Sponsor Spotlight: Altura Associates
Each month, SMPS San Francisco Bay Area Chapter (SFBAC) features one of our sponsors. This month, we’re excited to be shining the spotlight on one of our Silverado-level sponsors, Altura Associates.
About Altura
Altura is a new breed of engineering consulting firm, delivering everything it takes to guide owners to realizing climate and carbon goals by improving energy, environmental, and financial performance across all levels of an organization. Providing our clients with data-based energy insights, we're redefining building performance and how to achieve maximum impact for your enterprise’s energy and sustainability goals.
Years in Business
Altura was founded in 2013 – We’re celebrating our 10-year anniversary this year!
Notable Projects
Weill Neurosciences at UCSF
Altura managed new building commissioning for UCSF’s new Neuroscience Research Building, Weill Neurosciences: a 282,500-square-foot building on block 23A the Mission Bay Campus, including laboratory, clinical, and office space. Altura was the selected commissioning agent because of our unique analytics-driven commissioning approach and history of project success delivering performance on complex facilities. Rising to the challenge for the goals set out for this complex university building, we thrived in the owner’s representative role, and continued to deliver above expectations through warranty. This enabled a 50% reduction in maintenance costs during first-year operations, due to the building being delivered without Altura’s Performance Delivery model. Beyond the construction phase of our projects, the Altura BAS commissioning model continues to outperform the traditional model, with constant calibrated information and analytics delivery for the operations and facilities personnel, thereby demonstrating measured value of this commissioning process to the markets and clients we serve.
High sustainability goals defined and achieved
Fort Bliss Hospital
Altura was brought on late in construction to assist in schedule recovery, working directly with the contractor and subcontractor teams on this $1.48B healthcare campus project. Altura quickly deployed the SkySpark analytics platform to give the entire project team visibility and transparency to the progression of HVAC systems construction. Analytics deployment was a cornerstone of project delivery. Altura championed the inclusion of the SkySpark platform as part of the construction schedule and workflow, which was utilized for enhanced prefunctional testing to increase team efficiency. Within one week of mobilization, Altura connected to all available systems and began performing automated tests to determine performance, ultimately able to help the project team achieve 100% testing of
all systems in three months, which would have otherwise taken 6 to 10 months of field testing, meeting schedule deadlines with a higher-quality product for the Army. Altura was part of the contracting team rather than the ownership team, and therefore utilized a high degree of collaboration with the contractor and their subcontractors to jointly deliver the project.
Revolutionizing the final start-up, testing, and acceptance phases leveraging data analytics
Sharp HealthCare
As the region’s first health system to choose 100% renewable energy for its eligible accounts, Sharp estimates it will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 6,500 metric tons CO2e, the equivalent of taking more than 1,400 cars off the road, and the equivalent of reducing gas usage by 2,205 gallons per day.
Decarbonizing healthcare is no small feat. Together with the Sharp sustainability team, Altura developed a highly-customized and actionable roadmap to benchmark, meet, and even exceed carbon reduction goals across its network of healthcare facilities. Altura is also helping Sharp implement advanced energy technologies including fuel cells, renewable energy, and battery storage in pursuit of achieving zero net energy by 2030.
Altura initially presented a mid-range ten year plan to Sharp to significantly reduce energy costs and environmental impact, while improving operational efficiency, indoor environmental quality, employee productivity, and patient comfort. By 2030, Sharp’s annual utility costs were projected to increase by 43% compared to 2018 due to rising electricity and gas rates. Altura developed an Energy Strategic Plan aimed to reduce those costs by a cumulative $47.8M in the projected time frame.
Sharp joins the ranks of local sustainability leaders within the San Diego metro area in choosing 100% clean, renewable energy. These local examples of environmental stewardship are positive steps that align with the UN’s latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, and Altura is proud to be a part of that initiative—for Sharp, and for the planet.
Paving the way for a sustainable healthcare future
What differentiates Altura in terms of approach, talent, tools, and values?
Clients can expect an unparalleled experience of a trusted advisor in Altura. Differentiators we deliver include deep expertise in deriving value from data systems, scaling from individual buildings to real estate portfolios. We leverage core skills in building commissioning, systems integration, data analytics, energy audits and analysis, sustainable engineering, facilitation, project implementation, training, and financial analysis.
As a multidisciplinary firm, Altura goes beyond traditional consulting, using a people-centric approach designed to make immediate and lasting performance improvements throughout the entire lifecycle of the building continuum. What do we mean by a “people-centric” approach? Technology, validated processes, and technical expertise can only take any of us so far; it’s our unrelenting belief in our people – whom we lovingly refer to as “Alturians” – working alongside our valued clients every day in our quest to redefine building performance. Removing confusion, reducing common project delays, and altogether eliminating other myriad pain points we are all too familiar with in working on the built environment are the cornerstones of building powerful relationships with our clients that we strive to deliver every day.
How long has Altura been a sponsor of SMPS?
We have been an SMPS sponsor for two years, with many more to come.
If your firm is interested in becoming an SMPS sponsor, or your firm is already a sponsor looking to take full advantage of your benefits, reach out to [email protected] to learn more.
