Banking firm Wells Fargo, Anthony Malkin, the guiding force behind the Empire State Building's sweeping retrofit and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are among the organizations and individuals the U.S. Green Building Council is honoring this year.
The 2011 Leadership Awards will be presented October 6 in Toronto at the USGBC's annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.
For Wells Fargo, the announcement of the winners last week coincided with the company's release of its latest environmental report (pdf).
Wells Fargo has provided more than $8 billion in financing to businesses and projects benefiting the environment since 2005, reduced its greenhouse gas emissions 12 percent since 2008, constructed or renovated 58 banks to meet LEED standards since 2008, and now has 19 LEED or Energy Star-rated buildings. The firm, awarded for organizational leadership in the private sector, was a pioneer participant in the LEED volume-certification program for new construction and recently joined the pilot of the LEED volume program for existing buildings.
Malkin of Malkin Holdings is being honored for leadership in the private sector. He provided a vision for the renovation of the Empire State Building, which included the extensive retrofit for energy efficiency and a move to green power. Malkin also has become an advocate for green leasing. He is making documentation of work in both areas, as well as other tools, available for public use.
Through PlaNYC, Bloomberg has brought more "cool" energy-saving roofs to the Big Apple; put into effect a Blueprint for Greening New York City Buildings, which started with retraining programs for building supers; and signed into law measures that require energy performance reporting and improvement by commercial buildings. Bloomberg, the honoree for leadership by an individual in the public sector, also chairs the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.
Others being honored include:
• The White House Council on Environmental Quality for organizational leadership in the public sector.
• The Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, the first LEED-Platinum hospital, for organizational leadership among NGOs.
• Kelly Caffarelli, president of the Home Depot Foundation, for individual leadership among NGOs.
• Deutsche Bank AG for international leadership. Deutsche Bank, the inaugural winner of the award, received LEED-Platinum certification (the highest rating possible) for its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.
• Greg Kats, the president of Capital-E and a venture partner with Good Energies, and Lynn Simon, president of green building consulting firm Simon & Associates, Inc. Kats and Simon will receive the USGBC President's Award in recognition of distinguished careers and exceptional work in furthering the green building movement.
• Green schools advocate Jayni Chase, who receives the Center for Green Schools Excellence Award from the Otis Elevator Company.
Image by sxc.hu user CanadianSc.
So I wonder if Wells Fargo
So I wonder if Wells Fargo will follow up to see if all these LEED buildings actually DELIVER their intended capabilities? I was chatting with an engineering professor recently, whom I won't name, who told me that he knows of about 120 LEED buildings that deliver nowhere near their intended levels of economy and efficiency, because of a failure in the life-cycle management process. The building is designed and built. The sensors and control systems are installed and set to the manufacturer's defaults. The mayor shows up to open it, and declares his or her town to be in the forefront of the green revolution etc etc etc. The building starts life, still with its control systems set to the manufacturer's defaults - which is where they then stay. No-one is given the job of analyzing the data from all those sensors, and adjusting how the building and the people in it respond to each other. The building manager is given no real training and doesn't dare touch anything in case he or she breaks it. Result - your fancy LEED building is no more or less sustainable and energy efficient, in use, than any other building.
All of which strikes me as a waste of time and money, and worse - at a time when some people seem to be elevating bashing anything to do with sustainability into a political platform - something that risks discrediting the entire green building movement. I would have thought that GreenBuzz could do a lot of good by pushing on this issue and trying to elevate awareness of it. The issue is not a technology failure - it's a process failure in the way people manage the life-cyle of the asset in question (specifically the hand over and commissioning process). Solutions exist in the practices of the military or any operator of expensive assets (airlines, the military, shipping companies, oil companies), and the green building movement needs to wise up to them in a hurry.