Tag Archives: Technology
Save Paper in Your Property Management Office
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by Mary Girsch-Bock.
As more property management companies become more environmentally conscious, property managers continue to search for more ways to go ‘green.’ One of the easiest ways to reduce your carbon footprint is to reduce paper usage in your office.
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Getting Personal about Public Transportation
Posted on 02. Dec, 2011 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
But no matter where you are in the world, local public transportation reduces carbon emissions for every person on board. It also reduces the number of personal vehicles on the road, thereby reducing traffic congestion. Over the course of a year, you can cut your own carbon emissions by nearly 5,000 pounds just by hopping on a bus rather than driving.
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Rethinking the Toilet
Posted on 26. Sep, 2011 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
Did you know the earliest form of today’s flush toilet first emerged in 1596? And while ordinary toilets today do what they are primarily designed to do – that is, flush waste away from wherever you are to a treatment plant far, far away – mainstream flush toilets haven’t undergone truly significant innovative retooling in quite some time. Meanwhile, they continue to flush about 4.8 billion gallons of water every single day in the U.S.
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$3 Billion Power Drain
Posted on 12. Jul, 2011 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
$3 billion in electricity. That’s how much energy set-top boxes – the ubiquitous household device that liaisons between signal and television – consume in the United States per year. Even more shocking is that 66 percent of that energy (about $2 billion worth) is used when no one is even around to enjoy the actual televisions set-top boxes enable.
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Go Green with Video Tours?
Posted on 15. Jun, 2011 by Todd Breen.
It’s no secret that shopping for a new place to live can take a lot of time, but do you know how much pollution it creates too? ‘On average, homebuyers see 15 properties before choosing one’ (HUD website)
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Be Green and Save 80% on Your Energy Bills
Posted on 27. Apr, 2011 by Marc Courtenay.
Imagine harnessing the underground temperature of Mother Earth to provide heating, cooling and hot water at amazingly high efficiencies. Today that dream has become a reality. The geothermal heat pump system is now available and introduces a new paradigm for heating and cooling.
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Cloud Computing Services
Posted on 13. Apr, 2011 by Kimberly Madrigal.
In the same way that we trust Google to host email and Facebook to provide a social site, a process called “cloud computing” allows companies to host infrastructure, software and computing capacity. They sell this hosting as “services.”
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Better Buildings Initiative
Posted on 06. Apr, 2011 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
Who knew there was a link between energy savings at your local property management office and job creation on a national level?
Yet President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative connects the two. According to the President, “[m]aking our buildings more energy efficient is one of the fastest, easiest and cheapest ways to save money, combat pollution and create jobs right here in the United States of America.”
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Let the Sun Shine In with Solar Leasing and Power Purchase Agreements
Posted on 02. Mar, 2011 by Kimberly Madrigal.
Everyone would like to get their electricity from a clean energy source but cost can be a prohibitive factor, particularly for rental properties. Two ideas that may merit further investigation are power purchase agreements (PPAs) and leasing of solar photovoltaic (PV) equipment.
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GPM Electric Vehicle’s Charging into the Future
Posted on 16. Feb, 2011 by Kimberly Madrigal.
The future is here when it comes to electric vehicles or EVs with several models now available to consumers. As gas prices continue their inexorable rise, property management professionals will have to contend with the demands of these new EV owners. The most obvious demand will be a need to access charging infrastructure; in other words, a place to plug in.
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Save Energy by Marketing Properties to Local Employees
Posted on 12. Jan, 2011 by Kimberly Madrigal.
Buildings account for approximately 30% of all energy used in the United States. While this may seem like an astounding number, consider that transportation to and from home and work can consume an equal and more often greater amount of energy. As a real estate and property management professional, there are several ways to decrease this load by attracting local employees to your rentals and altering office practices to encourage greater sustainability.
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Green Property Managers Use iPads and Other Tablets
Posted on 04. Nov, 2010 by Marc Courtenay.
What is “greener” than using recycled paper or writing notes on both sides of the paper? How about not using paper. If you’re a property manager, greening your business may involve using an iPad or a similar “tablet” device. By accessing the internet from your mobile device, you can use web-based property management software to run your business from wherever you are.
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Green Strategy Number One: Head in the Clouds
Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Jennifer Marcus Newton.
Who would’ve thought that having your head in the clouds would be considered a smart green business strategy? Well, it is—if you’re talking about cloud computing. More organizations are turning to web-based tools to save time and money while reducing their overall footprint.









