The EBies: Honoring Great Work in Buildings Gone Green

William Nutt
Associate, Marketing and Communications
U.S. Green Building Council

Urban Green Council, the New York City chapter of USGBC, held the first-ever EBie Awards on June 28th at the Hard Rock Café Theater. Though this marks the first public showcase for the EBies, the project reflects concepts and ideas that have been discussed for years by NYC leaders in sustainability. The basic idea is this: We need to recognize and encourage the people who are making amazing improvements to existing buildings (hence “EB”ies). Last month, a total of 10 projects from around the country received awards across eight categories.

Sixty-seven entries were submitted; the jurors narrowed the list down to a select 18 finalists, and then chose the winners. Winning the All-Rounder was Glen Neville, a Director of Deutsche Bank, with a team from Jones Lang LaSalle for the Deutsche Bank Americas Headquarters at 60 Wall Street. Maintenance, operational, and capital improvements to the property increased its energy and water efficiency as it moves towards a goal of carbon neutrality by 2013. Included in the spectacular outcome of this $8 million project is the creation of a 123KW flat panel solar array – the largest rooftop array in New York City.

Forty percent energy savings over the past three years earned Jesse Dillard of the Dallas Museum of Art the Reformed Gas Guzzler Award thanks to lighting, HVAC and water heater retrofits. The Reformed Drinker Award went to Steve Allwine of the Johnson Braund office building in Seattle for reducing water consumption by 95%. The range of building types that received other innovative awards include a commercial office space, a mixed-use industrial complex and office building, an elementary school, a condominium complex and a rental apartment building.

Evolving LEED for Existing Buildings at BOMA's Every Building Conference & Expo

Lauren Riggs, LEEP® AP
Manager, LEED and Building Performance Partnership
U.S. Green Building Council

This Tuesday, I participated in a panel at BOMA’s Every Building Show in Seattle, WA. The topic: The Evolution of LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance.

Now, you’d think that we would have shared a lovely timeline of how LEED for Existing Buildings has grown from a renovation strategy baby to an operations-focused teenager – we didn’t. Instead the panel focused on our movement towards emphasizing building performance outcomes. Specifically, USGBC has launched Pilot Credit 67 (aka. Energy Jumpstart!), is emphasizing performance through a restructuring of the rating system requirements and will be launching LEED EB: O&M recertification program guidelines in the near future.

Given all that we covered, there were two comments from that audience that have stuck in my mind.

First comment: LEED should award a point to building owners and managers who provide submetering to tenant spaces.

My reaction to this comment was, “But what about tenant data privacy? Isn’t the intent of awarding points for tenant metering to also allow the property manager to manage and trend tenant energy consumption?” But, I was wrong. Rather, tenants would be presented with the opportunity to monitor and control their own energy consumption – something that isn’t as standard practice as some would like.

Existing Buildings = The 99%

It's hard to overstate the potential (and necessity) of greening our existing building stock. Buildings account for 73% of electricity consumption in the U.S. and 38% of CO2 emissions. Can you imagine the dent we can make with added efficiency in this sector - environmentally and economically? Plus, existing buildings are all around us. Chances are, you're inside of a building (an existing one) as you read this blog entry - talk about an accessible opportunity.

We caught up with two of USGBC's existing buildings gurus to get the their take on the facts, figures, and future of the movement - including the evolution of LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance.

Existing buildings: They're everywhere! Seattle skyline - Source:  Jordan R. MacDonald

Let's start simple: What are the key principles behind LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance? What's the point of greening our existing building stock, and what does it involve?

Lauren Riggs: As I see it, the primary role for LEED EB: O&M in the market is to provide a platform for existing buildings to demonstrate their success in implementing sustainable operations strategies. The majority of buildings are not new - and in fact have been in operation for quite some time; LEED EB: O&M is available to set these buildings up for optimal performance. The point of “greening our existing buildings stock” is to realize the massive potential that such a large number of buildings has to positively impact the environment through efficient operations.

What does this involve? Commitment to the ongoing process of operating a building sustainably. Start with practical and sustainable practices, implement them and update along the way – key words “update along the way.” If LEED EB: O&M projects continually try to make their processes better, they will see the full value of the rating system.

Christopher Davis: Look, the annual replacement rate of buildings (the percent of the total building stock newly constructed or majorly renovated each year) has historically been about 2%, and during the economic recession and subsequent years, it's been much lower. Even if we succeed in making half of those new buildings green, that doesn’t sound like a very urgent response to a crisis. We're deluding ourselves if we think we can solve all of our problems just with new, super efficient buildings. Existing buildings are, to borrow a phrase, the 99%, and we need to pay serious attention to them. Greening existing buildings is incredibly important for our planet, but it makes exceptionally good economic sense. Last year when the Empire State Building achieved Gold using LEED EB: O&M, they were a little over halfway through a deep energy retrofit program projected to cut annual energy costs by 38%. Just a few weeks ago they announced that in the first year they've exceeded their projections by 5%, already saving $2.4 million. Just think what kind of impact we can have if every aging building with leaky windows and inefficient chillers invested in these kinds of improvements. That's the kind of innovation that LEED EB: O&M is trying to stimulate.

If Betty White Were a Green Building...

Christopher Davis
Certification Team Lead, Existing Buildings
Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI)

Perhaps you've heard the idea that "the greenest building is the one already built." Our friends in the historic preservation movement use this phrase to argue that tearing down an existing building and starting from scratch wastes a lot of materials and energy. And they have a point: A recent report from the National Trust for Historic Preservation concludes that it can take up to 80 years to make up for the environmental impacts of demolishing the old building and constructing the new one, even if the new one is super energy efficient.

Could this be the next star
of the green building movement?

So, granted, in most cases it's better to keep a building than to build a new one, but let's think about that creed again: The greenest building is the one already built. What if you’re not planning a new building? Does that mean your existing building is already green? Does the mere fact that something already exists mean that it exhibits certain qualities? Does the fact that you were born mean that you live a healthy, prosperous and generous life? One can argue that our experiences and aspirations say substantially more about who we are than our DNA ever will. The same holds true for buildings.

Let's face it; LEED was conceived because there are a bunch of really bad buildings out there. They use too much energy and water, and make people sick. But the solution isn't to just tear them down and start over. Existing buildings, and in particular historic buildings, tell valuable stories. They've been worked in, lived in, and loved in. They teach us about our past and form the bedrock of our communities. But just like your wise but slightly behind-the-times grandfather who doesn’t quite get what those new-fangled CFLs and LEDs are all about, sometimes we need to drag those old buildings, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.

The True Story of the EBies

Laurie Kerr
Senior Policy Advisor
NYC Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability

Several years ago, a group of us Urban Greeners were chatting about how to scale up energy efficiency in existing buildings – as we so often do for fun. Someone sighed and said for the umpteenth time, “The problem is, correcting operating schedules and insulating steam pipes just isn’t as sexy as installing solar panels or bamboo flooring…” At which point I thought, “Sexiness is in the eye of the beholder isn’t it? Fashions change. We need to make efficiency and existing buildings sexy, even glamorous!” And with that, the idea for the EBies was born.

May I Borrow Your Jumper Cables?

Lauren Riggs, LEED AP
Manager, LEED Performance
U.S. Green Building Council

“May I borrow some jumper cables?” The brick building asked the building next door. The brick building’s energy use was out of control; It needed to kick-start its efficiency. The building next door answered with Energy Jumpstart, the new pilot prerequisite in USGBC’s Pilot Credit Library. USGBC hopes that this pilot can act as a set of jumper cables to stir up a segment of the buildings market that has the potential to make huge energy efficiency gains.

Source: Charles Williams via Flickr

On March 1, when the third public comment period for LEED 2012 opened, USGBC launched Pilot Credit 67 (aka Energy Jumpstart), a Pilot Alternative Compliance Path for EA Prerequisite 2 in LEED 2009 for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance.

Confused?…let me explain.

If you’re familiar with LEED, you know each LEED prerequisite has mandatory pathways for compliance. For Energy and Atmosphere prerequisite 2, the traditional entry point for most buildings has been an ENERGY STAR rating of 69, a benchmark that certain market segments, such as older buildings, have a particularly tough time meeting. Cue Energy Jumpstart, an alternative path for this prerequisite (and the first pilot alternative compliance path ever), targeted at older buildings with energy challenges.

A Green Building Opportunity: Three Million Strong

Doug Gatlin
Vice President, LEED
U.S. Green Building Council

It’s a great time to be an existing building.

First: President Obama released last year’s Better Buildings Initiative, focusing financing opportunities on commercial retrofits.

Then: USGBC reported that LEED for Existing Buildings project square footage surpassed new construction projects.

Now: A new report has concluded that building reuse almost always offers environmental savings over demolition and new construction.

Empire State Building, LEED Gold.
Photo credit: John Donges, Flickr

It’s a hat trick for existing buildings, the many millions of them across the world. There are 838,337 alone in New York City, some three million skyscrapers across the U.S., and 71 billion total square feet covering the country. Everyone from building industry pros to the President of the United States is recognizing the vast potential to curb emissions and ramp up energy efficiency by greening this enormous stock of structures, to the tune of one million jobs. The market share of retrofit projects that are green is expected to rise to one third in 2015: An $18 billion opportunity. USGBC has been stressing the insurmountable benefits of focusing our greening efforts on the existing building stock, and we are thrilled that momentum is growing.

What LEED Means to Us

This entry is cross-posted from the Brewery Vivant blog.

We recently received our LEED Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification at Brewery Vivant and found out at the end of the process that we are the first commercial microbrewery in the United States to do so (or as Mayor Heartwell put it, the first in the galaxy). That is pretty cool. However, we did not go through this process just to have a marketing tool to talk about. We see this plaque that hangs on our wall as a symbol of the way we want to run our business.

LEED design takes more into account than just using high efficiency appliances. It looks at the project as a whole including diverting demolition waste, using earth friendly materials, proximity to public transportation, and creating enjoyable work environments for employees. We see it as a holistic approach to business that weighs how businesses fit into a community. Our intent from the beginning was to build a neighborhood brewery and it all started with the site selection.

It would have been much cheaper and easier to build a pub from the ground up on a new site outside the city limits. But what fun would that be? The atmosphere we have created by utilizing the existing historic architecture is priceless. As far as our brewing facility, it would have been far cheaper to rent some warehouse space for $2 a sq ft in some industrial park. But then we would not be able to give the personal tours of our process to the people that visit our pub. The way we did things creates a whole and unique experience.

At Treasury, Green is Our Favorite Color – But We'll Take (LEED) Gold!

Note: This blog was cross-posted from the U.S. Department of the Treasury Blog and the White House Blog.

When you think about a “green” building, you probably don’t picture a centuries-old National Historic Landmark that’s lined with columns and made of thousands of tons of granite.

Well, maybe that’s about to change. I'm pleased to announce that the Treasury Building – which dates back to the 19th century and is located right next door to the White House – received Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) at a ceremony today in our historic Grant Room.

According to the USGBC, the Treasury Building is believed to be the oldest building in the world to receive LEED certification. The fact that the home of much our nation’s financial history has achieved this distinction for environmental leadership really adds new meaning to the term ‘green’ building.

The Changing Face of Green Buildings: Iconic Treasury Building Earns LEED Gold

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

One of America’s most iconic buildings earned LEED for Existing Buildings yesterday. By improving their operations, the Department of Treasury’s headquarters next to the White house has slashed energy, steam and water consumption to save taxpayers $3.5 million per year. The oldest LEED building ever certified also increased their office density by 164 units, which equals big savings in avoided new office space.

This is a moment to step back and applaud what has been done. Because the project certified under Existing Buildings, the certification was based on actual energy, water and steam consumption (bills) and not a projection.

This $3.5 million dollars is real money that the Treasury is keeping in the treasury.

Source: Clifford's Photography

The announcement is even more monumental in the context of the green building movement and the evolution of these industries. The building world is changing. Treasury follows the path of another icon, the Empire State Building (LEED EB:O&M Gold) and comes only weeks after the announcement that the square footage of LEED for Existing Buildings – certified for actual performance – has surpassed New Construction.

Despite little minds in Congress and worse in some state mansions, this movement is winning. Not only are new buildings becoming greener and more efficient, saving money for nearly centuries, but our architects, engineers, designers, contractors and manufacturers are working on the buildings we already have. Nothing could be greener.

Green Retrofits on the Rise: LEED for Existing Buildings Surpasses New Construction Projects, Echoes Industry Shift

Doug Gatlin
Vice President, LEED
U.S. Green Building Council

The U.S. landscape is covered by more than 60 billion square feet of existing buildings, many of them hogging inordinate amounts of resources and energy due to outdated infrastructure. The potential to green this building stock is vast, and more importantly, the potential is being realized: We announced last week that LEED-certified existing buildings are surpassing new construction projects by 15 million square feet, cumulatively.

This news comes just one week after President Obama and former President Clinton announced that the federal government will invest $2 billion in energy efficiency, with an equal investment from the private sector in response to the Better Buildings Challenge, covering 1.6 billion square feet of commercial building space. Job creation potential there? 50,000 new jobs.

Earlier this year, the administration threw the lights on over the potential of a greener building stock with the Better Buildings Initiative, the goal of which is to cut energy consumption in commercial buildings by 20 percent, saving businesses $40 billion.

It’s no secret that revisiting our existing buildings and making them cleaner, safer, and more efficient is one of our strongest opportunities to cut global emissions and conserve precious resources; create jobs and save taxpayer dollars. The announcement about the growth of LEED-certified existing buildings is significant because it heralds that project teams, developers and building owners around the world are seizing this opportunity in greater numbers than ever. Green building is not just for new buildings – that way of thinking is evaporating faster than you can say “EB.”

Global projects like the recently LEED-certified Empire State Building are proving this, and setting an example for other forthcoming retrofits. Greening this globally known New York City landmark will result in a predicted 38 percent energy savings and $4.4 million in energy cost savings annually.

Another skyline-defining project, Taipei 101, not only is known for being the second tallest building in the world, but also one of the greenest: The skyscraper was designed to use 30 percent less energy, reducing annual utility costs by $700,000 per year.

The FBI Regional Headquarters in Chicago, the first Platinum LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (O&M) project reduced operating expenses by 25 cents per square foot, achieved an ENERGY STAR rating of 95 and reduced water use by 43 percent. One Bush Street in San Francisco successfully implemented for only 31 cents per square foot while still earning covetable LEED Platinum. You can learn more about these projects in the USGBC LEED Stories from Practice, case studies submitted by LEED project team members detailing goals, strategies, processes and lessons learned from completed projects, along with a detailed LEED scorecard. We encourage you to take a look at these blueprints for success in the beta library and provide your feedback.

Reorganization of LEED EB: O&M in draft version of LEED 2012 Highlights Performance Monitoring, Key Metrics

Lauren Riggs, LEEP® AP
Manager, LEED and Building Performance Partnership
U.S. Green Building Council

In the draft version of LEED 2012, which opened for public comment yesterday, USGBC has taken its first steps towards a streamlined and simple ongoing certification program for LEED. After consideration of how project teams should implement the strategies in LEED EB: O&M, and what we know about how teams implement them, we have reorganized the prerequisite and credit structure of LEED EB: O&M.

The new structure of LEED EB: O&M allows LEED projects to enable high performance during the performance period by emphasizing a two-step process for applying the credit strategies: (1) write, vet and verify your policies, plans and-one time activities before you begin your performance period, and (2) conduct your performance period confident that your building will do well.

Image created by Christopher Davis, GBCI

This reorganization highlights the importance of performance monitoring and what metrics should be tracked in preparation for the building’s next certification. Our first application of this new structure is reflected in the second public comment version of LEED 2012 for Existing Buildings: O&M.

House Appropriators Signal Support for Commercial Building Energy Survey

Bryan Howard
Legislative Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Last week brought good news in the efforts to restart the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), a national survey that gathers statistical information on U.S. commercial buildings, at the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

CBECS, a survey that is not widely known outside of the building industry, has a huge impact on the real estate community as it is the data backbone of important programs such as LEED for Existing Buildings and ENERGY STAR. The budget compromise for this year cut EIA's funding by 14 percent. Because of the size and the timing of the budget cut, EIA chose to suspend its work on CBECS for 2011.

As part of H.R. 2354, the fiscal year 2012 Energy and Water Development Appropriations, EIA is slated to receive nearly $10 million more than they did in 2011. During the consideration of the bill, Representatives Judy Biggert (R-IL) and Russ Carnahan (D-MO) clarified with Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) and Ranking Member Peter Visclosky (D-IN) that such an increase would be utilized for CBECS.


The exchange between members was beneficial for a couple of key reasons:

First, and most importantly, it indicated the committee expects the increased funds at EIA to support CBECS.

Secondly, the leadership of the subcommittee went on to discuss the importance of CBECS to the commercial building industry.

“…the committee understands the importance of this program. The CBECS data is essential not just for Federal programs to reduce energy use like EPA’s Energy Star for buildings and DOE’s building technologies program, but for private sector efforts like the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system as well,” commented Ranking Member Visclosky (IN) during the discussion.

USBGC along with more than 70 organizations, companies and advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Senate and House Appropriations Committees urging that Congress restore funding for the Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS). The letter was drafted and circulated by USGBC, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Real Estate Roundtable (RER) and members of the Real Estate Network for Energy and Climate Policy (RENECP), a network of professionals who support comprehensive clean energy and climate policies that advance building and location efficiency.

New Fact Sheet Released: Energy Performance in the LEED Rating System

Lane Burt
Technical Policy Director
U.S. Green Building Council

Every building professional knows that green building is a process, not an event. As a tool for encouraging green building, LEED reflects that reality, providing recognition of leadership in each part of that process, from design and construction to operations and maintenance.

This is often overlooked when someone refers to a “LEED Certified” building: Where a building stands in the LEED process is an important distinction. A new fact sheet titled “Energy Performance in the LEED Rating System” explains how the LEED rating systems and requirements are supported by initiatives like the Building Performance Partnership to ensure that high performance green buildings live up to their energy potential.

And it is crucially important to understand the difference between potential and actual performance, because in many situations the concepts are conflated. Most folks think of LEED buildings as the shiny new building downtown. They say “It’s green!” or “It’s LEED!”, and it’s true that the building’s design and construction process has been subject to a rigorous evaluation over all categories of sustainability, and a certification level (Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum) has been determined. But that’s not the end of the story, as my colleague Lauren Riggs points out in her post. A building should live up to its potential, and it takes another type of building professional to drive the building into the next stage of the green building process.

The fact sheet details a crucially important tool in helping to realize a building’s performance in every aspect of sustainability: LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance. LEED buildings certified through EB:O&M are certified based upon their energy consumption in addition to the measures undertaken in the other credit categories covering water, indoor environmental quality, materials, and location. The amount of certified space under EB:O&M has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years, surpassing the rate of certification for New Construction (see the graph in the fact sheet for exactly how much and how fast). We expect this growth to continue as the building industry (and even the President) focuses on improving existing buildings.

We hope that this focus on existing buildings’ performance will encourage folks to ask a follow up question about the new green building in the neighborhood: “Is it LEED EB:O&M?” A response of “Yes” to this question will mean that the building is a top performer not only in energy efficiency, but also in water efficiency, location and transportation efficiency, indoor environmental quality, etc.

Take a look at the fact sheet and feel free to post comments below. We hope it illuminates how all these initiatives are coordinated to help us reach our goal of transforming the built environment.