EPB Downtown Headquarters Gets LEED Certification

EPB’s downtown building is the city’s first existing building to be awarded LEED Certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, it was announced at a press conference Tuesday morning.

EPB officials said the milestone "is the result of dozens of people representing 26 organizations working together for the common goal of a workplace that is more energy efficient, less polluting and compliant with environmental standards."   

“LEED Certification goes beyond earning a plaque,” EPB President and CEO Harold DePriest said. “It demonstrates how people can work together toward a common goal, improving quality of life while creating efficient, sustainable work places.”

The community’s Green Team worked more than 4,000 hours to research, plan and take action. Their accomplishments include:

·         Reducing electricity usage by 5.7 million kWh, saving $420,640

·         Saving 336,374 gallons of water

·         Reducing CO2 emissions by 4,054 metric tons

·         Recycling more than 80% of the building’s waste stream, so far saving 59 dump truck loads of waste from landfill

·         Realizing $163,383 in recurring annual savings

·         Creating a healthier work environment by reducing pesticides and using green cleaning chemicals

Mr. DePriest said the achievements "represent the tremendous strides Chattanooga has made over the years, following Walter Cronkite’s infamous report in 1969 that it was the country’s most polluted community. Efforts led by the Vision 2000 team to create a clean, vibrant and growing community have resulted in Chattanooga taking the LEED in environmental stewardship.

"EPB shares the community’s goal of using this latest green milestone as the beginning of the next steps in the Chattanooga Way, by promoting sustainable living in other businesses and homes."

Elizabeth Crenshaw Hammitt, who headed up the LEED effort, gave these reports to a gathering that included Mayors Andy Berke and Jim Coppinger and City Council Chairman Yusuf Hakeem as well as dozens of EPB employees looking down into the atrium area:

LEED & Green in Chattanooga

At EPB, we have the great privilege of serving our amazing community. In honor of all our hard work in being pioneers in the sustainability movement, we are calling this event “Following Chattanooga’s LEED,” all of us have been inspired to action by many of the great folks in this room. We have so much to be proud of. Chattanooga’s green community that consists of local businesses, industry, and passionate residents has led the charge into a bright sustainable future by contributing:

-          78 solar installations totaling over 3 MW in annual electricity generation [i]

-          You’ve bought over 7,000 MWh in renewable energy credits.

-          130 of you studied, took the test, and became LEED Accredited Professionals[ii]

-          There are nearly 50 certified or in-process LEED Projects in Chattanooga[iii] We are second only to Nashville in certified LEED projects in Tennessee, and Music City is many times our size.

-          We have an innovative Private Sector that’s leading LEED Projects in Chattanooga with 70% of project certifications[iv]

-          We have diverse LEED projects like the Chamber’s Business Development Center where start-ups grow in suites enhanced by green technology or like the Riverview Animal Hospital that cares for pets in a healthy, sun powered environment. We have the City’s not one, but two fire station certifications and the entire complex at 2 North shore, complete with Electric Vehicle charging.

If you own, have built or designed a LEED Building, earned a LEED AP or Green Associate, if you have installed solar, purchased TVA green blocks, or been part of a LEED project team, please raise your hand.

Y’all deserve a round of applause…Thanks so much for your work.

Our community has spoken: sustainability is important to you.

We at EPB look at these trends, and think, what can we do? How can we help? In addition to building our energy efficient smart grid and becoming Energy Star set top box partners, we investigated LEED for Existing Buildings, also called LEED ebom.

This started about five years ago. We built our programs carefully and meticulously, testing technologies in small pilots before deploying to larger groups. We studied trends, we made environmental stewardship an official corporate priority, and we built a culture of sustainability, one Green Team member at a time. We decided to pursue LEED for Existing Buildings, Operations and Maintenance when the time was right, when a new Alternative Compliance Path, called Energy Jumpstart, was released.  We knew that this would open this program to thousands more buildings in our city. We crafted our strategy, executed it, and learned everything about EBOM that we could, not only for ourselves, to improve our processes, but also for you. We knew we’d likely be the first in Chattanooga to complete this process, and we took that responsibility seriously.

Here’s what we found out:  While LEED New Construction is important, LEED EBOM is that next step.

The standards are extremely rigorous, and it takes a team effort. Speaking of our team, I’d like to introduce and thank our EPB Project Team.

 I want to take a minute to brag on these guys…one cool fact about our project is that it earned every single point applied for…we’ve heard that’s rare, to earn 100% of the points pursued…that’s some dedication and hard work from this team, so thank you to

o   Mike Weaver –Who stayed until mid-night more than once to make sure our operations were up to LEED standard. Who’s team installed every new sensor, bulb, and hauled away every can and piece of paper.

o   Lilian Bruce – did everything from help build the business case to pick through trash to make sure our waste streams were where they needed to be.

o   Morgen Reardon – Who coordinated our initial Clean Commute program, and pleasantly and persistently increased our participation, delivering a chunk of our points.

o   Ketha Richardson – who restructured our purchasing  processes to ensure that we met new environmental policy goals.

o   Todd Edwards – who led our IT efforts, ensuring that we bought our electronics with not only an Energy Star label, but an EPEAT certification – and that when they reached the end of their usefulness here, Todd made sure they were either recycled or donated.

o   Adam Jones – who brought a financial analysts’ perspective, tracking costs and weighing benefits.

o   Jim Ingraham and Steve Clark, Vice Presidents on our Senior Team who championed this work and advised our team during the process

o   All of the people in this building. Without you, this could have never happened.

And this effort took so much more than we had within these walls.

-          69 people representing 26 organizations worked hard to make this happen:

o   Cornerstone Automation who spent hundreds of hours with us, testing every system, counting and measuring the consumption of every light fixture, the performance of each of the 150 VAV boxes, analyzing and figuring out ways to make us better stewards.

o   RBS, who measured our recycling efforts, transitioned us to 100% green cleaning methods, even suited up with us in hazmat suits to do an analysis of our waste stream.

o   Gaining Ground and Crabtree Farms, who developed a new business strategy with us, called a Corporate CSA, to deliver 3,500 pounds of local, sustainably grown produce to our building.

o   Palmer Built Environments, who painstakingly completed drawings and calculations during the LEED process, and advised us 5 years ago when LEED EBOM was little more than a far-fetched dream,.

o   Franklin Architects who designed this building and to Derthick , Henley & Wilkerson who designed the adjacent Parking Garage. These architects endured many requests for data many years after construction completed, and always delivered quickly and with a passion for this project.

These are just a few examples of the folks who joined us and thank you to each and every person in our growing green business community for stepping it up, trying things that hadn’t been done before in Chattanooga, and working alongside us for months, in some cases, years. We could not have done this without you.

There are three major things I’d leave with you about our LEED experience, what LEED EBOM is all about.

-          CULTURE: This is mainly about culture, and our culture, centered on customer service and innovation, was up to the challenge: The 267 people who work in this 139,621 sq. foot building actively helped us determine which credits to pursue. We held an input session where employees chose which issues they wanted us to focus on, and we listened. We ensured that their ideas were woven into our strategy, and these people changed so many processes, altered so many habits, and they transitioned this business organization to a culture of sustainability. Nearly 70% of our employees say that adopting green practices like LEED has created a more positive culture. You can see this enthusiasm in the very real results that John mentioned and in the real savings we’ve realized.

-          CHALLENGING Conventional Thinking: How many times have you heard? “Buying green is expensive.” Or “One person’s actions don’t really matter.” LEED turns this kind of thinking on its head. We implemented green purchasing policies, and saw those expenses decrease. We tried to engage every person, and every person’s actions really mattered. When you have a goal of say, a 50% recycling minimum on each floor, and you have fewer than 50 people on that floor, all the sudden, that trash bin under your desk has a role to play: it can make or break the goal. When you are asked to fill office supplies, coordinate a meeting or event, you have a choice to make: will you, personally, choose to get us closer or further from our goal?

 I am continually thankful that each of our employees who made the choice to get us closer, moving us forward, challenging conventional notions of what makes “business sense.”

-          Holistic Approach: The greatest benefit of using LEED standards is that they provide a comprehensive, tried and true,  blue print for corporate sustainability. From foundational policies to data capture and analysis, to engaging people, it’s a system that can exponentially expedite your environmental stewardship program while giving employees a common goal to shoot for. There are many credit options and levels, so the system can be tailored to your needs. The USGBC is a trusted non-profit who does the due diligence that ensures that standards are high and the results real.

-          The bottom line for us is Return of investment of less than one year. A project with a return on less than a year, with a cumulative value of over 1.2 million dollars in under 5 years from now … all while cultivating a more positive culture and helping the environment? I think anyone would agree that in any project, it would be tough to find a better business case than that.

I’ve spent some time talking about how far we have come, and what EPB’s sustainability experience has been, but there are still miles to go:

We face the challenges of increasing air pollution world-wide, shrinking resources, and a growing population.

But I know we’re up to these new sets of challenges. Like we have led the world with our Internet speeds, smart grid, economic development successes, and neighborhood revitalization through our unique Chattanooga Way, we will continue to lead on this front as well. Just like a small group of people showed that in 1969, the infamous title of “Dirtiest City in America” didn’t define us, we’ll continue to prove to the value, financial, social, and environmental, of the great work we do.

We’ll succeed because of people I’ve been lucky enough to meet like Corey. Corey is a mechanical engineering student at UTC who in addition to his studies works 30 hours a week at a local hotel. When he gets off from work, he works for another 30 hours a week on creative solutions to our city’s current sustainability issues, like the need for a commercial composting service and net zero bed and breakfast.

We’ll succeed because we’ll support a new generation of sustainability advocates like the kids at new environmental charter school, Ivy Academy or the students at Howard learning in an outdoor classroom funded by a new generation of philanthropists at the UnFoundation.

We’ll give them the skills they need at Chattanooga State, where they’ll become energy auditors and solar installers. They’ll learn how to apply the green technologies we need at UTC in places like the Center for Energy, Transportation, and the Environment.

I know we’ll be able to preserve this beautiful city for future generations because 750 of you got up on a Saturday to pick up trash downtown with River City’s Clean and Green program, because people working for organizations like  the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, the Lyndhurst, Benwood, and Community Foundations, the Sierra Club, the East TN USGBC Chapter, the Land Trust for Tennessee, and so many others are working hard to ensure that our air is clean, buildings are green,  that our most vulnerable have a connection to the outdoors, and that our wild land and wildlife are preserved.

We’ll be better off in 20, 50 years because big companies with long histories like VW, Alstom, and Blue Cross Blue Shield are coming up with new, better, greener ways to do business; because college graduates just starting out are giving their time to great organizations like green l spaces, gaining experience in meaningful, important work in programs like green l light – with hopes to dedicate their careers to solving our most pressing problems.

It doesn’t matter where you look: On Market St. at the RPA, we’ve launched green trips for cleaner transportation, and on Main St. we’ve got Gaining Ground spreading awareness about local food. In Glenwood, CNE transformed a vacant lot into a park and at the Airport; they’ve LEED certified buildings and installed tons of solar panels.

We proud to formally join you. This plaque we’re about to receive, like this building belongs to you. Please know that this plaque represents only the beginning of our re-enforced commitment to environmental stewardship. We will increase and expand our efforts, and we’ll be looking to you for guidance as well.

Thank you for being here to celebrate another win for Chattanooga. We’re proud to contribute the first LEED Existing Building Operations and Maintenance certification to our great city. And we’re proud to bring the home the first Energy Jumpstart project in the Southeast, the second in the whole world.

We would encourage all of you to investigate whether or not LEED EBOM or the Alternative Compliance Path, Energy Jumpstart, is right for your organization. You can find out more about our project at www.epb.net/ LEED.