Happy Holidays from the Nichols Team.
We wish you a joyous, safe, relaxing holiday season and look forward to working with you in 2010!
The Growth of Green Buildings in Michigan and Where Do We Go From Here?
The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit organization, founded in 1993, a relatively new organization. Since the start of the USGBC, West Michigan has been leading the way and we need to thank the office furniture industry for their forward thinking and contributing to this effort. We have two local USGBC Chapters in the state of Michigan – West Michigan and the Detroit Regional Chapter both got their “official” start in 2004 and 2005 respectively. For those of you who have been involved in a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building you probably pay attention to the growth of green buildings in our area. We now have more than 108 LEED buildings in West Michigan, 151 in Michigan. Michigan is ranked fourth in the nation with the number of LEED certified buildings. There are another 445 LEED projects registered in the state of Michigan that are in some stage of the process. With that goes the expertise needed to guide a LEED project and we have demonstrated that with the 740 LEED APs (LEED Accredited Professionals) that we have in the state of Michigan. All of that growth demonstrates that we have experts that have figured out that you can build a LEED building with very little or no cost premium. USGBC West Michigan recently launched a research project that engages current owners of LEED buildings and several of our local universities and student teams to gather data to help prove and document the benefits of a LEED Building. End result will be a tour of many of these buildings in the fall of 2010 as well the case studies that will be made available.
A major focus of the green building movement now is to renovate/retrofit all of our existing buildings. There are so many existing buildings – for example in the United States there are over 128,000 existing school buildings, on the average for every one school that is built there are 27 existing school buildings. There is a lot that can be done to conserve energy, water and create a healthier indoor air quality in our existing buildings and LEED for Existing Buildings Operations and Maintenance is becoming quite popular. Green cleaning is a major part of LEED EBOM, it is low hanging fruit and should not cost more. There are more than 550 manufacturers in the commercial cleaning industry that are manufacturing 3rd party certified green products – the demand is there, the product selection is there and cost should be competitive. A significant number of LEED credits and points can be gained from a comprehensive green cleaning program – a program that focuses on cleaning for health in our buildings.
Many of you are planning now for 2010 so let me challenge you with this! 1) If you have not implemented a Green Cleaning Program – do so. There are many benefits to you, your team and the occupants of your building(s). Let us spend some time evaluating your current processes and make suggestions to you. We have now incorporated as part of this process Lean/5S concepts as well, leading to being more efficient. 2) If you have not considered LEED EBOM, please evaluate whether this makes sense for your organization. Obtaining that 3rd party certification proves positive results. Nichols has gone through (is going through) this process and will be submitting our final documentation by December 31, 2009. It has not been easy, but it forced us to look at things differently and one major outcome was our recycling efforts and the ability to reduce our waste hauling fees by 90% over two years. One of the other major accomplishments was energy savings and part of the process is to utilize the Energy Star Portfolio Manager (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=evaluate_performance.bus_portfoliomanager) to enter all of your utility and water invoices and then be able to track as you make improvements to your buildings as well as the ability to compare to other like buildings in their database. You must obtain a minimum of 69 Energy Star rating for LEED EBOM and when we started our LEED process it was 70 – we are now at 80 and can also obtain our Energy Star rating also.
LEED for Existing Buildings is a method for building owners and operators of existing buildings to implement sustainable operations and maintenance practices and reduce the environmental impact of a building over its functional life cycle. Specifically, it addresses exterior building site maintenance programs, water and energy use; environmentally preferred products for cleaning and alterations, waste stream managements, and ongoing indoor environmental quality.
I attended the USGBC Greenbuild Conference in November and there were nearly 28,000 attendees at that conference, 1800 exhibitors at the trade show. Our industry was well represented in the exhibit hall by many of the major manufacturers of commercial cleaning products (Rubbermaid, Kimberly Clark, SCA Tissue, and Spartan Chemical to name a few). This is my third year attending this conference and it amazes me to see the growth of this conference. We heard from more than 15 countries around the world that are now adopting green building practices and forming Green Building Councils in their own countries (Australia, New Zeeland, Germany, Great Britain, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, Italy,
Don’t assume that green buildings (LEED) cost more. We have experts in Michigan that have proven that it doesn’t have to. LEED EBOM is a great standard to use to manage the performance of your building(s), again don’t assume you cannot afford to do this. It is a challenging but fun journey and we will share more about our journey over the next few months with you!
Renae Hesselink, LEED AP
Vice President of Sustainability, Nichols
Vice-Chair of USGBC West Michigan Chapter
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