LEED Blogger

Tag: leed

  • Introducing 12,000: A Milestone for LEED

    Authored by: 
    Ashley Katz
    Published on: 
    28 Mar 2012
    Feature image: 
    Source: Bernard Freeman, Division of Engineering Chief for the SW Region USFWS

    Twelve years after the first LEED certifications in 2000, today we announced the 12,000th commercial project has been certified (!). Without a doubt, this calls for celebration: If you’ve worked on one of these 12,000 LEED-certified projects, we invite you to join the conga line forming around our headquarters in Washington, DC (please call ahead, though). Thank you for tipping the green building scales to 12,000 – and thank you for your commitment to building better, healthier, greener buildings.

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  • Hungry for Data: LEED Targets Data Centers

    Authored by: 
    Corey Enck
    Article: 

    Quick: How did you get to our blog? Did you click on a link via Twitter, or see the article pop up in your RSS reader? However you arrived here, you probably used around 180 KB of data to load this webpage.

    Though somewhat intangible, and certainly not of upmost concern to most of us and our rapid-fire browsing, data requires huge amounts of energy to process. Data centers power our appetite for data at all hours of the day. They are the physical embodiments of our everyday data usage – using Google or Yahoo! to search the most recent March Madness upset, posting photos of a recent vacation to Facebook, loading an app on the new iPad 3 – and like every other structure, they can (and should) be built green.

    For that reason, we’ve adapted LEED for New Construction and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance to the particular needs of data centers to ensure that new construction and facility retrofits can successfully pursue and apply LEED.

    What makes data centers such a unique project type? Data centers have very few occupants, and they are huge energy users: a data center can use as much energy as a small town (really). Whereas a typical building is designed to meet heating and cooling needs for occupant comfort, a data center must provide massive cooling power for its servers. Water use is also a key target area for data centers, if the facility utilizes water for cooling. These specific building needs are built in to the data center adaption for LEED.

    Recently, there’s been a surge of LEED-certified data centers: Among them, Facebook, Yahoo!, Internap and QTS. Facebook’s first energy efficient, LEED Gold data center in Prineville, Ore. uses 70 percent less water for cooling purposes than an average data center. Apple’s LEED Platinum data center in Maiden, NC, utilizes outside air cooling so that facility chillers can be turned off 75 percent of the time. All of these projects are leading the way in how we think about this project sector.

    By bringing data centers into the suite of LEED rating systems, we’re removing barriers so that even more data facilities can participate in LEED and build sustainably. Read more about the adaptations for data centers and other market tracks, and be sure to weigh in on these changes to LEED in public comment, now open until Mar. 27.

    Slideshow images: 
    Facebook's LEED-certified data center in Prineville, Ore.

    Quick: How did you get to our blog? Did you click on a link via Twitter, or see the article pop up in your RSS reader? However you arrived here, you probably used around 180 KB of data to load this webpage.

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  • May I Borrow Your Jumper Cables?

    Authored by: 
    Lauren Riggs
    Slideshow images: 
    Jumpstarting energy efficiency in older buildings

    “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.

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

    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.

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  • Out with the old…

    We’re excited to announce that the USGBC blog has moved to the new USGBC.org website.

    Head there now to check out our recent posts, including:
    And don’t forget to update our RSS feed link in your readers.

    Thank you for sticking with us during this change and for reading the USGBC blog. See you on the other side!

    – The USGBC blog team

  • How Will You Impact LEED 2012? Third Public Comment Period Opens Mar. 1

    Are you an architect? A facilities manager? A building owner?

    How about a professional working in a big city high-rise? A father with kids in elementary school? An unabashed shopaholic?

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  • Army to Congress: LEED Doesn’t Cost More

    Slideshow images: 
    Fort Carson is piloting net-zero energy, water, and waste--and expects to meet t

    The Army is still going for Gold and Platinum despite recent legislation calling a halt to LEED spending.

    The federal government has been one of the biggest supporters of LEED certification in the last few years, with the General Services Administration (GSA) requiring basic LEED certification for all federal buildings starting in 2003 and then upping that requirement to LEED Gold in 2010.

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

    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.

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  • Top 10 States for LEED Green Buildings

    Today, USGBC released its top 10 list of states with the most LEED-certified building square footage per capita. The District of Columbia leads the nation, with more than 31 square feet of LEED-certified space per person in 2011, and Colorado is the leading state, with 2.74 square feet per person in 2011. Other top states include Illinois, Virginia and Washington, with 2.69, 2.42 and 2.18 square feet of LEED-certified space per person, respectively.

    See the full rankings below:

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  • Every Penny Counts: Tracking Building Performance to Save Money and Resources

    Videos: 

    In today’s economy, every penny counts. And as building owners and facility managers know all too well, every penny adds up. When the lights in your 30-story office building are left on an extra hour each day, or the brutal summer heat requires an extra blast of air conditioning, your energy consumption escalates and so does your utility bill. That’s precisely why building owners and facility managers are starting to “listen” to their buildings to ensure optimal operations.

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