Circular Facility Management
What does the circular future of facility management look like and what strategies can you implement towards that future? Together with Rob Klinkert and Monica Sanchez Groeneweg, I gave a presentation on this during the PIANOo conference on 6 June 2024. All three of us are involved in the FM Circular programme set up by Rijkswaterstaat, in which clients and suppliers work together on circular business operations. Monica from Rijkswaterstaat, Rob from the Sustainable Impact Strategy FM and I from the Public Procurement lectorate with the research Refuse, Rethink and Reduce in purchasing practice (NAMI) by the central government.
Less consumption
The facility categories of an organisation with the largest emissions are catering, building management and installations, ICT and the working environment. In the FM Circular programme, groups work with practical cases towards a regenerative FM. This means facility management that not only reduces emissions but also ensures that a positive impact is achieved on balance. One of the working groups focuses on prevention or less consumption. From the NAMI research I follow the cases that are carried out here to learn how form, content and implementation are given to the circular strategies refuse, rethink and reduce in purchasing practice.
Changing the game
The Sustainable Impact Strategy FM is an initiative aimed at a sustainable system change within the facility sector. Based on the exploration of the current rules of the game and stakeholders in a specific market, three strategies were initially drawn up: improving customer experience with sustainability, moving along with regenerative supply and preventing hidden costs. By looking at the rules of the game in a market, obstructive boundary conditions in the sector can be resolved together. Rules of the game are about conscious or unconscious rules, standards and the way in which business is done.
Hidden costs
One way to prevent hidden costs is to have the materials and machines taken over when changing contracts to another facility service provider and to focus on cleaning. The condition for this is that the materials and machines are standardized. For longer use of these, reparability can be used.
Next steps
The Sustainable Impact Strategy was launched in April 2024 by FMN, ISS and Facilicom and will be looking for more parties to join in the coming period. In order to really make an impact with this strategy for the facility sector, we really have to get started. We have already started with the working group on less consumption. In the coming two years, we will learn from these practical examples and scale up the knowledge via the NAMI research. A good example of how government, market and education work together on a circular future of facility management.
