Summary
The City of Boulder’s Climate Action Plan calls for an 80% reduction in emissions from city buildings by 2030. Further, it strives to enable Boulder to become a net-zero city by 2035 and a carbon-positive city by 2040. These ambitious targets required a Facilities Master Plan (FMP) to align with these goals and address the city’s aging building portfolio.
Partnering with Ameresco, the city set out to quantify and baseline building performance in terms of environmental sustainability, social responsibility, and financial stewardship – three pillars of asset management.
Enterprise Asset Management & Planning
The City of Boulder engaged with Ameresco to establish a long-term capital plan and quantify the deferred maintenance of their facilities portfolio, comprised of 75 facilities and ~1.8 million SF of gross floor area. Utilizing AssetPlanner® software solution, Ameresco developed capital lifecycle needs, analyzed operational expenditures over a 3-year period, and calculated the total cost of ownership (TOC) for each of the city’s facilities. Ameresco’s comprehensive needs analysis was a key component of Boulder’s acclaimed facilities master plan (FMP). Sustainability Advisory and Master Capital Planning helped provide the financial and environmental baseline for scenario modeling and analysis; where various strategies were modeled against a “do nothing” scenario to communicate impact and alignment to city goals.
Another key activity of the FMP involved portfolio tiering – a decision development model that incorporates objective scoring and tiering of facilities against six guiding principles to prioritize them for strategic direction.
“We partnered with Ameresco to develop a long-term capital plan to better understand the deferred maintenance of our facilities portfolio using AssetPlanner. This work was expanded to assess our how our building portfolio measured up against city goals around sustainability, resiliency, social responsibility and financial stewardship. Shifting to a total cost of ownership view of the portfolio has enabled better prioritization and decision making. Ameresco’s support was invaluable in our framing of the aging infrastructure problem at hand and in developing strategic solutions to consolidate facilities, maintain well, and ensure facilities align with our broader climate action goals.”
– Michele Crane
Chief Architect and Facilities Capital Project Manager,
City of Boulder, CO
5 Years
SaaS Contract Term
80%
Emissions Target Reduction by 2030
~1.8 M Sq. Ft.
Gross Floor Area Deferred Maintenance Assessment
$550 M
Current Replacement Value of Assets Total Cost of Ownership Modeling
Sustainable Deconstruction
Another component of the City of Boulder’s climate action plan includes being a national example of preservation of embodied energy through adaptive reuse. The City’s sustainable deconstruction ordinance requires the diversion of 75% of the materials generated from deconstruction, by weight, from the landfill. As part of a redevelopment project, the city purchased a former hospital building site which was set for deconstruction.
Partnering with Ameresco, the City’s zero waste team worked together on waste diversion to recycle lighting and plumbing fixture, carpet squares, doors, windows, and eWaste such as computer boards. Other items such as pumps and electrical equipment went out for auction for direct reuse. The steel from the deconstruction will be reused to help build a new fire station and other projects in Boulder.
Additionally, the team went beyond the ordinance requirements by compacting and reusing the mortar and concrete which doesn’t waste the past carbon energy or “embodied carbon” – CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions associated with the construction, maintenance, renovation, and end-of-life of a building.
By the end of the project, it is estimated that the percentage of waste diversion reached nearly 90%.
Solution
Ameresco and our contractors have safely conducted detailed site surveys across all 31 sites put forward for Phase 1 of this programme, adhering to revised procedures in line with Covid-19. Following these surveys, detailed designs have been developed to provide a full Investment Grade Proposal (IGP). Over the 31 sites, Ameresco proposes to complete seven individual energy conservation measures (ECMs) that will reduce energy costs, reduce carbon emissions and improve the internal environment of the buildings for their users.
- 30 LED Lighting Upgrades
- 9 Solar PV systems
- Smart heating and hot water systems
- Loft insulation
