Tenant Engagement
Because the tenants in your building are largely responsible for the energy, water, and materials consumed in your building, one of the easiest things you can do as a property manager is to encourage your tenants to join you in the Challenge. Through the Green Office Challenge, you will recruit 25% (base goal) or 50% (stretch goal) of your office tenants to participate in the Challenge. You may measure this in terms of leased office tenant square footage OR total number of office tenants - whichever is more appropriate given your mix of tenants.
Recruiting Your tenants to participate in the challenge
An easy way to help your tenants go green is by recruiting them to participate in the Green Office Challenge. The first step is to let your office tenants know that your building is participating in the Challenge via email, e-newsletter, Captivate in the elevators, or in building-wide meetings. Since this is the Green Office Challenge, we discourage the use of printed materials! We've made it easy for those registered to take the Challenge by providing an electronic letter from Mayor Richard M. Daley encouraging your tenants to join you in taking the Challenge.
Monitor your recruitment efforts by following up with interested tenants to make sure they have officially registered to take the Challenge here. Your tenants must be registered in order for you to receive credit for tenant engagement in the Green Office Challenge. Tenants that register through outreach conducted by Property Managers will be accepted into the current round of the Challenge at any time.
Setting Your Tenants Up for success
Once your tenants make the decision to go green with you, you can help them succeed by helping them understand how your building works. From your building's lighting systems to what types of plastics your recycling provider accepts, your own knowledge of your building can be of great service to your tenants in helping them protect the environment.
The Green Office Scorecard is a tool designed specifically for tenants participating in the Green Office Challenge. The Scorecard includes fifty different strategies tenants can adopt to improve their ranking in the Challenge. Fourteen of these strategies are things you can directly influence, either on a case-by-case basis or for the benefit of the entire building. On the Green Office Scorecard, these are categorized as Property Manager Engagement Strategies.
Some property managers may choose to fill out this section (to the extent possible) for all tenants participating in the Challenge. This will save time for your tenants – and for you, as you may have to answer the same questions for numerous tenants.
Supporting the Education of your Tenants
In your role as a property manager, you are uniquely positioned to educate your tenants about how to green their operations. As a participant in the Green Office Challenge, we highly encourage you to host training events, workshops, and brown bag lunch sessions to help your tenants through the Green Office Challenge. This is a great way for you to gain additional participation in the Green Office Challenge, and to allow your tenants to share their successes, troubleshoot barriers to going green, and exchange ideas about opportunities for collaboration throughout your building. If you eventually apply for LEED or other types of certification, getting tenants on-board early and involving them in sustainability programs will make it easier to reach out to them in the certification process.
Contact the Green Office Challenge Team if you would like assistance in planning a training event in your building.