, from operating cost to reputation management.”