What do you say when this question is asked by the client’s chief financial officer? Unfortunately, the answer often needs to be, “I don’t know, but here is how we would find out.” The details in the discovery are found through benchmarking - the process of comparing energy usage of a building against its peers and then accounting for any differences. See how Cisco Systems got answers for its new corporate campus.
Cisco Systems’ new corporate campus is intended to provide resources for development, customer visits, a data center, and extensive test labs. The first stage of the campus comprises four office buildings with substantial laboratory space, as well as a common carpark and a clubhouse with services for associates. Cisco intended these facilities to deliver higher levels of energy efficiency and to demonstrate the contribution of highly integrated systems. As of mid-2008, two of the four office buildings were operational when questions arose on energy performance and how the buildings compared with their peers in Cisco’s global portfolio, as well as against its local peers and buildings in the United States. The benchmarking effort commenced with the following objectives: