Earth Day is Every Day for Multifamily Housing Sustainability

Earth Day is a 24-hour salute to ongoing efforts to create a greener planet, but multifamily housing sustainability is a 365-day-a-year job. And it’s a responsibility the industry is taking more and more seriously. Property owners and managers continue to embrace innovative, cost-effective eco-friendly approaches to energy and water savings. Utility management and sustainability have become more mainstream as multifamily operators meet the needs of residents who want green apartments. Industry leaders are flushing wasteful operational habits to reduce utility bills and property expenses while making their communities more inviting. Industry roundtables once exclusive to boosting revenues and enhancing resident experiences are now addressing the issue of lowering operational costs through conservation driven by precision utility and energy management. A few years ago, representatives from the EPA and Department of Energy began educating apartment operators on basic ways to make their properties more sustainable. Replacing inefficient appliances with ENERGYSTAR ovens, stoves and refrigerators and swapping leaky toilets and faucets with low-flow fixtures were touted as low-hanging fruit. From there, multifamily housing sustainability has flourished. Today, apartment operators are benchmarking utility consumption through the EPA’s Portfolio Manager and using other metrics as well to assess the eco-health of their properties. Sustainability leaders are leveraging grants and program funding to upgrade fixtures and metering to lower costs. It’s in ways like these that multifamily is improving its environmental footprint while reinforcing Earth Day’s commitment to conservation, protection, enhancement and support of nature and natural resources and finding solutions to create a more sustainable planet. Leading multifamily sustainability RealPage is a leader in sustainability through powerful utility and waste management solutions that save cl...