The Retro - Fit challenge - Turning existing buildings into models of energy efficiency

- RMI's retrofit challenge resonated with us, and with the AT&T energy team for a lot of different reasons. We're all being pushed internally to, to drive innovation, energy's no exception. RMI's the leader in this space. This is a way for us to kinda isolate a specific project, and actually a specific building, as a prototype that says, 'Hey lets push the envelope here, let's challenge ourselves to get outside the box and think about where there may be opportunities that we haven't considered, or thought of in the past'. - Corporations are always looking to build value, and they get a lot of value through their real estate, and especially if we're talking administrative buildings, or office buildings, where their employees are working. These are the spaces where their employees are spending the majority of their lives, and so that, that's really why energy retrofits can be really important for corporations, because they build value, and they satisfy employees. - We're partnered with AT&T, and the purpose of our partnership is to help answer a question that is pretty important in the building industry today. Even though we know we can get to energy savings in, on individual building level, how do you multiply that savings across multiple buildings? - The approach we took is to look at the ideal building, and to find the ideal building. What’s the ideal building performance with regard to energy? And to lay out uh, a set of uh, measures that AT&T can deploy to get to that state. A lot of people I think are surprised as to how little it will cost to get to that level, and the value really outweighs the cost. - In our uh, session we had some really interesting conversations, and one of them had to do with, if you're going to intervene in a building, what things should you do first? So for example we uh, talked about a building which needs a new chiller, but before we put the chiller in, which supplies the coolant to the building, it'd be great if we were able to do improvements to the building envelope. New windows, insulation, perhaps lower the loads in the lightning, and by doing that we would actually reduce the amount of energy needed by the chillers, and perhaps be able to make them smaller. What's really exciting about this is because if we put in smaller mechanical equipment, then it's less expensive as a capital cost, as well as funding more efficient lighting, has not bring in cost, so you win two ways. - One of the goals for AT&T as a company, and the way we can help other folks do this is, is by looking at all our processes from a holistic standpoint, seeing what our data is, sharing it with other parts of the company, and then sharing that with other companies as a whole. And the way we like to do that is by engaging with someone like Rocky Mountain Institute, and retrofit challenge, it really makes a process much better, smoother, and brings in that outside resource, which is beneficial. - I think the idea of sustainability and doing good, motivates people to be successful on their job day to day, to perform to the best to their ability everyday, but then also to lead the world to a better place for future generations.