Green Building – LEEDing the Way

Going Green today encompasses much more than just recycling and changing to CFL bulbs. With a global energy crisis, combined with climate change, companies are just now beginning to look into a relatively new concept: Green Buildings. The online Wikipedia defines a Green Building as “the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings use resources — energy, water, and materials — while reducing building impacts on human health and the environment during the building's lifecycle, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal.”

Green Building is based upon the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification standard developed by the U.S. Green Building Council. In the commercial arena, LEED buildings are typically healthier work environments and have lower operational costs than conventionally designed buildings. LEED incorporates a scoring system to achieve various levels of certification which are: Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. These are based upon the following criteria:

• Sustainable sites
• Water Efficiency
• Energy and atmosphere
• Materials and resources
• Indoor environmental quality
• Innovation and design process

Since LEED’s inception in 1996, there are now more than 14,000 projects in 30 countries. CitiBank began its LEED building program back in 2006 and has so far opened several new LEED Gold facilities in Irving, Texas, Queens, NY and in Germany. The company has committed $10 billion in green real estate initiatives over the next 20 years. On a smaller scale, Navy Federal Credit Union completed their new LEED Gold Call Center in Pensacola, FL which currently houses 300 employees. This is the first stage of a four building corporate campus which will eventually house over 3,000 employees. Their studies show a 25-40% reduction in energy usage and their employee turnover rate was reduced from 60% to only 17%.

Typical costs for new LEED building average only 2% above conventional building. However, other factors such as availability of sustainable materials and unfamiliarity of LEED processes may cause delays which could affect the costs. However, when averaged over a building’s 40 year life span, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.

While the new construction makes the news, LEED construction is also making headway in the refurbishing and renovation of existing buildings. Due to original construction limitations, LEED renovated buildings rarely receive a rating of higher than “Certified”, although based upon how thorough and extensive the renovation, a rating of Silver is possible.

You can find complete information on LEED at www.usgbc.org.

Joseph Winn is the President/CEO of GreenProfit Solutions, Inc. which assists businesses in becoming environmentally responsible. You may view their website at www.greenprofitsolutions.com or e-mail Joseph at jwinn@greenprofitsolutions.com .