Posted: March 5, 2010

By using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design criterion designed for existing building operation and maintenance, you can launch a well-structured program to reduce your bottom line, help your employees and improve the environment.

The first step to launching a building sustainable program is to designate a qualified employee to serve as the lead for the project. This person should be truly interested in the program and have authority to make financial decisions or at least a direct line to upper management.

The next step would be to perform an audit of your building or business using the LEED existing building guidelines. This will allow you to effectively focus your efforts on the areas that will make the greatest impact to your bottom line, employees and the environment. Though water efficiency, material resources, waste stream management and indoor environmental quality will be assessed, no area is more overlooked than the energy costs that are required for operating a business.

To best address how a building operates, it is valuable to perform an energy use analysis that identifies energy usage and cost efficiency relative to similar buildings. This should include:

• Determining the building's gross conditioned square footage. Classify the primary use of the building and ancillary energy use equipment (computers, motors, fans, etc).
• Analyzing the last 12 consecutive months of energy bills.
• Comparing the energy utilization index and the cost index with buildings having similar characteristics.
• Identifying the carbon footprint for the building in tons of carbon per building and pounds per square foot.
• Comparing the energy and cost savings for each fuel type if the building were to reach the target energy utilization index.

  If the energy analysis shows potential savings, the next logical step is a more thorough building energy performance assessment to capture more detailed information on specific energy usage. This should include:

• Performing a walk-through survey of the facility and reviewing its construction, equipment, operation and maintenance.
• Meeting with owner/operator to learn special problems or needs.
• Measuring building performance using specialized equipment strategically placed throughout the building.
• Performing a rough estimate to determine the approximate breakdown of energy use for significant end-use categories.
• Identifying no-cost or low-cost changes to the facility or to operating and maintenance procedures, and determining the savings that will result from these changes.
• Listing all modifications to equipment and operations that would save energy and support business operation. List preliminary cost, energy savings estimates, tax rebates and return on investment for each recommendation.
• For each practical measure, estimating the potential savings in energy cost and its energy index. To account for interaction between modifications, assume that modifications with the highest operational priority or best return on investment will be implemented first.
• Reviewing the list of practical modifications with the owner or operator and prioritizing select recommendations that will be analyzed further. Prioritize the modifications in the anticipated order of implementation.

  Next in the building sustainable program are two processes that are often overlooked or not implemented to their fullest. These consist of implementing the recommendations from the building energy performance assessment and developing a monitoring program to verify the program's success. The monitoring program can be as simple as checking the business energy bills on a monthly bases or as thorough as a computer-based monitoring and verification program providing immediate feedback on energy consumption. The monitoring allows you to see the areas of savings and allows you to focus future efforts on those areas of energy consumption that may need further attention.

  Look within your building and business operation to recover unrecognized savings and use those savings to further green your business and improve your competitive nature in the business community.

  Guy J. "Jeff" Hall, LEED AP, is the owner of Sustainable Building Solutions, a professional consulting firm in Virginia Beach. He can be reached by calling 287-2876 or e-mail jhall@sustainva.com.