Bigfoot Consulting
Creators: name: Amaya, Emma
name: Arias, Carlos
name: Tutumlu, Emrah
name: Arbulu, Ricardo
name: Negraeff, Darren
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2015

description: The B.C. Government and local governments have started different initiatives aimed to reduce the environmental impacts of buildings. Currently, the city of Vancouver is developing a green building strategy (GBS) that will be implemented in several phases and will pursue a mandatory regulated green building strategy for most new development in the city. Similarly, the B.C. Government is proposing a B.C. Green Building code for early 2008 which will address, among other things, new provisions of green building regulations. It is foreseeable that in the near future the government will require that all new building construction follow certain green building guidelines which will result in an increasing demand for green building services. This increased demand will generate an opportunity for companies that can offer expertise in this field, as this type of new construction will require additional capacities or expertise that medium and small developers do not possess at this point in time. Bigfoot Consulting will offer green consulting services to satisfy the underserved demand for green building expertise. Currently the competition is quite fragmented and recent entrants have not been able to meet current excess demand. Competitors offer either specialized niche consulting or a more comprehensive range of services, and range from well-established architectural firms to new ventures. Bigfoot will provide a comprehensive range of green consulting services targeted to individuals (B2C) and to development teams in the construction industry pursuing green building standards (B2B) in the GVRD. Bigfoot will differentiate itself from its competition by leveraging UBC’s 11 years of experience in green building and sustainable community planning, and will draw on the qualified personnel pool that the Sustainability Office currently possesses. Importantly, Bigfoot will offer UBC’s own green building standard, REAP, for the first time to the off-campus development market. Bigfoot will require a $50,000 budget from UBC in order to cover short-term costs and the addition of one salaried consultant to operate under this business plan. Based on the economic forecast and estimated market share, Bigfoot can expect to certify 18 projects to the REAP standard in the first year and generate net income before taxes of $122,025. This represents a profit margin of 40% in Bigfoot’s first year of operations. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”