SS credit 4.2 Alternative Transportation
sevensixfive — Did you know there is one LEED credit available for the inclusion of a bike rack1 into a new building project? Yeah, me too. Help Station North become more sustainable by entering the Station North Bike Rack Competition. Entries due Friday, November 7th. Full details here. 1the LEED credit is actually only available if the bike rack is large enough to accomodate bikes for 5% of office building occupants, along with a changing room and shower for .5% of occupants. If it's a residential building, you're going to need a rack large enough for 15% of occupants, but you can skip the ...

Late fall hiking
Tiny Choices — ... My friend told me as we pulled into the lot that the new conservation center was a green building. I was excited to grab a pamphlet (yeah, I know, there is an inherent irony in taking paper paraphernalia to talk about on our environmental webpage later… ) that tells me all about the neat efficiency features employed by the architect to create a building certified by the US Green Buildings Council. ...

Saint Paul Police Nab LEED Gold for New Station
Greener Buildings — ... 's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. The city and the project planners had expected a LEED Silver designation. Instead, they learned their new building met the threshold for a gold rating. The project team worked with the Police Department, public works staff and others in the city worked with the ...

Gucci to Open First Green Store
Sustainable Life Media — ... As part of its lease with Bentley Holdings, the management company that oversees the property, Gucci will be required to build to LEED certifications and must use sheet rock, aluminum studs, nails, and concrete that are sourced from recycled materials. Demolition materials must also be recycled to meet the goal of zero waste going into landfills. ...

Wells Fargo Financing of Green Buildings Gallops Beyond $2 Billion
Greener Buildings — ... has doubled its commitment to high performance, LEED-certified buildings in the past 19 months, bringing its total financing of green structures to more than $2 billion, the firm said today. In all, Wells Fargo has financed 45 projects in the past five years — 25 of them since May 2007 — that have been certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards of the ...

Greenhouse-Worlds First Eco-Friendly Night Club
Modern Eco Homes — ... The bi-level, 6,000-square-foot space is the first nightclub in New York to seek LEED certification, the official stamp of approval from the US Green Building Council. The walls are made of sustainable bamboo rather then wood and LED light bulbs are used which use one-thirtieth of the energy of regular incandescent bulbs. ...

Wells Fargo Invests $2 Billion in Green Buildings
Sustainable Life Media — ... Nov. 13, 2008 - Wells Fargo says it has upped its financing of LEED-certified building projects from $1 billion to $2 billion since May 2007. ...

Green Room With A View: Denali's Cutting-edge, Off-Grid Visitors Center
TreeHugger — Sixty miles down a dirt road in the Alaskan Wilderness, sits a cutting-edge green building nestled in the mountains. An educational landmark for visitors and a starting point and shelter for backcountry hikers, the LEED platinum ...

Real Estate will come back green
My Green Element — ... , a design company focusing on “concept-based, environmentally intelligent design.”  He noted real estate projects are planned three to 10 years out and that many of the projects currently on the drawing board are LEED Silver certified — in fact, he sees this designation becoming the “price of entry” when the market starts to turn. ...

What's Green in Your Neighborhood?
greenerMiami — ... ) and it is pre-certified as LEED Gold. LEED certified buildings operate at lower cost and have many environmental benefits compared to normal construction. ...

USGBC's Upgraded Standards Ready to Roll for 2009
Greener Buildings — ... announced that its upgraded certification program for commercial building known as LEED 2009 has passed member balloting and will take effect next year. Shaped by scientific research and recent advancements in technology the revised standards ratchet up the thresholds for improving energy efficiency, reducing carbon emissions and addressing other aspects that affect people and the environment. The reweighting of credits is considered among the more significant changes of the latest edition of LEED. The USGBC said today that the updates to the assessment and rating system are ...

ClimatePULSE: Top 5 Ways to Host a Green Event
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — ... 1. Location, location, location – Choose a venue and destination city that is both easily accessible by public transport and direct flights (if attendees are flying in for the event). Multiple take-offs and landings are particularly bad as far as air travel emissions are concerned. If possible, also choose a venue that is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified and one that employs energy efficient practices (i.e. heating). The venue should also have plenty of naturally lit meeting spaces. ...

One Boston Place Nets LEED Gold for Building Management
Sustainable Life Media — Nov. 18, 2008 - One Boston Place in Boston, Mass., has become the first building to earn Gold certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance. The new LEED rating recognizes buildings with maximum operational efficiency and minimal environmental impact. To earn the certification, building owner TIAA-CREF and property manager CB Richard Ellis performed a site-wide review of building operations with a focus on occupant health and environmental sustainability. Based on this assessment, building staff incorporated green cleaning ...

2008 Livable Buildings Awards
greenstrides — ... The winning projects all meet high standards for indoor environmental quality, green building strategies, and also happen to be certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. ...

Green Building: Cheaper Than You Thought
Greentech Media: All Content — ... , for example, reported that business leaders believed green buildings would cost 17 percent more than traditional buildings. Real estate professionals actually are largely already ahead of the myth. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) -certified buildings account for a growing portion of revenue for commercial builders like Webcor. These buildings also command higher property valuations, rents and occupancy rates, industry observers said at a conference in May (see ...

Omi International Art Center Grows Greener
INHABITAT — ... in Columbia County, NY does all of this and then some with its new LEED-certified visitors center and gallery space. The Charles B. Benenson Visitors Center & Gallery opened its doors this past June and was celebrated as a perfect marriage between green building and the environmental sculpture projects that the site is world-renowned for. Designed by Hudson Valley based ...

Green Building Standing Tall Despite Troubled Times
Matter Network - Clean Technology, Green News and Sustainable Business News — ... , operator of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the environmentally-focused ranking system that measures the construction and operation performance of green buildings, estimates that even given the vagaries of the current financial market, green builders are managing rather well. ...

Harvard’s Green Graduate Student Residence
INHABITAT — ... to design a new graduate student residence that aims to achieve a high level of LEED Certification. The 115,000-square-foot project is aimed to provide housing for 50 percent of the school’s graduate, professional, and doctoral students. ...

NASCAR Getting on Track
My Green Element — ... to head up its new green initiative, suggests that NASCAR might finally be on the right track when it comes to sustainability. According to Lynch, NASCAR has already begun implementing a number of new initiatives, such as the construction of two new buildings which both qualify for LEED certification and increasing the efficiency of each track’s recycling program. ...

'Green' Nightclub Trend Comes to New York
Green Inc. — ... in Rotterdam have put energy conservation and sustainability at the top of their agendas. Add to the list Greenhouse, a new club in downtown Manhattan, which stepped onto the eco-friendly dance floor when it opened to the public last Thursday. The club, which is seeking LEED certification by the Green Building Council , offers an excellent glimpse into the practical considerations that go into becoming green in a decidedly not-so-green industry.“We didn’t want to do anything overly extravagant at the risk of falling flat on our faces, but we did want to push the envelope,” ...

Is Going to Work Making You Sick?
Greener Buildings — ... , which lists poor indoor air quality as the fourth largest environmental threat to health in the country. Indoor environments are often contaminated with pollutants sourced from allergens from outside air or indoor materials, chemicals such as radon, and moisture such as mold. The LEED rating system dedicates an entire section of its guidelines to "Indoor Environmental Quality," which encompasses several aspects related to indoor air quality or IAQ. And a number of health conditions are a result of poor IAQ in commercial buildings. Sick Building Syndrome, or SBS, is the ...

Greening Your Home: BottleStone’s Recycled Ceramic
Green Options — ... California company BottleStone uses local, post-consumer glass combined with clay and cement to create recycled countertops. They have identified four areas of manufacturing that impact the environment and strive to create their product with as low an impact as possible in these areas. BottleStone is eligible for LEED credits and was a ...

Target to Build Green Store
Green Daily — Filed under: NewsBig box stores by their very nature are not green. However, Target has been trying to brush up its image with reusable bags, biodegradable gift cards and recycling electronics. Now the company is to build it's first store that will be in the running for LEED Silver Certification. East Liberty, Pennsylvania will be the site of Target's new 152,000 square foot, green store. Instead of building a wide store over 10 to 15 acres as it does in the suburbs, Target will be building up 42 feet with a ground floor ...

Underwriting Green Buildings
Greener Buildings — Underwriting Green Buildings Green building continues gaining market penetration given the significant increase in volatility on energy and water costs along with fast-emerging tenant sustainability mandates. In many major real estate markets, this dynamic is leading to a bifurcation in the leasing market where LEED -certified green buildings have some degree of competitive advantage over conventional non-green buildings.   For years it has been quietly stated by knowledgeable professionals that green buildings will attain competitive superiority in a down market where there ...

Green Before Gold
My Green Element — ... of the Olympics, bidding cities now have to create detailed environmental plans for their applications. So, as an example, if Reno-Lake Tahoe decides to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, they will be emphasizing their proposed sustainability plan, which will include “everything from green transportation possibilities to using the inevitable Olympic investment to improve the clarity of Lake Tahoe.” Now, as athletes go for the gold, Olympic hosting cities can go for the LEED gold at the same time By Cheryl Mihalin, at The Element Agency in ...

Indianapolis Opens First Sustainable Post-911 Greenfield Airport
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — ... IND is the first airport built from the ground up with LEED certification in mind, and airport authorities are currently in the process obtaining ...

Crunching the Numbers
It's Getting Hot In Here — ... All those environmental studies majors out there should consider getting a minor in accounting or financing, because the future of “Going Green” has become a numbers game. The upfront costs of energy efficient renovations, LEED-certified buildings, and renewable energy credits can be encumbering to the campus sustainability coordinators and staggering to students in the local environmental club. Late last month, ...

Making Some Serious Green
In The Loop — ... where G&G takes place each year is LEED-certified, the food and cocktails served are organic, the promotional materials are made from recycled materials, and most importantly to us, they have an eco fashion show that absolutely rocks. This year featured designs from some of In The Loop’s favorites like ...

YERTpod29: Construction Is More Than OK in Oklahoma
YERTblog — ... very cool LEED Silver south regional headquarters building.  We thought it only fitting that a company which offers green construction services have a LEED-certified regional HQ.  And it’s the first private LEED building in OK to boot. ...

New $100M Green Building Fund Launches
Greentech Media: All Content — ... industry. The companies' $100 million Green Building Fund will be aimed at "value-add commercial and industrial assets that can be retrofitted, repositioned or redeveloped as energy efficient and environmentally sustainable," according to the companies' news release. While the companies didn't respond to requests for further comment, it would appear that their fund is aimed at retrofitting industrial and commercial buildings to meet criteria of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Given that buildings consume about ...

Van Nuys Airport Plans First "Green" Hanger, But Burbank Got Theirs First
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — Given my recent post about the first "sustainable airport" just opening in Indianapolis, this news item is hard for me to resist. Maguire Aviation is negotiating with Shangri-La Construction to build Loas Angeles' first "green" jet hanger at Van Nuys Airport The hanger at Van Nuys Airport will resemble another "sustainable" hanger unveiled by Shangri-La on Tuesday on neighboring Burbank airport (starting a "green hanger war" in southern California perhaps?), with both facilities designed to meet platinum LEED building specifications. On hand for the unveiling of Hanger 25 at ...

Top Ten Ways to Green The White House, Inside and Out
Big Green Purse — ... 1. Secure LEED certification for the White House. This standard offers meaningful guidelines to help buildings and, increasingly, homes reduce the amount of energy they consume. ...

Green Building Predictions for 2009
Greener Buildings — Green Building Predictions for 2009 The New Year is traditionally the time for business predictions, and my track record has been reasonably good, at least on megatrends. Here's my green building outlook for 2009: o - Green retrofits will begin to come into their own. Rating standards have been delivered to the market — LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in the U.S., ...

YERTpod31: An Epiphany of Three Wise Men in Missouri
YERTblog — ... , both of which led to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).  Bob’s architecture firm, ...

Sustainable Buildings Put Tenants within Reach of LEED-CI
Greener Buildings — ... LEED Commercial Interiors (CI) certification for their leased office spaces should make sustainability a fundamental part of their site selection process. The USGBC recognizes the importance of site selection and defines Sustainable Sites as a major category. LEED-CI Sustainable Sites criteria (under current guidelines) can deliver up to seven points — a significant portion of the total. There will be changes in the weightings in the 2009 Version, due to ...

Contessa Green Cuisine Review
Eco Child's Play — ... Contessa’s slogan is “Eat Responsibly” and they strive to help people do just that by operating out of one of the world’s first LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, certified frozen food manufacturing plants. The Contessa Green Cuisine plant uses a solar panel array that reduces their carbon dioxide emissions, a water heating system that runs on the waste heat created from their refrigeration compressors, a special loading dock design that reduces the amount of lost refrigerated air and energy, ...

Webcor and iCrete Team on Green Building
Greentech Media: All Content — ... ). This isn't the first high-profile deal for iCrete. The company landed a contract to provide concrete design for the Freedom Tower being built at the former site of the World Trade Center in New York, and is working on about 30 other projects in New York, as well as a hotel construction project in Atlantic City, N.J. As for Webcor, it has been making a big push into green building. It earned more revenue in 2007 from LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design )-qualifying buildings than it did from traditional buildings, a trend the builder said accelerated in 2008. ...

CleanBoard Turns Sun's Heat to Drywall
Greentech Media: All Content — ... drywall, MacGregor said. Once the company's solar-thermal drywall plant is up and running, the company will use that solar heat to do away with most of the company's greenhouse-gas emissions related to energy use, and buy offsets for the remainder, he said. MacGregor expects production to be about 2 million square feet in 2010, 10 million square feet in 2011, and 100 million square-feet of drywall a year at top volume. He expects he'll be able to find a market for the material for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) -certified buildings, which make up a ...

Office Depot Becomes First Retailer to Attain Leed Gold for New Store Prototype
Greener Buildings — ... 's prototype for new store construction had been pre-certified at the LEED Gold level, the highest green rating awarded so far to retailers participating in the ...

Green Light Given to Green Studio
ReGeneration — ... All major elements of the construction project -from the sound stages and office space to the parking lot - will be built to meet LEED’s strict Silver Certification guidelines.  The project’s first step is to clean up the contaminated warehouse the project has been slated for, which has been designated a “ ...

The Singapore Sail - Sustainable Gold Standard
Sustainable Design Update — ... Singapore has committed to building only certified Green Buildings using their local standard - a standard which based on a short presentation I saw last fall sounds a lot like the US. Green Building Council LEED Standard for new construction. ...

USAA Buys LEED-Platinum Rated FBI Building
Greener Buildings — USAA Buys LEED-Platinum Rated FBI Building CHICAGO, Ill. -- The U.S. Government Building Fund of the USAA Real Estate Co. has purchased the recently LEED -Platinum rated, 10-story FBI Chicago Field Office. The fund, which is leasing the building to the FBI for an undisclosed sum, purchased the nearly 430,000-square-foot, 10-acre property for a reported $170 million in a deal that closed earlier this month. The build-to-suit structure was developed for the FBI between 2004 and 2006. The facility attained LEED-Platinum certification for Existing Buildings: ...

Rethinking Dining, From Kitchen to Compost
Greener Buildings — ... gonna get to build it and what are the things we're gonna consider when we build it. If you're familiar with sustainable design the hardest part of it is the herding cat portion of it where you've got 20 different entities, architects, engineers, electrical, plumbers, carpet installers, roofers, getting them all to agree on what we're doing and then document it is the hard part. So this document sets a process for moving forward. It does not necessarily require every restaurant be LEED certified . It does not necessarily require that every restaurant be X, Y, Z sustainable.  ...

Hotels Look to LEED to Boost Green Cred
Greener Buildings — ... have the benefit of being customized for hotels, the LEED for Existing Buildings certification has an advantage of being internationally recognized across all industries and buildings types. The LEED rating system was initially created by the ...

10 Dumbest Green Buildings
Green Daily — ... . It appears that people are so anxious to get their LEED certification that they don't give much thought to the purpose of their building or plans to begin with. ...

Red Tail Ridge Poised to be Finger Lakes’ Greenest Winery
Green Options — ... , in Penn Yan, N.Y., will break ground this spring on a new wine making building designed to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards. It would be the first New York winery building to earn LEED certification, according to a search of the USGBC’s online LEED project database. Husband and wife owners Mike Schnelle and Nancy Irelan opened Red Tail Ridge after moving to the region from California, where Ireland worked for Gallo wineries. Their tasting room opened in August 2007. ...

Taking Liberties with LEED
Green Inc. — ... for the building lists “LEED-Certified” as one of the “eco-features.” The problem is the 14-story high rise, called the 9 West Erie, has not yet been built, and therefore cannot be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design , or LEED, program — the nationally recognized third-party certification process for the construction of “green” buildings. A building must be fully constructed before it can achieve the LEED designation. While the Craigslist posting and the Web site for 9 West Erie provide clearer language in the fine ...

Greening the Prison-Industrial Complex
Green Inc. — ... , and even produce honey from the prison’s own hives. The Washington State Department of Corrections boasts 34 LEED-certified facilities, with 923,789 square feet of LEED-certified space added in fiscal year 2008 alone. Oregon is not alone. It seems several states are busy rethinking the old concrete-box approach to the nations’s prisons — home to more than 2 million Americans — and high on the agenda are energy efficiency and other “green” upgrades. This fall, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced ...

Bay Area Cities Sign Climate Change Pact
Greentech Media: All Content — ... and has been earning more from building LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design )-qualifying buildings than traditional buildings for the past two years. Another step the companies could take is to encourage employees to work from home or take shuttles to work, Mielke said -- a workaday way to help meet the collaborative's goal of cutting gasoline consumption in the region by 3 percent by 2013 and by 8 percent by 2018. Other goals include boosting renewable electricity to 30 percent of the region's consumption by 2013 and 50 percent by 2018, and cut buildings' ...

Green Building Councils for Australia, U.K., U.S. to Collaborate on Carbon Standard
Greener Buildings — ... agreed to work together to develop common metrics for measuring carbon emissions from new office buildings and homes. The memorandum of understanding was signed Tuesday at EcoBuild ‘09 in London by representatives of Green Star, the green building rating and assessment system overseen by the Green Building Council of Australia , BREEAM , which is owned by the research and education charity BRE Trust and operated by the BRE Global based in the U.K., and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system , which the U.S. Green Building ...

Going Green or Greenwashing?
LIME Blogs — [image] Our closest local grocery store is undergoing a huge green renovation to become LEED certified, which has forward-thinking urbanites abuzz comparing notes about the newly uncovered, polished original concrete floor, the lack of VOCs as walls are painted, and the brand new fresh tortilla machine! So Georgia, Hova and I took a family outing to see what was new and green among the ever-changing construction site (we earn double points for shopping during the renovation!). We stood agog as the store, once functional but depressing, with dropped ceilings and grayish ...

Yum Brands Opens First Green KFC-Taco Bell Restaurant
Greener Buildings — ... l's Leadership in Energy and Environment Design standards. With some 36,000 KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, A&W and Wing Street restaurants in more than 110 countries and territories, Yum Brands Inc. bills itself as the world's largest restaurant company. Yum Brands' first green KFC-Taco Bell restaurant, Northampton, Mass. The firm issued its ...

VegaWatt: Powering Restaurants WIth Deep Fried Fuel
INHABITAT — ... - involves one source fulfilling two functions (heat and energy generation), and it’s one of many suggestions from the EPA to reduce greenhouse gas emissons. Besides the obvious benefits of reduced oil waste and improved energy efficiency, an average 70 gallon/per week restaurant can save around $800 per month on energy bills. Owning a Vegawatt system also rewards credits towards LEED certification and makes restaurants eligible for income tax credits. ...

Edifice Complex
Brand Avenue — ... Left unexplained is how the makeover helps the building achieve a LEED rating, but one assumes that the paint job alone will reflect a lot of light, and therefore cut cooling costs: ...

The EcoDrain Cuts Water Heater Use by 40%
INHABITAT — ... of clean energy,” say the EcoDrain folks, and we couldn’t agree more. But building code hurdles seem to be slowing the pace of getting the EcoDrain out to the public. As of this writing, EcoDrain says, “We are committed to getting the EcoDrain approved in your area. Please contact us if you require code approval in your area.” They go on to say that “The EcoDrain is a new product. It saves energy in homes and so is very relevant for the LEED for homes program. We are working to see how the EcoDrain will fit into this ...

Tour of Adobe’s triple Platinum LEED certified HQ
GreenMonk: the blog — LEED (short for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a building rating system, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), that provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. In 2006 Adobe’s HQ in San Jose became the world’s first commercial enterprise to achieve a total of three Platinum certifications under the LEED program - a hugely impressive achievement. I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the facility when I was there recently - some notable ...

Botanist Benches: Green Design to get Behind
Your Daily Thread — ... each bench’s profit benefits the inspiring org. Here’s how Botanist Benches are green to boot: *Made in the U.S. *Made of 30-50% recycled aluminum. *Totally recyclable-in fact, aluminum can be endlessly recycled. *Made without VOCs using a powder-coating (which can actually be reclaimed and reused). *Recycled/recyclable packaging. *Contributes LEED points for a building or renovation project. ...

The Rx for Greening a Healthcare Facility
Greener Buildings — ... , in Austin, recently earned the platinum level LEED certification -- becoming the highest-rated LEED certified hospital to date. And it's not alone among green healthcare centers. Healthcare facilities are so energy- and resource-intensive that they represent a tremendous opportunity for improving energy management, while at the same time lowering operating costs and helping reach the goal of improving human health. But for facility managers who are eyeing an energy efficiency overhaul, getting buy -- in from the folks in upper management isn't always an easy task. After ...

Pro Teams, Arenas, Look to Score Points with Green Efforts
Greener Buildings — ... recycling bin stands in the concession area of Turner Field. / This image and the ones above courtesy of Coca-Cola Recycling, Atlanta Braves. Fun fact: It takes recycled five PET bottles to produce the yarn needed to make a shirt. Corollary fun fact: It takes 25 2-liter PET bottles to make a man's suit, as we noted last week . Also in Atlanta, the National Hockey League announced on Monday that Philips Arena had received certification as a green building under the LEED standards maintained by the U.S. Green Building Council . The announcement by ...

Moen Drips Green Following the Three Rs
TreeHugger — ... to reduce water consumption. Moen has pumped huge research and development dollars into reducing flow without sacrificing performance. Their "flow-optimized" showerheads use 30 percent less water than the average showerhead, and they actually exceed LEED requirements (they get two LEED points!). At a flow rate of just 1.6 or 1.75 gallons per minute—compared to the 2.5 gpm LEED standard, and the whopping 6 to 10 gpm of conventional showerheads—Moen's products are super-water-savers. Reuse The tidbit of information I was most floored by was a waste reduction initiative. Moen ...

United States: Expert: Don't 'rinky-dink around the margins' of climate change
Ecoearth.info Blog — Don't vilify sport-utility vehicle drivers. They're natural allies because, generally, they live the outdoors and want to protect it. Let Ford and General Motors die and, instead, put bailout billions into developing the green-collar economy. Be honest about green programs or products that actually do cost more or might not work as well as conventional ways of doing things. The U.S. Green Building Council's widely lauded Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program is great, but its too cumbersome to be more than a certification for exceptional buildings and ...

Registration Open for Two New LEED Credentials
Greener Buildings — ... credential is the new first step for professionals who wish to become a LEED Accredited Professional. The LEED Accredited Professional Operation and Maintenance Credential, rendered in GBCI shorthand as LEED AP O+M, is for professionals with advanced knowledge in green building practices as well as specialized expertise in building operations and maintenance. The operation and maintenance credential aligns with requirements contained in the new LEED 2009 rating system, which launches April 27 . To obtain a LEED AP O+M credential, candidates must first pass the the LEED ...

Golden Arches' Headquarters Attains LEED Platinum Rating
Greener Buildings — Golden Arches' Headquarters Attains LEED Platinum Rating OAK BROOK, Ill. -- McDonald' s global headquarters has received LEED Platinum certification, the highest level possible under the U.S. Green Building Council 's rating and assessment system. The building was constructed in 1988 on an 88-acre property, more than half of which was left as woodlands. Original building elements included an emphasis on natural lighting and landscaping with native plants. Today, the site includes two man-made lakes for the capture and reuse of stormwater. In the office ...

NY Gov.'s mansion strikes green gold
Super Eco News Feed — Well, they’re movin’ on up … to the green side. To a deluxe LEED mansion in the sky … er, no, make that Albany, NY. You’re just dying to know what press release inspired me to butcher your memories of The Jeffersons theme song, aren't you? That would be the one about the first-ever governor’s mansion to strike gold from the U.S. Green Building Council. Such a tree-hugging cliffhanger—*cough*—deserves an explanation, right? The answer—surprise!—starts with Eliot Spitzer. Remember him? The governor of New York who was forced to ...

Builders Urge Green Building Subsidies
Greentech Media: All Content — ... of its LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) guidelines on Monday, with a host of new efficiency standards including state-by-state best practices (see ...

Concrete Floors Equal Data Center Power Savings
Greentech Media: All Content — ... are other "green" aspects to the data center, such as the fact that Fortune did "a ton of recycling and reuse" of materials in the former disk drive component factory that it converted to its data center, Sheputis said. That choice "saved us tens of millions of dollars" from the roughly $100 million price tag of the project, which includes Fortune's spending as well as that from previous owners of the facility, he said. It also helped earn the new data center a tentative Gold LEED ( Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council, ...

When blogging worlds collide: Theatre and Green??
The SF Bay Area Theatre Blog — Ultra-intrigued to see this Ecorazzi post about New York's first LEED-certified Broadway theatre! The full text of the press release can be read here. There is a ton of great info about all the ways this theatre has been built to be green (and how the former building on the site was torn down and re-used, again to be green. The Roundabout Theatre will be in residence there. They of the current celebrity-filled Waiting for Godot. Cross-posted from my green blog...and it's not often I write those words!! ...

When blogging worlds collide: Theatre and Green???
Elisa's Green Scene — Ultra-intrigued to see this Ecorazzi post about New York's first LEED-certified Broadway theatre! The full text of the press release can be read here. There is a ton of great info about all the ways this theatre has been built to be green (and how the ...

Kohl's Stores Awarded Energy Star Label, LEED Ratings
Greener Buildings — ... -labeled stores now stands at 219, the retailer's design prototype for stores has been awarded initial LEED Silver certification and three other stores in the chain have attained LEED ratings. The recognition of Kohl's green building efforts followed news last week that the company is ...

ROB/B Salon is L.A's Only Gold LEED-Certified Salon/Spa
TreeHugger — ... mani pedis alongside Murad facials and massage treatments, is Los Angeles' only Gold LEED-certified spa—and just one of four in the United States. Recycled concrete floors set the stage for ...

GreenSpec teams up with ecoScorecard
RSS Feed for Sustainable Industries — ... lists product descriptions for more than 2,000 environmentally preferable products. Products are independently evaluated and rated by the company's editors according to 26 criteria. ecoScorecard is a Web-based tool that catalogs a manufacturer's environmentally preferable products and provides architects and designers with the documentation necessary to apply those products to environmental rating systems, which include U.S Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), ...

Marriott’s ‘Spirit to Preserve’ wins high honors from WTTC
TerraCurve.com: Go beyond green. | Responsible travel news, places, people and events. — ... WTTC judges visited Marriott’s global headquarters in Bethesda, Md., where they met with the company’s Executive Green Council and toured the facility, which should receive LEED(R)-(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Existing Building status by December. They also toured several hotels to observe their environmentally-friendly operations, including the ...

GreenSpec teams up with ecoScorecard
RSS Feed for Sustainable Industries — ... lists product descriptions for more than 2,000 environmentally preferable products. Products are independently evaluated and rated by the company's editors according to 26 criteria. ecoScorecard is a Web-based tool that catalogs a manufacturer's environmentally preferable products and provides architects and designers with the documentation necessary to apply those products to environmental rating systems, which include U.S Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), ...

Real Estate Developers Get Down to Earth in Beverly Hills
Greener Buildings — ... conference took place last week in Beverly Hills. And while I'm happy to report that the mood didn't approach down and out, green real estate folks are certainly down to Earth as of May 2009. This is the year in which LEED is being overshadowed by ...

Building 'Climate Positive' Communities
Green Inc. — It’s one thing to put up a LEED-certified building, but quite another to develop an entire urban community with enough energy-efficient bells and whistles that its on-site emissions are actually less than zero. That’s the ambitious objective of the new ...

10 Most Beautiful and Green LEED Buildings
Greenopia Environmental News — Green architecture hit a new high with the introduction of the US Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification scheme in 1998. Since then a number of new and existing structures have met the stringent criteria for environmental certification that LEED requires and have proven themselves to be truly green initiatives. Check out some of the coolest buildings that have earned their LEED certification.>> Check out the ...

How Smart Building Owners Can Find the 'Green' and Stop Singing the Blues
Greener Buildings — ... of a competitive edge in the marketplace. What's So Special About Green Buildings? Green buildings command higher rents and sales prices; are more efficient and less costly to operate; provide healthier work environments; and appeal to growing numbers of tenants demanding "green" space and willing to pay a premium for it. There are many degrees of "greenness," but the two standard bearers are the Energy Star program of the Environmental Protection Agency , and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system of the U.S. Green Building ...

Suit Up for Summer with Patagonia E-fibers
Got2BeGreen — ... in 2005, which recycles consumers’ Capilene® Performance Baselayers, Patagonia® fleece, Polartec® fleece clothing of any brand, Patagonia cotton T-shirts, and some polyester and nylon 6 products. •Started World Trout® Initiative in 2005, which raises money through the sale of Patagonia World Trout t-shirts and awards grants to grassroots organizations protecting trout and their habitat. •Received a Gold rating in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for the Reno Service Center ...

Worldchanging's New Office
Worldchanging: Bright Green — ... , an integrated architecture, urban planning, landscape and interior design firm, has generously offered to house Worldchanging's core operations within its headquarters in downtown Seattle. Harbor Steps in downtown Seattle We're really excited about our new space. It's located within the Harbor Steps development, a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use urban community that's earned an award from the Urban Land Institute . The GGLO Space at the Steps, where we work, is LEED Silver Certified. And we are thrilled to be sharing space with a team of smart, ...

Greener By Design: Quantum-American Lung Association Building in West Palm Beach
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — The new offices of the Quantum Foundation and American Lung Association recently became the first building in West Palm Beach and the third in Florida, to earn US Green Building Council Gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status. From the ground up, sustainability-- with respect to structural integrity, ergonomics, environmental impact and natural resource use--was the project team's motive force, according to Astorino, the architectural design firm that saw the project through from concept to reality. "Our approach to ...

RESIDENCE: Studio 804’s Off-Grid House
INHABITAT — ... Designing and building a LEED Platinum house is reason enough for us to take notice. When the house is also the work of graduate students at the University of Kansas and it is designed to function ...

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Opens Eco-Friendly Engineering Building
Greener Buildings — ... opened a new state-of-the-art $30 million facility, the second of three designed according to green building standards for the center's engineering complex. U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, Marshall leaders and other dignitaries dedicated the structure known as Engineering Office Building 4601 in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday. The facility is a sister to Building 4600 (shown above) that opened in 2005 and was NASA's first structure to be certified under the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design standards maintained by the ...

Green Irene: The Footprint Doctor Is In
Your Daily Thread — ... forward. So I called Green Irene, the green makeover company, to come and help. Our Green Irene was named Jeff. (And to answer the most pressing question up front, there is no Irene, just the founders who have other, non-rhyming names.) Jeff Horowitz is one of the many Green Irene eco-consultants in cities across the country. He’s eco-smart for sure and even has LEED certification to prove it. The company ...

LA Community College System Heads for Energy Independence
Sustainablog — ... The LACCD Board of Trustees was thinking about much-needed modernization work and its first new construction in 35 years, but it was also thinking ahead. It passed a sustainable building policy mandating that all new buildings that use 50% or more of bond funding be LEED certified. The board had previously developed a renewable energy plan that aimed for a minimum 10% renewable energy standard. ...

Face it with Artificial Stone
greenstrides — ... Stonework on the exterior of a building, or freestanding as a wall or structure in the landscape, are certainly beautiful statements of nature.  However, if you’re not fortunate enough to have the rocks originate right there at the site, then it can be quite expensive and labor intensive.  There are some innovative companies that manufacture artificial stone and do so with recycled or reclaimed materials.  These products can contribute to LEED points as well. [image] ...

Cosentino's ECO Countertops Earn Cradle to Cradle Certification
Greener Buildings — ... of the recycled materials are used to vary the color and then are mixed with stone scraps and bound with a corn-oil based resin to produce the surfacing material in slabs and tiles. Ninety-four percent of the water used in the process is recycled, according to the company. The product can be used in commercial and residential settings. It is nonporous, does not require sealers, and its use can be counted among the points submitted in applications for certification by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System. Cosentino is based in ...

Skanska Cuts the Ribbon on Poland's First Green Building
Greener Buildings — ... , carpets partially containing recycled material and recycling bins for plastic, glass, metal and batteries. There are bike stands outside the building and showers available inside for people who cycle to work. Skanska is seeking certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards for commercial interiors for the firm's new office space. Deutsche Bank is also is applying for LEED certification of its green branch. Atrium City is part of Skanska's Atrium complex in Warsaw. Atrium City was developed for about USD$ 100 million. Skanska sold it to ...

Green Seal Product Certification
Apartment Therapy — ... And for more on LEED certification, its rating system, and resources, visit the U.S. Green Building Council website. By the way - the exam is Monday - wish us luck! ...

New LEED Standards More Serious About Energy Reporting
Earth2Tech — ... Starting next week, all construction projects seeking certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, must use a new version of the green building standard. One of the biggest changes to LEED with the new version has to do with energy reporting — building owners must now annually submit data about how much energy (and water) they use or get recertified every two years. The new requirements aren’t perfect, and the standard’s approach to building energy use has some critics, but companies developing energy-related technologies for ...

SPACE Architects’ Efizia Tower LEED’s Mexico City in Green Design
INHABITAT — ... , having already obtained the gold standard at its pre-certification stage. EEfizia Tower, SPACE Architects + Planners, sustainable architecture, recyclable materials, green building, Mexico City, green roofs Juan Carlos Baumgartner What began as a response to developer Diimx’s call for “The Best Building in Latin America,” turned into a vision for Latin America’s first LEED Gold building. Led by managing director ...

Omega Center for Sustainable Living Opens in Upstate New York
INHABITAT — On track to become the first green building to achieve both LEED Platinum and Living Building Challenge Certification, the Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OSCL) embodies the synthesis of wastewater recycling, clean energy, and eco-friendly architecture. Designed by sustainable design firm BNIM Architects as a functioning model for the nonprofit organization Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, the state-of-the art environmental education and water reclamation facility in Rhinebeck, New York serves as a teaching tool to ...

Chipotle Earns the First LEED-Platinum Certification Awarded to a Restaurant
Greener Buildings — ... which opened last fall, is the first to receive the top green rating under the USGBC's retail pilot program for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards covering new construction. LEED's five-tier green ratings start at basic certification and proceed to bronze, silver and gold before reaching the platinum level. In addition to the 6 kilowatt wind turbine, which was expected to produce about 10 percent of the restaurant's energy and is now described as generating "a portion" of the power needed, the Gurnee restaurant features: • LED lighting • ...

Priority Parking for Hybrids?
Green Inc. — ... , allowing alternative-fuel vehicles special parking privileges is an easy way to earn three points toward the total of 40 needed for basic LEED certification , the organization’s green-building stamp of approval. “It’s a very popular practice,” Ms. Katz said. It is also controversial. In Connecticut, as The Times ...

Las Vegas Verde
Ideal Bite Blog — ... I was skeptical too: Vegas, green ? I mean, it has its share of noneco vices: smoke-filled, AC-pumping casinos; water-wasting water shows; and the lights, the 24-7-so-not-necessary lights! Not to mention the all-you-can-eat buffets . [image] But I recently had a very non-Vegas-y trip to Vegas, where my good friends Vanessa and Steve live with their 4-year-old son (and twins on the way!). They made it their mission to show me the other side of Vegas 15 minutes from the strip with LEED -certified buildings (like the new ...

Green Seal Product Certification
Re-Nest — ... And for more on LEED certification, its rating system, and resources, visit the U.S. Green Building Council website. By the way - the exam is Monday - wish us luck! ...

Home Depot Foundation, Habitat for Humanity Give Green Building $30M Boost
Greener Buildings — ... affiliates in the U.S. built 263 homes -- 128 to Energy Star guidelines and 135 to higher green building standards. The foundation provided grants to the affiliates of up to $2,000 per Energy Star house and an additional $2,000 for homes meeting higher certification requirements for green building and energy efficiency. Energy savings thus far have generally ranged from 15 to 30 percent, with savings reaching almost 50 percent in homes built to platinum level -- the highest -- of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building standards, according to the ...

Habitat for Humanity Gets Greener
Green Inc. — ... guidelines or other green building standards, such as LEED . The project expands on a pilot program and is being done in conjunction with the ...

Energy and Global Warming News for August 5th: Mexico working on plan to cut CO2 growth; Clean energy rises at old manufacturing sites
Climate Progress — ... guidelines or other green building standards, like LEED. The project expands on a pilot program and is being done in conjunction with the ...

A New Building Energy Label in the Works, Alternative to Energy Star
Earth2Tech — ... The Green Building Council’s LEED rating system takes a broader approach to assessing the environmental character of a building than both Energy Star and Building EQ. LEED includes other measures besides energy, including water use, the materials used, location and indoor air quality. Under its energy category, LEED currently references Energy Star as a way to measure energy efficiency and in the future it could do the same with Building EQ. ...

Eco-Friendly Hilton Asheville Ready to Open
Modern Eco Homes — ... , the largest mixed-use district outside of the city’s downtown. The Hilton Asheville was built to blend green practices with the Hilton’s acclaimed commitment to guest comfort, and was designed to LEED Certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards from the ...

Germany Unveils World Class Sustainable ECO CITY
INHABITAT — ... , ECO CITY is one of the only projects in the world that is seeking to achieve the highest level of environmental certification from all three major green building rating systems (LEED, ...

USGBC Confronts Challenges of Green Building Performance
Greener Buildings — ... rolled out a sweeping initiative this week to amass data on all LEED-certified structures and use the information to help close any gaps between expected and actual performance. The move dovetails the USGBC's new reporting requirement, announced earlier this summer, for ongoing performance information about buildings as part of the certification process under the new version of LEED standards . The green building design standards referred to as LEED v3 and LEED 3.0 also took effect this summer. The USGBC's Building Performance Initiative is "about gathering knowledge about ...

Autodesk’s Ambition to Change the Green Building Industry
Earth2Tech — ... Part of the reason for this slow adoption is the perceived high cost of using these tools. Another reason, however, is that the industry –- broadly speaking -– is still operating collectively as if energy and water use don’t need to be factored in during design. It’s what Dawn Danby, sustainable design program manager at Auodesk, calls a “cultural” problem. While stricter building codes and the growing prominence of green building standards like LEED are pushing the embrace of performance software, widespread adoption won’t happen until architects and engineers change their ...

NASA Breakes Ground on their Sustainability Base
INHABITAT — ... s, to take on the 50,000-square foot collaborative support facility. Sustainable Building, NASA, Sustainbility Base, WM+P, Green Building, William McDonough + Partners Determined to go beyond LEED Platinum in performance, ...

NASA Base is Most Sustainable Federal Building Project in America
INHABITAT — ... s, to take on the 50,000-square foot collaborative support facility. Sustainable Building, NASA, Sustainbility Base, WM+P, Green Building, William McDonough + Partners Determined to go beyond LEED Platinum in performance, ...

5 Major Risks to Green Building Market Growth
Earth2Tech — ... Legal Risk: What if an architectural firm is contracted to build a green-certified building, such as through LEED, or promises a certain level of performance in terms of energy or water use but isn’t able to deliver? The legal world is still working out who carries what liability and what the compensation should be for not meeting those goals. Currently, most of the risk is borne by the architects, who include these requirements in their contracts with building developers, says Paula Vaughan, associate principal and co-director of the sustainable design ...

Songdo IBD: South Korea’s New Eco-City
INHABITAT — ... iconic opera house. songdo ibd, songdo, south korea, eco city, eco-city, master plan, sustainable city, open space, central park, city planning, urban planning, urban development, international development, open space planning, open space design, transit-oriented development The impressive open space will do wonders for storm water retention and reduction of urban heat island effect, but that’s not all the environmental tricks Songdo has up its sleeve. The whole city is based on LEED green building standards and over 120 buildings will seek LEED certification, which will make ...

LEED Seeks to Beef Up Its Credentials
Green Inc. — For some architects and designers, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED program — a green building certification issued by the ...

ECO by Cosentino
1GreenProduct — ... Tip – If you’re building a new home and hoping to get LEED certification, Cosentino says that architects and builders can get LEED points by including ECO by Cosentino surfaces in their designs. ...

San Francisco Tidal Project Rolling In, Mayor Newsom Says
Earth2Tech — ... But cities don’t have to wait for a federal policy to start making a difference, Newsom said. He encouraged other cities to follow in San Francisco’s footsteps, for example, by requiring LEED certification when commercial buildings are remodeled. Simple steps like that one helped San Francisco roll back its greenhouse-gas emissions to nearly 6 percent below 1990 levels by September of last year. ...

Strategies for Promoting Energy Efficiency in Buildings
Switchboard, from NRDC — ... competition or just to say they could do it. Beyond this, the graphic illustrated NRDC's policies regarding buildings, from left to right: Rigorous mandatory minimum codes to compress the tail to the left (ASHRAE, ICC) Development and adoption of advanced state codes (CA Title 24) and reach codes (NBI's Core PerformanceTM) to increase the height of the bulge in the middle. Normative Labels (LEEDTM, ENERGY STARTM) to draw builders to the right and move the middle. ...

Strategies to promote energy efficiency in buildings
Grist - the Latest from Grist — ... research and development, competition, or just to say they could do it. Beyond this, the graphic illustrated NRDC’s policies regarding buildings, from left to right: Rigorous mandatory minimum codes to compress the tail to the left (ASHRAE, ICC) Development and adoption of advanced state codes (CA Title 24) and reach codes (NBI’s Core Performance) to increase the height of the bulge in the middle. Normative Labels (LEED, ENERGY STAR) to draw builders to the right and move the middle. Short-term ...

Green Buildings: More Productive Workplaces?
Greentech Media: All Content — ... In fact, although tenants were loath to admit it, "Based on the results here, [these] premiums of only 5% to 10% are a bargain," the researchers concluded. But Cannacord Adams analysts Eric Prouty and Eric Glover noted that they awaited some harder financial data linking green buildings to improved productivity before they could support that contention. The study also concentrated on Energy Star-rated buildings, rather than those certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system, making it difficult to link LEED ratings ...

Should Eco-Labels Come from Government or Third Party Private Organizations?
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — ... and cleaning supplies.  The website defines an eco-label as, “any consumer facing logo that claims an added environmental or social benefit.”  Off the top of my head, I could only come up with about 20, and I work as a sustainability consultant and green business writer.  As a fairly savvy eco-consumer, I would expect to know more about these labels, and to know more of them. Some of these I know are good, such as the USDA Organic symbol, Energy Star for appliances, LEED for green building, Forest Stewardship Council ( FSC ) for sustainable forest ...

Green renovation – go it alone or hire an expert?
Environment — ... , which developed the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ) rating system. It has almost 20,000 members, and they, too,  have ...

Favorite Green Places: Cooper Union!
Tiny Choices — ... architecture, and engineering. Recently, Cooper Union found itself in need of updating it’s aging infrastructure. And to do so they went big and constructed a new academic building on the footprint of the former Hewett Building. What’s really cool about the building isn’t the neat structure (which has been at the center of a LOT of discussion about architecture in NYC), but how they were able to achieve LEED Platinum rating from the US Green Buildings Council. While a lot of serious engineering and ...

Beyond LEED: Living Building Challenge 2.0 Certification Unveiled
INHABITAT — ... One of the most important features of LBC is that it measures the actual performance of buildings. Basically this means that a year after a building was built, measurements are taken to ensure that it is, in fact, net zero in terms of energy and water, etc. This is a big distinction from existing requirements like LEED and ...

Searching for Greenwash at Greenbuild
Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward — ... and one of the founders of the green building movement, in particular, the LEED green building rating system — found in the recent ...

B Corp Expands Certification to Building Industry
Greener Buildings — ... conference Thursday, the product of 18 months of development by more than two dozen industry leaders. Unlike LEED , which certifies the environmental attributes of a building or neighborhood, B Corp certification covers the environmental and social business practices of a company. The B stands for public benefit, and these companies' legal structure allows them to consider environmental and social issues when making business decisions. More than 200 companies have been certified under its first iteration ...

Searching for Greenwash at Greenbuild
Greener Buildings — ... and one of the founders of the green building movement, in particular, the LEED green building rating system -- found in the recent ...

America’s greenest mayor, laid off and looking on
Grist - the Latest from Grist — ... Greg Nickels. It was a dark, dreary, drizzly November morning in Seattle when I visited Greg Nickels, the city’s lame-duck mayor and an influential national voice on the need for climate action over the last decade. Outside the LEED Gold-certified City Hall, a gray murk hung in the air, nearly obscuring Elliott Bay five blocks away. ...