From the Editor
One of the better educational sessions at last week’s Greenbuild Conference and Expo was titled “Rationalizing Sustainability When Money Is Tight.” A panel of representatives from developers discussed strategies they’ve used to keep their eyes on the green prize during the recession.

Jack Buettell, Global Sustainability Manager for Hines, talked about how green strategies, especially energy efficiency, become even more critical in a down economy. “The pitch for green went from an opportunity to a risk management strategy overnight,” he said. He outlined a few initiatives Hines has implemented, including an employee-suggestion program, for which the winner receives a $10,000 bonus for the best sustainability-related idea. He said the program will easily pay for itself in the money saved from implementing the ideas. Buettell's anecdote shows that leveraging the brainpower of your tenants and occupants helps keep sustainability as a priority when money’s tight.

Charlotte Matthews, Vice President of Sustainability for the Related Companies, discussed a 1.2 million-square-foot mixed-use development in New York City on which the budget had been cut 20 percent — from $500 million to $400 million. “The value-engineering e-mails started flying fast and furiously,” she joked. One of the first questions was how much could the project team save by cutting out its LEED Silver goal. By crunching numbers, and making a few changes, Matthews was able to show that LEED would be only 0.27 percent of the total construction budget, a very scant premium that would be paid back quickly. So LEED stayed. The Related Companies expects the building to be completed in 2011.

How do you make the argument for maintaining green strategies in this tight budget climate? I’d love to hear your stories! 

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

 

Green Strategies
Ten Ways To Retrofit Existing Green Buildings

Even routine upgrade projects are important opportunities to revamp existing buildings sustainably.

In the News
USGBC Launches LEED Volume
At last week’s Greenbuild, the U.S. Green Building Council officially launched its LEED Volume Program. In order to qualify, an owner must commit to a minimum of 25 LEED projects.

Green Multimedia
What Comes After LEED Certification?
Rachel Hardesty takes a break from GreenTech 2010 to follow up on her presentation (link below) and explain how to keep the momentum going after LEED certification and how to continue to budget for improvements.  

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

An Introduction to LEED-EB

This GreenTech presentation by Jim Newman of the Newman Consulting Group delves into the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system and provides facility managers tips and tricks on how to achieve many of the individual credits.