How about a nice pat on the back for that good job you're doing as a Building or Facility Manager? Everybody likes an attaboy but it's not often you can get one from the U.S. Government. With EP's Energy Star program, you can, if your eligible building consumes less energy than 75% of similar buildings.

If you qualify, you can sport the Energy Star label in your building and on your marketing materials, receive recognition, and be featured on EP's website, like 1100 Peachtree Building, Atlanta Financial Center, One Ravinia Drive, the Richard Russell Federal Building, and others.

Of course, money isn't all you're saving when you are an energy-conscious Facility Manager; reduced energy consumption also means reduced air pollution from combustion at the power plant where your electricity is produced or less natural gas burned on your site.

Energy Star application also serves as a method of benchmarking your building's performance to that of others; EPA provides a diagnostic tool known as Portfolio Manager that can be used to set energy performance goals and measure progress towards these goals. You can use it to measure performance for an individual building, or for a group of buildings. If you are wondering which energy projects would be best for your facilities, you might view our page on Common Energy Conservation Measures and read about our related service of Energy Audits. To implement your projects, you might consider Performance Contracting.

Eligibility. Eligible buildings are office buildings, hospitals, hotels and motels, K-12 schools and supermarkets/grocery stores. If you have an office building, it must be over 5,000 square feet, occupied for 11 of the past 12 months, less than ten percent designated computer space, occupied at least 30 hours a week, and the parking garage size cannot exceed the building's total square footage.

Cost. The cost of an application is zero, except for your time or the time of your consultant who puts together the submittal. There will also be a small cost for a PE to certify the application and visit the building.

See www.energystar.gov for information on eligibility, the Portfolio Manager and other details, or contact wayne(at)energyace.com.