Often, companies will be in managed buildings and must request electricity and gas consumption data from their landlord or building manager. If this is the case, the following resources can help you engage your landlord.
Each office or location has its nuances about what is included within your service agreements and what is covered separately. For instance, you might have separate invoices for electricity use, but water use is covered in your service agreement.
Included below is an email template to request data from your landlord. This should be edited for the appropriate activity type.
Email template:
Dear [Landlord/managing agent],
As part of a company-wide drive to measure and manage our carbon footprint, we are collecting data on the use of various utilities and related services on the premises of [office address], which we [lease/co-lease] from you.
We are looking to reduce energy and fuel consumption, so we greatly appreciate your support in collecting this information accurately.
The information we need is as follows:
- Total square footage of building space.
- Total square footage of building space occupied by [Your company name].
- Name of electricity utility.
- Amount of electricity purchased from the utility.
- Name of gas utility.
- Amount of natural gas consumed in boilers, furnaces, or for any other end use.
- Amount and type (e.g., oil, propane) of any other heating fuel used in the building, if applicable.
- Amount of heating or cooling purchased from a district energy network, if applicable.
- Name of water utility.
- Volume of water services (supply and sewerage) used.
- [Name of waste services provider]
- [Volume of waste]
- Amount of refrigerants used in air conditioning or other HVAC systems. Note, if an external maintenance contractor manages this, please ask them for the amounts of replacement refrigerants purchased during the time period.
Please share any information you have for the building or specific to our space covering the period from the [insert period].
Ideally, information will be in either physical units (e.g., kWh of electricity), if this is not possible then please provide the amount spent ($).
Please let us know if you have any questions or if anything is unclear to you and thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.
Kind regards,
Landlord data request
Alongside the email request, it can be helpful to provide landlords with a copy of the relevant data collection templates.
This will provide them with further guidance on submitting data and should make the process easier.
If you still cannot access data. See if we’re able to model the associated emissions.