Rethinking Carbon Neutrality, Campus Space, and Next-Gen Workforce Among Most Read Stories of 2024

2024 was an eventful year for facilities professionals as well as APPA International, and Facilities Manager magazine was there to document it all.

As 2025 is only weeks away, we wanted to look back at the five most-read articles that appeared in Facilities Manager magazine during 2024.

Carbon neutrality is a much-talked-about goal among educational institutions and communities. In the January/February 2024 issue, Simone Pertuiset of JLL challenged readers to rethink the idea of carbon neutrality and look toward zero-carbon electricity in her article “Rethinking Carbon Neutrality on Campuses.”

“Hybrid Offices are a Necessary Future for Universities Facing the Squeeze for Campus Space,” by John Ryan from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, office of DesignGroup, looked at reimagining existing structures through hybrid work arrangements to save space. As an example, he used the recent redesign of a former healthcare clinic at the University of Pittsburgh, which was redesigned for the IT department’s new home.

In addition to redesigning campus office space, there is the impact of outdoor campus space on student retention. In “How A Great Campus Outdoor Built Environment Can Lead to Improved Student Retention,” Kevin Dillard at Southern Methodist University in Dallas looked at how a purposeful landscape design could be essential in helping campuses reduce student stress, impacting student retention.

In “The University of Mississippi: Unexpected Benefits from an Innovative Campus Infrastructure Upgrade Program,” Dean Hansen from the Ole Miss wrote about a program addressing campus infrastructure needs and energy efficiency. Joining forces with Trane as an Energy Services Companies partner, the program has been an enormous success, with other universities reaching out to learn more about how they can apply those practices at their institutions.

With employees aging out of the workforce, recruiting and retaining the next generation of employees is just as challenging. In “NextGen Workforce in Facilities Management,” freelance writer Stacey Freed described solutions being used by several facilities management leaders not only to attract but retain the younger workforce in facilities management.

Click on the links to the articles listed above, as well as the respective issues they appeared. In addition to viewing last year’s most read articles, you can also go “back in time” over the Holidays and access the entire archive of Facilities Manager, which dates back to 1985.