LEED By Example

Recently, the fourth legal office building in our department received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the US Green Building Council (USGBC). We have received a gold, two silvers, and a basic LEED certification. Hurray! As a result, we can claim that 40% of all our employees work in a LEED certified building. In an earlier blog, I cited a study that showed the advantages to recruitment when the employer’s workplace is in a green building. 

The State of California owns the four buildings, and our department is a major tenant in all of them. The state Department of General Services (DGS) has primary responsibility for the management and maintenance of state-owned buildings. Two years ago, in a rosier budget time, DGS had some funding to kick-start the LEED Existing Building certification process, and they cast about for likely candidates in their portfolio of buildings. At about the same time, I contacted DGS to learn more about the state’s building re-commissioning and retrofitting projects. We brought the key people in for a presentation to our Green Office-DOJ committee, and DGS learned about our greening efforts, too. The upshot was that buildings where we have offices were selected to be among the first to undergo the LEED review and application process. The fact that we had an established green program was a consideration, because we could earn points for our efforts toward LEED certification. 

DGS is in charge of the LEED efforts for existing buildings, but our department played an important role. DGS hired a consulting firm, CTG Energetics, to essentially complete the building applications and submit them to the US Green Building Council. We started in Sacramento where we assembled a team of DOJ managers who met with the consultants over a period of several months. It was our task to provide information and supporting documentation to substantiate our greening efforts. The DGS building manager, engineering, and maintenance personnel who are assigned to our building supplied information necessary to complete the portions of the application pertinent to their responsibilities. The process was similar for our other buildings.

The USGBC has a lot of information and reference materials on their website that fully describes the LEED program and all that is entailed to certify a building. In summary, the criteria for certification encompasses the physical site and its surroundings, how employees commute to work, heating and air conditioning systems, landscaping, pest management, water efficiency, janitorial, lighting, indoor air quality, waste management, procurement, and innovations in operations. As tenants, we conducted employee surveys covering modes of transportation and satisfaction with air quality and temperatures. We provided detailed information on our procurement of Energy Star equipment and recycled content supplies. We had undertaken energy conserving efforts, such as installing desktop energy management software and disseminating reminders to staff to “pull the plug” on appliances when not in use. And we shared information on our Green Office-DOJ outreach efforts to employees to increase awareness and participation in our efforts to reduce, re-use, and recycle. These activities earned us valuable credits toward gaining LEED certification for our buildings. 

We were fortunate to be in "the right place at the right time”. But it wasn’t luck that our department had embarked on a substantive greening initiative. The move to go green was a prudent decision that put us in an ideal position when the LEED opportunity arose.

Our employees work in about 50 leased and state-owned buildings, most of which may not ever be LEED certified. But knowing what we do now about all the aspects involved in a green building, the knowledge we gained helps us to identify areas where we can make improvements in any building. It could be as simple as working with the maintenance crew to switch to eco-friendly cleaning supplies, talking with the painters about low or no-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, or switching out the light bulbs to compact fluorescents. The LEED rating criteria offers a checklist that can be a helpful reference tool to making smaller, but still important changes that bring your office closer to your sustainability goals.