Measuring Corporate Sustainable Development in Facilities Management with Key Performance Indicators

Real Estate owners are deeply concerned about the environmental friendliness of their buildings. However, the current topic of sustainability has not yet been fully adopted by the facilities management (FM) industry. So far the main approaches on sustainability for buildings are concerned with the way they are constructed. But in order to completely incorporate the idea of sustainability, which next to environmental ideas includes social and economic aspects, not only the construction of a building has to be considered; but the maintenance of the building, namely the services provided by facilities management, need to be run under the aspects of sustainability as well. Indeed some FM service providers have already included green products such as eco-friendly cleaning solutions into their product range. What is still missing is the measurement of the sustainability impacts of FM services. The research project "Return on Sustainability System" (RoSS) aims at defining a relevant and practicable set of indicators for measuring the sustainability of FM services and develops a software application to evaluate the indicators. The project is carried out by the Berlin School of Economics and Law, the University of Applied Sciences HTW and the Beuth University of Applied Sciences as well as five professional partners. As a result a set of 30 indicators is identified that reflects the different aspects of sustainability relevant to the FM industry and their specific processes. The software application facilitates the calculation and ensures a continuous evaluation of these indicators