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HEADLINES

December 19, 2011

Environmental Systems, Inc. Recognized For Leadership In Sustainability

Environmental Systems, Inc. (ESI) provides facility solutions, services and support to reduce energy and operating costs. ESI continues its participation in the WI Sustainable Business Council’s Green Masters Program earning Green Professional status. As a Green Professional, ESI has performed actions in each of nine “sustainability areas,” and has earned more than 100 points.

“ESI has continued to demonstrate their sustainability leadership,” according to Tom Eggert, Executive Director of the WI Sustainable Business Council. “They lead by example with their state of the art, LEED Platinum certified building. The facility evidences the economic benefits of energy efficiency and alternative energy solutions. The Green Professional status is well deserved. ESI’s wide array of services provides solutions to benefit any company.”

“ESI is proud to be affiliated with the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council and support the conference,” said Paul Oswald, President of Environmental Systems, Inc. We believe that through events such as this, we can help other businesses achieve success in making their buildings and businesses more efficient and sustainable.”

The Green Professional designation is the second highest tier in the Green Masters Program established by the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council. Candidates are judged on a comprehensive range of sustainability issues from energy and natural resource use to education outreach and purchasing. 92 Wisconsin businesses have participated in the program where the top twenty percent achieve the highest “Green Master” designation. For more information, or a complete list of Green Masters Program participants, go to:

www.greenmastersprogram.com

November 28, 2011

Realcomm Advisory; Intelligent Buildings

Read ESI's article on Intelligent Buildings.

Follow this link for more details: http://www.realcomm.com/advisoryweb

November 28, 2011

AEE Meeting at Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

ESI, along with Mortenson Construction and Affiliated Engineers, will be presenting the features of this world-class research facility to the Wisconsin Association of Energy Engineers on Wednesday, December 7, 2011.

Follow this link for more details: http://discovery.wisc.edu/

September 30, 2011

ESI to present and exhibit at the 2011 CoRETech Conference presented by Realcomm

BROOKFIELD, WI–September 29, 2011–ESI will be participating at CoRE Tech 2011, the leading networking and educational conference for the Corporate Real Estate industry that focuses exclusively on the topics of Technology, Automation and Innovation. The event will be held October 11 and 12 at the Washington Marriott Hotel.  This event  brings together more than 1,200 commercial and corporate real estate professionals each year to explore the latest technology tools and innovations available to our industry.

ESI will be participating in a panel discussion with on the topic of Efficiency Redefined: The Smaller, Smarter Grid Connected Corporate Facility.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Evening general session keynote followed by networking reception
• 8 Educational sessions facilitated and led by leading industry practitioners
• Vendor expo and Innovation Showcase
• Break out ‘table topics’ luncheon

WHO SHOULD ATTEND 

• CRE Vice-Presidents and Directors 
• Chief Information Officers 
• Chief Operating Officers 
• Facility Managers and Building Engineers 
• Energy and Sustainability Executives 
• Portfolio and Asset Managers 
• Business and System Analysts 
• Finance and Operations Executives

For more information on the event and how to register, please visit:

http://www.realcomm.com/coretech.htm

September 29, 2011

Gateway West Sustainable I Honored at SE2 Conference in Madison, Wisconsin

Gateway West Sustainable I, home of ESI (Environmental Systems, Inc.) in Brookfield, Wisconsin, was recently honored for the facility's commitment to sustainability at the SE2 Conference held in Madison, Wisconsin. Gateway West Sustainable I received a Special Citation for the building's superior elements and outstanding design; new honor for this already LEED Platinum and ENERGY STAR Certified Building.

The SE2 Award program recognizes leadership in energy efficient and sustainable design, construction and operation of Wisconsin commercial and other non-residential buildings and related systems. The goal of the program is to encourage greater collaboration among owners, designers, builders and operators by highlighting the value of projects that enhance the built environment. Awards are presented at their annual SE2 Conference in the fall.

The competition is sponsored by Focus on Energy, AIA Wisconsin, Energy Center of Wisconsin, ASHRAE Wisconsin, IES-Milwaukee/Madison, IFMA-Wisconsin, and WGBA. Projects completed in Wisconsin within the last five years are eligible.

ESI, Hunzinger Construction, Sustainable Building Solutions and Stephen Perry Smith Architects worked in collaboration, following the LEED protocol, when undertaking the design and construction of the new facility. This process included extensive life-cycle cost evaluation during the design phase. A high-performance building envelope, high-efficiency mechanical system, lighting control system, and a fully-integrated building monitoring and automation system contributed to the building’s high-efficiency energy performance. From an energy performance standpoint, the facility is 44 percent more efficient than current building codes require.

“Through real-time tracking of cost savings and measurement of key performance metrics, this building demonstrates every day that sustainability and profitability are not mutually exclusive when using efficient, intelligent design while remaining focused on business value,” Stephen Perry Smith Architects Matt Mano says.

Sustainability features include incorporating salvaged and recycled construction materials, maximizing natural light usage via windows and light tubes, and minimizing water usage via high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and drought-tolerant native landscaping.

“LEED buildings are high design,” says James Hunzinger, executive vice president/LEED AP at Hunzinger Construction. “The LEED process drives an integrated design and construction process that yields high-performance buildings that are economical to operate, more comfortable for its occupants, and in harmony with the environment that they occupy.”

“These attributes are both tangible and measureable,” he adds. “Collaboration during the design and construction of Gateway West Sustainable I produced a showcase for practical sustainability, which centers on efficient use of resources impacting bottom-line returns.”

At the beginning of the project, the team set criteria that all design decisions resulting in LEED credits, energy efficiency and sustainability had to achieve a simple payback of 10 years or less.

“The fact that we achieved a Platinum rating, while adhering to these criteria proves that efficiency and sustainability can be done in a way that provides bottom-line value to the business,” according to Paul Oswald, president of ESI. “We set out to make this building a working example for other businesses in the areas of practical design, efficient operation, and intelligently applied technology that produce tangible, bottom-line cost benefits for our business and a significantly lower environmental impact.”

July 1, 2011

Realcomm 2011 Exceeds Expectations / Digie Winners Announced
Author: Jim Young, CEO, Realcomm

With an economy on the mends, deep fundamental economic problems continuing to be a problem and organizations not innovating as aggressively as they have in the past, we were not quite sure what Realcomm 2011 would look like. We always go into the conference with high expectations but recent years have taught us to be cautiously optimistic. Despite the uncertainty the conference turned out better than expected.

The following is a brief summary of this year's conference highlights:

• The quality of the attendees were extraordinary. There was high level representation by many of the country's top real estate companies
  
• Innovation is back! The Big Idea Showcase highlighted some of the most innovative ideas we have seen in years
  
• GSA/PBS is leading the charge on Intelligent Buildings with their Fast 50 Project
  
• IT Professionals Involvement in Intelligent Infrastructure is no longer "if" but rather "when"
  
• PM/FM and IT will be tightly integrated in the property team of the future
  
• The multitude of business solutions found in a real estate firm are slowly being woven into an integrated enterprise
  
• Major new solution providers showed up looking to service the large emerging opportunity around intelligent buildings
  
• Companies brought their teams from property management, facilities, leasing, finance as well as other executive leadership
  
• The best practices came from around the world and a multitude of international markets were represented
  

We would like to thank everyone who made Realcomm 2011 an extraordinary success. This event would not be possible without the endless support of our chairman, advisory council, solutions providers and attendees who all came prepared to contribute to our industry. Together we are making our industry more efficient, competitive, profitable and successful.

2011 Digie Award Winners
We are also proud to announce the 2011 Digie Award Winners!! Each year, Realcomm presents the most innovative real estate companies, individuals, and solution providers with the prestigious Digie Award. This award is designed to recognize the most forward-thinking leaders in commercial real estate who are making the greatest impact through the use of technology and automation.

BEST USE OF AUTOMATION
Facility Management
ESI

• Delivered the best example in the US to date of an integrated, automated, connected building
  
• Highly focused 21st century leadership vision for automating building controls and facility management processes
  
• Pushing the envelope in putting edge devices, including fire extinguishers, on the building network

Brokerage
Sperry Van Ness

• 100% adoption of social media strategy throughout the SVN organization
  
• Creation of a significant marketing edge via strategic use of internal information systems
  
• CEO who "get's it" - technology initiatives driven "top down" by executive leadership

• Continued enthusiastic willingness to share ideas with the industry
  
• "CUB 2 Go" representing one of the most innovative examples of how a well designed mobile solution can drive better employee efficiency while increasing tenant satisfaction.
  
• An industry leader that never stops rethinking and automating traditional business processes

• Created Webalo enabled mobile application suite that has transformed shopping center management processes
  
• Significant contributions to business process automation in our industry
  
• Extraordinary integration of multiple applications creating a comprehensive enterprise strategy

• Extreme research and development in technologies for building operations
  
• Rethinking all aspects of impact of real estate use on communities and environment
  
• Exemplifies risk taking to create innovative approaches to sustainable, energy efficient design strategies including, solar, networked LED lighting and other green initiaitives

• Represents one of the earliest organized municipal energy management initiatives in the country
  
• Continuous proving ground for energy and sustainability initiatives
  
• Aggressive leadership in deployment of energy conservation and management initiatives though coordinated efforts with vendors, private real estate owners and other 3rd parties

• Extraordinary efforts to better understand business process automation and taking the lead in the development of a leading edge mobile application
  
• Continues to demonstrate leadership in driving automation throughout the organization
  
• Aggressive and comprehensive automation of business processes for their retail locations

• State’s largest public-private collaborative energy metering and management initiative for public housing
  
• Visionary leadership by executive staff on developing and implementing large scale energy projects
  
• Initiated cooperative agreements with multiple organizations in order to accomplish project objectives

• Truly visionary understanding of the strategic impact technology can have on the design, development, leasing, management, transaction and use of real estate
  
• Alignment of Real Estate, IT and Facility Management stakeholders for the purpose of creating a smart connected portfolio (GSA/PBS "Fast 50" program)
  
• Unprecedented vision from leadership to adopt open standards and IP enabled protocols for all building/enterprise information transport

• Creation and propagation of highly competitive open source, consumer-driven information platform
  
• Has quickly and effectively created a viable iPhone alternative for the business and consumer markets
  
• Developer community quickly developing applications

• Innovative team continually pushing the envelope in terms of automating building processes
  
• Industry changing technology that leverages the Niagara developer network
  
• Opens up analytics and building intelligence to thousands of potential users for a huge impact at relatively low-cost

• Greatly simplifies the process of connecting device networks to JACE building controllers thus enabling easier, more cost-effective deployment and adoption
  
• Tridium continues to be the master of integrating multiple devices into a web-based, IP enabled framework
  
• Niagara framework has transformed energy management resulting in significant savings across multiple building classes

• Has demonstrated vision and consistency in providing next generation information services to the industry through the use of technology
  
• Custom branded the largest commercial real estate property database for brokerage and retail leasing applications
  
• Leadership position in creating mobile applications for the commercial real estate industry

• One of the industry's longest and most consistent drivers of open architected, interoperable IP building automation platforms
  
• Has invested a significant amount of time and energy exploring and understanding firsthand, next generation building best practices
  
• Has tirelessly shared his perspective and experience on Intelligent Infrastructure with the industry

• Has proactively reached out to the real estate IT community to better understand the relationship between information technology and traditional building operations
  
• His strategic vision is significantly impacting the operations of one of the US’s largest landlords (GSA/PBS) and will ultimately set benchmarks for the private real estate sector as well
  
• Has consistently encouraged the establishment of private/public partnerships in order to leverage experience, accelerate adoption and mitigate risk in the deployment of smart buildings

• Has truly embraced and executed an IT strategy in complete alignment with business leaders and established IT as an integral part of the overall company strategic planning process
  
• Has developed a very broad vision in regards to technologies impact on real estate which includes; operations, transactions as well as the impact on how commercial space will be used
  
• One of the most consistent and determined industry leaders who has demonstrated a genuine desire to increase the effectiveness of the industry though accelerated peer collaboration

• Through visionary strategic planning and successful execution, has set the benchmarks for automation and innovation in the commercial retail sector
  
• Has established early standards in the use of mobile technology in the commercial real estate industry and has aggressively moved to exploit the benefits of this platform
  
• Has consistently encouraged industry collaboration and information sharing in order to accelerate adoption and mitigate the risk in strategic IT initiatives

June 14, 2011

Environmental Systems, Inc. (ESI) has won the 2011 Digie Award for Best Use of Automation in Facilities Management. The award was presented at last week's Realcomm Conference in Orlando FL.

The prestigious Digie honors individuals, companies, projects, and solutions that have demonstrated the most innovative use of technology and automation in the commercial and corporate real estate industries. We are honored to have our organization recognized with this award.

"We set out to make this building a working example for other businesses in the areas of practical design, efficient operation, and intelligently applied technology that produce tangible, bottom-line cost benefits for our business and a significantly lower environmental impact, according to Paul Oswald", president of ESI. This award is recognition of our people's innovation and talent in achieving this objective.

May 24, 2011

We are honored that for the second year in a row, our employees have distinguished ESI as a Top 100 workplace.  We are extremely grateful that our employees have recognized our efforts and thank them for their dedication and commitment.

Our employees are our strength and source of innovation and enable us to compete successfully in a rapidly changing business. Talent and innovation are nurtured through a level of training, development and support through our own Environmental Systems University (ESU). We provide our employees with learning and development that helps them stay ahead of emerging technology and business needs and provide customers with solutions that work today and in the future. ESU has expanded to help educate other industry businesses and the community, as well, securing our reputation as an industry thought leader. 

To our employees, thank you for making ESI a great place to work and for making us proud.

May 10, 2011

Building upon last year's theme of "Show Me the ROI," which focused on getting the maximum return on investment for technology, automation and innovation, this year's conference will focus on applying the RIGHT technology for the greatest impact on your business.

ESI will be presenting at three sessions during the event:

• INTELLIGENT BUILDING UPDATE – 12 Months Later Where Do We Stand?
• Making the CASE STUDY for Smart-Connected-Sustainable Real Estate
• NextGen FACILITY MANAGER – Technology Redefines Role

In addition, ESI will be presenting the latest in technology and services for measurement and analysis, with the focus on improving overall facility efficiency and sustainability.  Please visit us at booth 904.
For more information on the event and how to register, please visit:
Realcomm

April 11, 2011

The most frequently asked question is, How do I get started down the path of using resources more efficiently in our facility? The second is, What can I implement now?

Ultimately, the answers depend on numerous factors. Several overarching strategies and specific tactics can get you headed in the right direction.

Green Manufacturing has the details.

March 11, 2011
Finally! After years of searching for the most intelligent building on the planet, we may have finally found it - complete with fire extinguishers attached to and managed over the internet!! ESI's new state-of-the-art corporate headquarters is a showpiece of technology and innovation, designed to reduce operating costs and environmental impact. Realcomm has the details.

January 14, 2011
Thanks in part to the example set by its energy-efficient new headquarters, ESI grew revenue by 12 percent last year. Aided by a $1 million loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration, ESI expects to continue its strong growth in 2011. The Business Journal has the details.  

January 1, 2011
ESI has become a value-added reseller of SkyFoundry’s revolutionary building performance software, SkySpark. It’s part of ESI’s ongoing commitment to seek out new technologies that add value for its customers. Learn more.

December 22, 2010
ESI developed comprehensive energy and operations solutions as well as performance metrics to enable Hartland’s Lake Country School to achieve ENERGY STAR certification and reduce energy usage by over 20 percent in 2009, according to an article in Living Lake Country.

December 8, 2010
ESI is one of only fourteen Wisconsin companies that has earned the Green Masters designation from the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council. Find out more.

November 1, 2010
ESI’s Paul Oswald offers practical suggestions for maximizing HVAC ROI in an article posted on Green Manufacturer.

October 13, 2010
An alliance between ESI and ELM Consulting provides a single source to reduce operating costs, energy usage and environmental impact, according to an article in Supply & Demand Chain Executive. 

October 13, 2010
A new direct digital controls system and commissioning done by ESI is helping Arrowhead Union High School dramatically cut energy costs.

October 10, 2010
Integrated access control can optimize energy and operational efficiencies, says ESI’s Joe Feuling in a new article in Security Dealer & Integration.

October 8, 2010
“ESI’s new world headquarters serves as an excellent example of best-in-class intelligent building technology, design, engineering and operation,” according to Mark Petock, vice president, global marketing and communications for Tridium.

September 27, 2010
See the latest innovations in life safety and security systems when global security leader Pelco visits ESI’s headquarters September 30.

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