Often an older building provides a special kind of character that enhances your corporate image – but, that perfect ‘home’ for your office could be an energy guzzler. 

If you love that heritage style but you want to conserve energy and be a responsible environmental steward, what’s the solution?

According to a recent article in GreenBuildings.com, there are 8 steps you can take to satisfy both requirements.  They are:

1. Light Pollution Reduction  Adopt site lighting criteria to maintain safe light levels while avoiding off-site lighting and night sky pollution. Technologies to reduce light pollution include full-cutoff luminaries, low-reflectance surfaces and low-angle spotlights.
2. Indoor Plumbing Fixture and Fitting Efficiency Reduce indoor plumbing fixture and fitting potable water usage through water-conserving indoor plumbing fixtures and fittings that meet or exceed the UPC 2006 or IPC 2006 fixture and fitting requirements in combination with high-efficiency or dry fixture and control technologies.
3. Optimize Energy Efficiency Performance  Existing building commissioning and energy audits will help identify areas of building operations that could be improved upon. Implement energy-efficient retrofits and energy-saving techniques to reduce the building’s energy use. In addition to efficiency improvements, consider renewable energy options as a way to minimize the building’s environmental impact. (If you’re mostly interested in energy efficiency as opposed to the other aspects of sustainable design, you might be interested in EPA’s ENERGY STAR program for buildings.
4. Sustainable Purchasing Evaluate the items that are purchased for the building, identify more environmentally friendly alternatives and establish a policy to purchase these alternatives when economically feasible.
5. Solid Waste Management Work with your waste hauler or service provider to collect and analyze information on the amounts and types of waste generated by the facility and figure out ways to reduce waste.
6. Green Cleaning Policy Establish a written green cleaning policy addressing SOPs, sustainable products and equipment, chemical handling and storage, and staff training.
7. Occupant Comfort Occupant Survey – Conduct a survey of building occupants to determine satisfaction with the thermal comfort of the building. Develop a plan for corrective action to address any identified problems or concerns.
8. Daylight and Views Provide building occupants direct views to the outdoors and natural daylighting.

To read up about more ways to pursue energy efficiency, check out the USGBC website.

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