The Project at a Glance

In 2014, the Estée Lauder Companies—one of the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products—signed a lease for approximately 10,000 square feet on floor 26 at 110 East 59th Street, a 36-story, Class A office tower. As a company that believes its long-term success depends on its respect for and conservation of natural and human resources, Estée Lauder is committed to understanding and managing the economic, environmental, and social impacts throughout its entire value chain.

Estée Lauder first heard about the Tenant Energy Optimization process during a presentation at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, a forum dedicated to green building. The Tenant Energy Optimization process is a proven, replicable approach that integrates energy efficiency into tenant space design and construction and delivers excellent financial returns through energy conservation.

Executing the Process

Design and Construction

After conducting more research and reaching out to the original developers of the process, Estée Lauder decided to follow the Tenant Energy Optimization process to design and construct its new space. Many energy project team members had been involved in other projects that had used the same process.

The team outlined energy performance goals that aligned with Estée Lauder’s overall corporate sustainability targets and developed an extensive list of energy performance measures (EPMs) to be considered for implementation in the final buildout. EPMs are technologies and systems that aim to reduce energy use through efficiency and conservation. They are also frequently referred to as energy conservation measures (ECMs).

Using energy performance modeling, incremental costing information, and cost savings projections, the energy project team was able to choose a package of EPMs that would meet the energy and financial goals of the company.

Estée Lauder determined that a package of five EPMs would provide the best value for its buildout of floor 26. Upon measurement and verification, however, only the following EPMs could be determined as actually operational; therefore, all energy reductions, cost savings, and other project metrics have been calculated based on these two EPMs.

Measurement and Verification

After completion of the buildout, Estée Lauder enlisted an energy consultant to provide an initial measurement and verification (M&V) process to ensure the implemented EPMs were performing as intended. M&V was conducted over the course of a ten-day period, once the space was fully occupied and operational. The M&V period revealed that despite modeling a package of five EPMS, only two of those EPMs were actually operational: daylight harvesting and high-efficiency equipment (ENERGY STAR).

Post-Project Actions

Two months after the initial M&V period, Estée Lauder hired the energy data and analytics company Enertiv to install permanent end-use meters and conduct a second round of M&V to provide detailed, ongoing monitoring of energy use at the circuit level and to confirm that the remaining three EPMs were operational. The second M&V period showed that the following five originally identified EPMs had, in fact, been implemented but may not have been activated or may have been mislabeled during construction on the electrical panel:

• High-efficiency lighting (0.7–0.9 watts per square foot);
• Lighting shutdown based on zone occupancy sensors;
• Daylight harvesting: full dimming to 20 percent output;
• Master shutoff switch; and
• ENERGY STAR Equipment (0.4 watts per square foot).

The second M&V period again confirmed that daylight harvesting controls were working properly and reducing consumption during the brightest hours of the day (approximately 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.). Lighting shutdown schedules for the main lighting circuits were lowering lighting levels, and therefore energy intensity, at night and on the weekends. The M&V report noted that further savings could be achieved if hall and bathroom lights were placed on a similar shutdown schedule. Enertiv determined that the plug-load master shutoff switch was not operating as intended and therefore not yielding the originally modeled savings because a 1.8-kilowatt load was consistently measured overnight when all plug loads should have been shut off. Further study was recommended to determine the cause of this load. Finally, Enertiv confirmed the initial findings that panel circuiting labeling provided by the electrical contractor was partially incorrect and may contribute to ongoing operational issues and inaccuracy of data reporting.

Estée Lauder carefully reviewed the results of both M&V periods and took the following additional steps as a result:

• Conducted a review with the general contractor to decide whether the electrical contractor will be considered for future projects based on final construction delivery and accountability;
• Revised the janitorial schedule to be completed by 10 p.m., one hour earlier;
• Scheduled lights to turn off an hour earlier; and
• Set up alerts from the end-use metering technology to alert office services if any energy use is detected outside the regular working schedule.

The decision to install permanent end-use energy monitoring technology demonstrates a strong commitment to managing energy use and allows the company to easily perform ongoing reporting. Estée Lauder outlined its energy efficiency efforts and experience with the Tenant Energy Optimization process in its 2014 and 2015 corporate sustainability reports titled “The Beauty of Responsibility.”