Mr John Vinken, a certified facility Manager has called on organisations to invest in Facility Management (FM) to ensure a productive working environment.

"Facility Management is a strategy to avoid waste, which will, in turn, facilitate the building of a sustainable nation and creates more opportunities for businesses to thrive.

Mr Vinken made the call in Accra at the launch of the Facility Management Professional Network organized by the Ghana Chapter of International Facility Management Association (IFMA).

He said a building can stay as long as 50 to100 years if facility managers do their work professionally by maintaining the asset value of such buildings.

This, he explained was necessary because FM is a multiple-disciplined profession that encompassed several fields including architecture, engineering, building, safety, interior decoration, among others.

"FM is about influencing people. It is also about cost, cost-avoidance, and cost reduction because it constitutes three per cent of the total revenue of an organisation", he said.

He advised facility Managers to be abreast with the overall objective of an organisation to position themselves to play their role in ensuring a safer and healthier society.

“Facility management must be embraced by everyone for our built environment to reach its life expectancy and serve its purpose. Those that practice FM must be trained and certified,” he added.

Mr Sampson Opare-Agyemang, President, IFMA Ghana Chapter said the launch of the network was to develop the knowledge and skills of practitioners to meet the needs of employers.

"Ghana currently has 33 Management Facility Professionals and management of the IFMA Board deemed it necessary to bring them together to learn, lead, and influence policy on national issues", he said.

He urged practitioners to use their knowledge and experience in the built environment to create a sustainable environment for national development.

"FM is the fastest growing industry in the world today. The practitioners must have something in common using the best practices at all times. It takes about four years to build a facility but over 100 years to manage it".