Winners Across Borders - Eurest Services and Shell

24 June 2009

Nearly 300 members of the European facility management industry congratulated the winners of the third European FM Awards 2009 in Amsterdam last week, including Eurest Services and Shell International who won the Partners Across Borders category

Since the European FM Awards began three years ago, there has been significant growth of international co-operation and interaction in the facility management sector across Europe. Large coporates such as Shell, Cisco and Merck Sharp & Dohme have taken steps to manage their property estates as a whole rather than country by country. Taking up the challenge to help support their businesses across Europe are their respective partners, Eurest Services, Johnson Controls and Sodexo. All finalists in a hotly contested category in these, the third European FM Awards, there was great anticipation to hear the winners of this category and the European FM Researcher and European FM Student of the Year.

The judges said: “The Eurest/Shell partnership has transformed FM at Shell from a traditional base to a highly successful and fully fledged European Partnership across borders. They have come a long way in a short space of time showing significant improvement in results and FM delivery. They have also achieved a high degree of integration and a successful alignment. It is clear the core business recognises the value creation and positive contribution to Shell this excellent partnership brings.”

Eurest Services delivers integrated FM Services to 70 of Shell’s offices, refineries, remote gas plants and offshore platforms in the UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Poland and the North Sea in a five-year contract. . (This partnership was featured in PFM’s April 2009 issue and can be read on www.pfmmagazine.co.uk). Clearly pleased with their win, the Eurest Services and Shell team celebrated into the night at the Okura Hotel, Amsterdam

The European FM Student of the Year Award, sponsored by New Directions, was Hanna Koskisto from Finland who has studied at Helsinki University of Technology and is currently studying for an international Masters at Hanken School of Economics. The other finalists were Ronald Balvers of INHolland University, Amsterdam and Fatima Stitou also of INHolland University

Commenting on the finalists, the judges said: “During their studies all three candidates undertook international activities such as internships, attending conferences and participating in study field trips abroad. Their academic interests are very broad as can be expected from FM students and concentrate especially on topics such as change management, entrepreneurship and information management. All three students have played leadership roles in their respective student community and are truly ambassadors of their universities. The jury focused on academic achievements, understanding of European FM issues, future aspirations and personality and they decided that the Best European FM student of 2009 is Hanna Koskito from the Helsinki University of Technology.”

The winner of the European FM Researcher of the Year 2009 Award sponsored by Facilitec, was Nils Gersberg. With a truly international pedigree, Gersberg is from Germany and is currently studying at the University of Salford and is a researcher at Helsinki University of Technology. His research also involves collaboration with Stamford University’s Centre of Integrated Facilities Management and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

Commenting on his work and contribution of European FM knowledge, the judges said: “Nils Gersberg’s research on the relationship between physical and social workplaces has a clear European perspective with outcomes disseminated to academic and practice audiences. The next stage of his research including virtual workplaces, shows a potential for innovation and highly relevant to the advancement of knowledge in modern workplaces.”

The other finalists were Ruud de Haas of Wageningen University, Netherlands, and Jessica Niemi of Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.

The European FM Awards are organised by EuroFM, the network of more than 87 organisations in 19 European countries involved in FM practice, education and research. EFMC2009 is its annual conference hosted by a different member organisation each year. This event is supported by the Center for People and Buildings, FMN facility management Nederland, IFMA Holland, Loofd landelijk overleg opleidingen facilitaire dienstverlening, TU Delft and Wageningen University.

EuroFM chairman, Albert Pilger said: “EuroFM started with the European FM Awards in Zurich at EFMC2007, and in the meantime it is a highly recognized mark of designation all over Europe. On behalf of EuroFM, may I say that we are proud to present such recognition to the FM profession.”

The EFMC2009 European FM conference also hosted a poster competition for undergraduate students in FM. A total of 40 entries were received, whittled down by the judges to just 18 created by 35 students from 13 universities in five different universities. Two young Austrians, Arlett Darberkow and Michael Kuhberger created the winning poster entitled ‘Generation Renovation’ which in the style of a ‘Metro map’ provided guidelines facilities managers from planning to fulfillment of renovations projects of their workplace buildings.

The winning students Arlett, Michael and Hannah were also presented with invitations to attend World Workplace 2009 in Orlando in October by Pat Turnbull, chair of the IFMA Foundation.

EFMC2009 Conference debate

Under the theme, One World, Different Problems – Joint Efforts, Sustainable Solutions, the 400 FMs from across the European continent heard a number of presentation that focussed on the ever pressing problem of climate change. Amsterdam aims to be carbon neutral in all its municipal buildings by 2015 – in just six years time. The Dutch natural gas resources have peaked and the country will have to import its energy from 2020. The Amsterdam city council is looking into all ways of reducing energy use through to generating energy from its stock of largely historic and mostly inefficient buildings.

Eveline Balogh described how the datacentre of the Austrian expert credit control agency, Osterreichische Kontrollbank AG, located in the basement of its HQ building has been transformed by the installation of a water cooled system directed at cooling server cubicles and maintaining an internal temperature of 32oC inside and 24oC outside. Power supply, fire extinguishing and retaining the heat generated by the datacentre for heating hot water and offices for a sustainable and much improved resilience.

Director of Facilities at University College London Hospital NHS Trust, Trevor Payne, and Interserve’s Director of Carbon Management, Peter Smith described the challenges of improving energy efficiency at the PFI funded hospital whose building technologies are already inefficient and were designed to rely too much on manual controls. It currently used 18.6m kWh of electricity and 15.2m kWh of natural gas, contributing over 13,000 tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere. The NHS Trust and Interserve have taken a range of measures that have seen savings of 1,200 tonnes of carbon by reducing demand for colling by 12 percent and lighting by 11 percent, and saving €200,000 to invest in further energy solutions.

The economic downturn across European provided for some wide ranging debate on the role of the FM sector in supporting socially sustainable solutions. Once economies are stabilised, said Professor Keith Alexander of the University of Salford, he suggested that FM should evolve collaborative relationships between users and FMs, that balance social responsibility and enterprise.

The FM Debate of the Year facilitated by Magnus Kuchler, Partner at Ernst & Young, Sweden pitted the opposinging views of Leif Mollebjerg, Senior Director of FM at Lego Group, Denmark (only in-house FM can deliver the service level that the client wants), against Gianmaurisio Cazzarolli, Director of HR and Services at TetraPak, Italy (prefering a hybrid mix of in house and selected bundled outrourced support services) and Walter Verdonk, Senior Sales Consultatn at Sodexo Altys (total outsourcing of support services). The topic was Save money, stop outsouricng – No it’s a crime not to outsource. Kuchler outlined the scene facing FMs of and increasing demand for a wider range of services delivered faster and more orientated to the customer. “The better the FM does the more they demand, “ he observed. He described the “FM Nirvana” – a ideal pro-active FM organisations delivering the services at the right costs in true partnership with suppliers, supporting the core business without contributing the its carbon footprint, employing new technology to deliver services in an individual but standardised way to a happy customer. A lively and controversial debate followed with a range of contributions from the delegates.

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