We Did It Again!

LEED O+M Version 4.1 Recertification

Just in time for Earth Day 2021 we are happy to announce that we have achieved LEED Version 4.1 O+M recertification for our Norton Shores headquarters and distribution center.  LEED which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design is a product of the U.S. Green Building Council. There are several LEED certifications for new construction and major renovations, homes, cities, neighborhoods and we chose to pursue LEED for Existing Buildings Operation and Maintenance in 2010 on our Norton Shores Headquarters and Distribution Center.

LEED O+M is the tool for the ongoing operations and maintenance of existing commercial and institutional buildings. The certification system identifies and rewards current best practices and provides an outline for buildings to use less energy, water and natural resources; reduce waste, improve the indoor environment; and uncover operating inefficiencies. We achieved LEED EB O+M Version 2.0 Gold in June of 2010 and recertification under LEED O+M Version 4.0 in 2015.  Nichols is happy to announce that we are achieved LEED Version 4.1 O+M recertification in April 2021. 

Recertifying under Version 4.1 felt very different as far as what needed to be submitted.  We had to submit our LEED Scorecard from our previous certification to provide proof of the prior certification.  We are now tracking all of our data in the Arc platform to measure and communicate sustainability performance and required by LEED. Arc is connected to EPA’s Energy Star Portfolio Manager and pulls in our energy and water data. We manually enter our waste and recycling data.  We were able to create and collect responses on a transportation and human experience survey that was required.  The new requirement was an Indoor Air Quality test.  We hired a qualified firm to come in and take samples in both the office and the warehouse to measure CO2 and Total VOC data. We defined our one-year performance period like in the past. It feels, and maybe I’m speaking too soon, that if you keep up with your data entry it will be much easier the next time around also, three years from now.  We are grateful to the team at Green2Sustainable (https://green2sustainable.com) for helping us keep up with our data entry and through this recertification process. 

We also achieved EPAs Energy Star certification in December of 2020 and we are very proud of that achievement also. 

Let us know if you have any questions about LEED, sustainability metrics that we are tracking.  We recently connected our Sustainability Engagement Dashboard to our website and you can find that here:  https://www.enichols.com/AboutUs/Sustainability

Renae Hesselink, LEED AP BD+C
Vice President of Sustainability