Citi Becomes World's First Bank with 200 LEED-Certified Projects

Yesterday, Citi celebrated the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum certification of its New York City flagship branch in Union Square, becoming the world's first bank with 200 LEED-certified projects. LEED is the U.S Green Building Council's leading rating system for designing and constructing the world's greenest, most energy efficient, and high performing buildings.

Billy Cho, Citibank Area Director for NYC; Don Callahan, Citi CAO; Val Smith, Director of Citi's Corporate Sustainability, and Scot Horst, USGBC's Senior Vice President of LEED.

The 9,700 square foot branch is located at 14th Street and Broadway and features 100 percent ENERGY STAR rated equipment, high efficiency, energy optimizing lighting controls and nearly a quarter of all building materials manufactured using recycled content. The announcement is a direct result of a $50 billion pledge Citi made in 2007 to address global climate change over the next 10 years, which includes financing for the renewable energy and clean technology industries as well as investments in reducing our corporate environmental footprint through procurement, energy use and real estate portfolio. To date, Citi has directed over $36.4 billion towards these activities as part of this initiative.

Looking Past the USGBC Plaque to Make Buildings Greener

Leslie Guevarra
Editor
GreenBiz

Editor's Note: In the runup to the VERGE DC conference, Chris Pyke, the U.S. Green Building Council's research guru, talks about the need for market transformation and the strategy that can make it happen.

Today, more than 1.8 billion square feet of commercial property is certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.

And for many, obtaining the shining LEED plaque that attests to green building achievement is a major goal. That's great, say green building advocates, but efforts shouldn't stop there. To transform the built environment in a generation in order to avoid catastrophic damage from climate change lots more needs to happen, and quickly.

To do that, says Chris Pyke, the USGBC's vice president for research, it's necessary to "unpack the plaque" -- to tap into the wellspring of data that's available from buildings themselves about how they are performing.

It Doesn't stop at the LEED Certification Plaque: Why Ongoing Building Performance Tracking Matters

Kal Wellman
Associate, LEED
U.S. Green Building Council

It has become widely accepted across the commercial real estate world that LEED certification has the potential to add value by presenting a number of benefits including higher rental yields, lower vacancy rates, reduced operating costs and improved employee productivity. The extraordinary growth of LEED over the past decade is clear evidence of this industry-wide understanding.

Receiving the LEED plaque should not be the end of the process for building owners. The plaque symbolizes the beginning of a building performance journey, one where data is at the center of attention. Having the ability to measure, track and benchmark a building’s energy and water data can help pinpoint operational inefficiencies within major building systems and can help the management team set actual reduction targets. Don’t believe us? See how it helped the Christman Company.