Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the growing trend of developing and managing photovoltaic facilities owned by third parties in buildings, as a possible alternative to energy performance contracting.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on an established business model template, analysis is carried out on the framework of using third-party finance in the provision of photovoltaic facilities in buildings. Case studies in the USA and China enable comparison of policy tools enabling this approach.
Findings
While barriers exist in the common energy performance contracting approach for renewable installations owned by the building owner, vesting photovoltaic equipment with a third party for a certain period has become a viable business alternative as long as revenue is generated through a power purchase agreement or lease arrangement with the building owner.
Research limitations/implications
The third-party ownership business model works better if sufficient policy incentives exist alongside the revenue brought about by renewable energy. Hence, governments have to create the right environment.
Originality/value
Win-win situations have been identified through case studies in countries with burgeoning renewable energy use in buildings, notably the USA and China, giving new insights on facilities management.
Purpose -This paper aims to investigate how unique features of built facilities would affect the application of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading, and to explore what adaptive measures may be taken for emissions trading to be applied to the built environment. Emissions trading is a financial tool to encourage GHG emissions reduction in various industries. As the building sector is responsible for a large amount of GHG emissions, it is valuable to explore the application of emissions trading in built facilities. Design/methodology/approach -The analysis is based on a comparative study reviewing the current emissions trading schemes (ETSs) in Australia, Japan and the UK covering the building industry, and to evaluate the approaches adopted by the schemes to tackle the problems related to buildings and facilities management. Findings -The research findings reveal that the small energy savings of individual building units, the large variety of energy-saving technologies and the split incentives and diverse interests of building owners and tenants would be the barriers hindering the development of emissions trading. To overcome these barriers, an ETS should allow its participants to group individual energy savings, lower the complexity of monitoring and reporting approaches and allow owners and tenants to benefit from emissions trading. Originality/value -This article provides a comprehensive overview of the current emissions trading practices in the built environment. Besides, it raises the attention and consciousness of policymakers to the need that building characteristics and facilities management should be taken into consideration when designing an ETS for the building sector.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.