Establishing a reliable waste data baseline
COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE CASE STUDY
WATS worked with a real estate owner and developer with over 70 million ft² of office space across 158 sites in the US and Canada.
Waste management and sustainability are important to them, and they have been working to improve the accuracy and management of their waste data.
“This confidence system will be incredibly valuable in monitoring waste data quality as we work to improve waste diversion across our portfolio.”
— Commercial Real Estate Director, Sustainability, U.S. Office Division
13%
Increase in waste data confidence
BUSINESS DETAILS
Commercial real estate
70M+ ft² of office space
CASE STUDY DETAILS
Needed a diversion baseline before taking action toward sustainability goals
Hindered by poor data quality
25 waste meter types
The Challenge
Before working with WATS, this asset owner did not have a reliable system to assess the quality of their waste data reported in ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager (ESPM). The challenges to data confidence largely stemmed from inconsistent reporting across their North America portfolio and a quantity of data that made assessing the accuracy of individual data points particularly difficult. These challenges included:
Lack of standardization
Waste data across properties was inconsistent, with 25 different waste meter types reported in EPSM for 2023. The lack of standardization made comparing waste generation and diversion metrics across the portfolio difficult.
Data Quality Issues
The accuracy and completeness of waste data were unreliable due to missing waste streams, gaps in reporting periods, and inconsistencies in the frequency of data entry. These issues led to a lack of confidence in the waste data for reporting and sustainability efforts.
Difficulty in Establishing a Waste Baseline
Without a reliable framework for evaluating and managing waste information, they lacked an accurate waste baseline. This made it challenging to set benchmarks, track progress, or measure the effectiveness of waste management strategies.
Fragmented Reporting
Waste data is collected from multiple sources, using various methodologies and units of measure, and then entered into ESPM. This fragmentation complicated the ability to analyze trends and make informed decisions.
These challenges left this commercial real estate entity with low confidence in its waste data.
The Solution
The project team tackled the challenges in waste data by developing methods to track confidence in the waste data in EPSM, using this information to refine the waste diversion rates and metrics. As part of this, the real estate team created a flow of data using WATS tools to evaluate the quality of waste data entered into EPSM against various data flags to pinpoint potential data quality issues.
This system standardizes waste streams and measurement units and identifies issues such as missing waste streams, gaps in data entry periods, and duplicated data points to assign a waste data confidence score for each property to help the team prioritize the most impactful actions for increasing data confidence.
By comparing multiple data sources in WATS, data submission inconsistencies from third-party vendors were identified. These will be resolved through the development of standardized reporting templates and collaboration with vendors to ensure they understand the new data requirements.
The WATS solution increased our client’s waste data confidence to 72%.
The Result
Using the WATS comprehensive data quality assessment framework and standardized reporting methodology, this commercial real estate entity successfully established an accurate 2023 waste data baseline for its U.S. Office Portfolio.
This baseline, calculated using verified data from 2023, now serves as a benchmark for tracking future improvements in waste management. The client can confidently leverage the WATS framework to identify opportunities for increased engagement in waste management and diversion efforts in 2024.