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FROM THE EDITOR
Last summer, we published a three-part piece on resilience in existing buildings — what it is, how it complements sustainability, and some specific measures to take for making existing buildings more resilient.
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One of our goals for that piece, and another story I’m working on for the July issue of Building Operating Management, is to get facility managers to think of resilience within the regular framework of their FM operation — both in terms of practice and budget. Resilience shouldn’t be thought of as an add-on, or something extra that needs to be done. It should be a standard operating procedure of good FM.
Does that always happen? Judging from the dearth of material online instructing FMs how to do this, it’s probably safe to say the answer is no. Some of the key questions often left unanswered by the resources out there – which are fantastic, but mostly for new design – include: If FMs need money to support resilience strategies, what are the best ways to justify these to upper management in a budgeting presentation? And furthermore, how can resilience in existing buildings be measured so as to be justified appropriately?
While the answers to these questions aren’t easy, what is clear is that resilience isn’t a trendy buzzword that’s going away soon when people get tired of it. As climate change continues to wreak havoc on weather patterns, and natural disasters become more frequent, resilience is quite possibly the most important concept for FMs to understand and incorporate into their daily operations.
As always, I’m interested to hear from you. How have you worked to incorporate resilience? What strategies have you found to be successful to justifying added money?
Cheers,
Greg Zimmerman, editor
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