CHICAGO—Most companies have understood for years what simple tasks they can perform on their own to save energy and cut costs. And with so many users already turning down their air conditioners or installing insulation, among other actions, property managers need extra tools and technology to squeeze energy use down further.

“You don't walk into a building and see a lot of low-hanging fruit,” Leo O'Loughlin, a California-based senior vice president for Jones Lang LaSalle, told attendees during a Monday session at the BUILDINGChicago and Greening the Heartland Conference in Chicago. O'Loughlin helps clients expand energy, sustainability and smart building services and was unveiling JLL's cloud-based system, called IntelliCommand, which provides 24-hour, seven days per week real-time facility monitoring and control. As reported in GlobeSt.com yesterday, Proctor & Gamble wired 12 of their buildings, about 20% of their corporate portfolio, into the system and achieved savings of 10%, or 4,400,000 kilowatt hours, and believes they can push that to 20%.

The introduction of cloud computing technology was the key, O'Loughlin said, since it gives facilities managers in the JLL command center the ability to monitor energy use “all the way down to the individual device. That really couldn't be done effectively just a few years ago.”