| Programs |  |
“Our goal is to provide information and to get you (members of the Central Ohio IFMA Chapter) to really understand what it is to go green…how to be environmentally responsible in your facilities, and even in your daily lives. Green is here and it is affecting everyone in this room.”—Stephan Cooke, Programs Committee co-chair.
With that pronouncement, Cooke launched a two-part program to show members and guests what is being done locally by companies and businesses in the private sector and by the City of Columbus in the public sector to help conserve and better utilize our planet’s natural resources.
Speakers for the initial program, held May 21 at the Confluence Park Restaurant, were David Rehm, principal with Design Group, and Susan Ashbrook, environmental steward for the City of Columbus. Part II will be June 12 at the Confluence and will center on what going green means to facility managers.
Rehm said the rational behind going green can be seen everywhere and is generating considerable media attention throughout the country, even is such publications as Sports Illustrated.
“Sustainability, sustainable design, or green design is integral to business success. It is a global issue and we must address it and lead by example in the U.S. because there are other countries that are ahead of us and there are other countries that are far behind us,” Rehm said.
He defined sustainability as a system that continues to function in the indefinite future without having to exhaust its existing resources. Putting it in financial terms, he said:
“Are you going to live off of the principal or the interest? If you live off the interest, you have a sustained financial model. If you start to erode the principal, then you will at some point run out…a daunting thought.”
He said that while people look at automobiles and transportation as huge consumers of energy, “buildings are right up there in the stake they hold in the energy world.”
Twenty-five percent of the potable water is used in the functioning of buildings. Huge amounts of natural resources are put into buildings, and 25 to 40 percent of trash and waste in landfills is generated by buildings, Rehm said.
“We are trying to shift thinking to high performance buildings…buildings that disturb nature less…that use a lot less water. The big one for us is that high performance buildings use tremendously less energy, they conserve materials, and the thing that will make all this pay off is they create healthier indoor work environments,” he said.
In discussing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), Rehm said this and similar programs are gaining lots of momentum. There are now 9,800 LEED registered projects, and another 1,200 have been LEED certified with 220 in Ohio. Design Group, he added, has 35 LEED accredited professionals.
The rational for going green is not just construction costs and energy savings, “it’s about the impact on people.” A study by the Heschong Mahone Group showed higher test scores and higher performing students in schools with daylighting and other sustainable design features, Rehm said. Daylighting also is showing workforce improvements in offices and in retail establishments.
Additionally, companies and businesses are saving considerable sums on their energy bills. For example, the State Teachers Retirement System saved $113,000 a year with sustainable features. Building owners also are finding higher occupancy rates, higher rental rates, 7.5 percent increase in the bottom line, and 6.6 percent return on investment over a 20-year period as compared to a building without similar features.
Ashbrook discussed Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman’s initiative that began three years ago to green Columbus and to promote and insure a healthier environment with cleaner air and cleaner water.
In doing so, the mayor hoped to make Columbus “the greenest place in the nation to live, work, and raise a family.” Ashbrook became the city’s green advocate 18 months ago, and learned that city government makes a large impact on the environment with almost 500 buildings, 3,000 vehicles, and over 30 million driven miles annually.
Ashbrook said being green is putting the environment into the automatic decision making process you use when looking for products.
“Take into consideration that every decision you make is having an impact on the environment,” she said.
The city has created a Green Team that consists of 35 or more persons that meets every other month for networking and education. This group is divided into five committees that do the work of the team, and “have been very successful over the two years. It’s a great group and very dynamic…and a lot of work (on improving the environment) is getting done.”
The city also helped establish the Central Ohio Green Pact last year with 14 suburbs, and adopted a 10-point plan for improving central Ohio through purchase and use of green rated products, reducing waste, land use, and mass transportation.
The city is also using incentives to attract green businesses, referring to RASTRA, an Arizona-based company that is building a plant on the city’s South Side to use recycled styrofoam with concrete to make building blocks. The plant will be on-line next year.
Ashbrook said, “Two weeks ago, the city unveiled a bikeway master plan of $20 million over the next five years to really improve our bicycle access in town, to work on bike lanes, bike paths, greenways, and, hopefully, a downtown facility for bike parking and showering.”
She pointed to the renovation of the Downtown Lazarus Building to office use and its subsequent conversion to a green building by the Columbus Downtown Development Corp., a partnership between the public and private sectors, as one of the city’s premier accomplishments.