CB Richard Ellis Status Report

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working with CB Richard Ellis (CBRE), one of the companies participating in Commercial Building Partnerships. Here you will find more information about CBRE's involvement with Commercial Building Partnerships.

CB Richard Ellis Background

CBRE is the world's largest real estate services firm (based on 2008 revenues), with more than 300 offices in 50 countries, 30,000 employees, and 2.2 billion ft2 under management. As part of its corporate environmental commitment, CBRE identifies and measures its carbon footprint and sets achievable carbon reduction targets. The company's aim is to be carbon neutral by 2010 through in-house carbon footprint reductions, indirect emission reduction commitments from suppliers, and, if necessary, carbon offsets.

Why CB Richard Ellis Participates in Commercial Building Partnerships

CBRE's participation in Commercial Building Partnerships is another indicator of its company-wide commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its operations. CBRE joined because of Commercial Building Partnerships' robust energy efficiency targets, its technical and procurement support, and its cost-share features.

"After my NREL energy executives training program, I realized that the best way to improve and protect the environment is to maximize energy efficiency in existing buildings, and to assist NREL with pioneering new cost-effective designs for new building construction. DOE/NREL Commercial Building Partnerships offers the best energy efficiency gains of any of the programs I have researched." — Don Fitzmartin, Senior Vice President, Project Management Service, CB Richard Ellis

Where CB Richard Ellis is in the Commercial Building Partnerships Process

CB Richard Ellis is in Stage One of the Commercial Building Partnerships process, and has identified as a retrofit project a law office in downtown Denver that comprises 105,000 ft2 on five floors in Denver's Wells Fargo Center, a 52-story office building. The CBRE point of contact is actively evaluating prospective new construction projects. Contact Don Fitzmartin at Don.Fitzmartin@cbre.com or 303.628.1733 for more information.

What's Worked

CBRE has an outstanding working relationship with the NREL Commercial Building Partnerships team, and is pleased to be part of the process of setting a new standard for energy efficiency in commercial real estate.

Lessons Learned

"The main lesson learned thus far is that there are so many green initiatives that it's a challenge to demonstrate to end users that energy efficiency is most effective at protecting the environment. We applaud all the green initiatives, but we must continue to seek guidance from NREL and leverage the national data that demonstrate how we can stimulate our economy and protect the environment by improving the energy efficiency of buildings."  — Don Fitzmartin

For more information, please email Don Fitzmartin at Don.Fitzmartin@cbre.com.

 Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) website posting: http://www.nrel.gov/buildings/status_report_cbre.html.