Green Roof to Farmer’s Market in NY

Although Chicago leads the nation in total square feet of green roof space, New York is taking it a step further—actual green roof farming.  Check out the article from the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/nyregion/in-rooftop-farming-new-york-city-emerges-as-a-leader.html?hpw

Switching to Renewable Energy provider to make money

The BYOBroker will be highlighting Green initiatives from across the country in the next several weeks.  Today’s comes from the New York Times and it focuses on how switching energy providers can be both good for the environment and good for the bottom line.

Coming Together to Pray, and Also to Find Reduced-Rate Energy Deals

LEED Certified vs. Energy Star–what’s the difference?

To outsiders, the Green building movement and it’s dueling designations—LEED and Energy Star—can be very confusing.  You may have seen that your dishwasher has an Energy Star rating, but you’re not sure how that relates back to your office building.  Well the BYOBlog author, being a LEED Accredited Professional, is going to be starting a multi part primer on how these designations compare, what the costs of green space are and finally, just who is moving into these buildings.

Energy Star: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home.index

Created in the early nineties by the EPA, the Energy Star program provides  a benchmark on the energy efficiency of commercial buildings (amonth other things)  and ranks buildings on a 1-100 scale.  Buildings must earn a 75 or higher to be listed, indicating that they operate more efficiently than 75% of all similar buildings nationwide.  Energy Star buildings are less expensive to operate, use less energy and emit less greenhouse gases than their peers. 

In 2010, over 6200 office buildings earned the Energy Star designation, an increase of almost 60% over 2009.  Because the process is more straight forward and less expensive than LEED certification, the growth of Energy Star designated buildings has outpaced LEED.

LEED Certification: http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19

Developed in 2000 by the U.S Green Building Council, LEED provides, “building owners and operators with a framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions”*.  It takes into account air quality, reuse of existing materials, use of materials that don’t release toxic gases, access to natural light, and transportation, among other things.  LEED ratings takes into consideration bottom line operational efficiency of the building, but then also evaluates  how it affects the environment and the people who work in it, giving rise to the Triple Bottom Line concept.

The process of getting LEED certification is a lot more complicated and expensive than becoming Energy Star rated, and as a result many building owners pass on the certification to save money.  Most LEED certified buildings also Energy Star rated, but not necessarily the other way around.

The bottom line is that Energy Star buildings benefit  their owners and the environment but LEED certified buildings extend those benefits to their tenants and the surrounding area as well. 

*USGBC website