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Building owners and property managers who don’t want to be standing in the cold with outdated, inefficient buildings, need to be thinking sustainability for their properties even if they aren’t competing for LEED or similar green building certification.
“The point is,” said John (Jack) F. Hedge, a nationally recognized authority on sustainable design, “it is your money, and green buildings really do contribute to a company’s bottom line. If you are not working in that direction, you are going to be left behind with an albatross on your hands.”
LEED is the acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Green Building Rating System,™ the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings.
Hedge, design principal of DesignGroup and a nationally recognized authority on sustainable design, spoke August 22 to members and guests of the Central Ohio IFMA Chapter, at the firm’s headquarters at 515 E. Main St.
Hedge has led DesignGroup’s efforts to produce energy-efficient, sustainable designs for numerous projects, including its headquarters, the Columbus Metropolitan Library System, and the State Teachers Retirement System.
He said, “Green buildings are high performance buildings because they disturb nature less, use less energy, use less water, conserve resources, and provide a healthier indoors, which means more to a business’ bottom line than all the others.
“Sustainability also increases the value of your buildings, lowers operating and maintenance costs, and increases net operating income.”
In a healthier environment, employees work in increased comfort, and as a result, productivity increases, he said. Hedge pointed out that a McGraw-Hill 2006 SmartMarket Report shows that buildings being build or remodeled with sustainability yield higher profits because they have:
Hedge told the group that sustainability is driving this issue because the world’s natural resources are being depleted at a rapid rate. Estimates are 41 years for oil and 67 years for natural gas, and the demand for these products continues to rise.
“We represent about 5 percent of the world’s population and we use 25 percent of the world’s resources. We import 65 percent of the oil we use now, and we also import 15 percent of the natural gas. (In banking terms) we need to begin living off of the interest and not the principal because the principal eventually goes away….That’s what it (sustainability) is all about,” he said.
Hedge said DesignGroup’s building, which was toured following the presentation, would have a “silver” LEED’s rating but it was designed before the system was devised.
Following LEED guidelines in construction does not add that much to the bottom line—less than 1 percent for a “certified” rating to 4-8 percent for “platinum,” the highest.
He said one of the first things to look at is how energy is used in this country.
“People keep talking about transportation, but most of that is the building industry. The building industry uses more energy and resources than transportation…with building operations responsible for about 36 percent of the energy flow.”
Hedge also said designers have a major role to play in the green arena because they can affect the use of transportation and the way cities are laid out.
“You could almost say that designers have an influence over about half of the energy used in this country. So, there is a big obligation that we have.”
However, he said, solutions have to be an integrated design process for optimal building performance and must involve owners, building managers, architects, engineers, developers, financiers, construction managers, occupants, and communities.
Following the presentation, Stephan Cooke, co-chair of the Education/Programs/Roundtable Committee, announced three chapter events for September:
Cooke also presented $25 gift certificates Mark Gresham, account executive with Johnson Controls, and Rebecca McNemar, contract fiber representative, Ultron, whose names were drawn from the “business card fish bowl.”
