The Rainwater Observer

Bank of America Tower

By Chris Tilley

Leed Green Building Rating System program is a certification program for green buildings.(source) The current version of the system is 2.2 and there is a version 3 that is coming. Version 3 will involve carbon footprint and carbon trading in some form.

The system has four levels:

• Certified – 26-32 points
• Silver – 33-38 points
• Gold – 39-51 points
• Platinum – 52-69 points

The points are based on list of items that you get points for. Things like energy use, water use, materials including local sourcing of materials, Public transit access. For the complete list check out the wikipedia entry on it.(source)

Al Gore has been making improvements to his house and now has been gold certified. Some of the improvements he has put in are solar panel, geothermal heating, rainwater collection and something we should all do; replace all lights with CFL or LED bulbs. This has made a major improvement on his house which is 80 years old and large due to the fact that they have their offices in it as well. That would save on transportation. (source)

The first skyscraper to get the Platinum certification is the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park. It has its own co-generation plant that will generate 4.6 MW or about two thirds of the building electricity needs.(source) They have waterless urinals that will save 8 million gallons of water and 65 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. That carbon saving is just from the urinals. The concrete in the building is made with 45% slag which is a by-product of blast furnaces. This saves on the amount of cement needed to make the concrete. Currently cement produces one tonne of carbon dioxide for every tonne of cement. They also have rainwater collection and an ice plant to help with the cooling. The ice is produced in off peak times and used during peak times. There are a number of other innovations in the building including individual air vents that come up from the floor rather than down from the ceiling.

There are a number of LEED certified building being constructed and it is a trend that will only increase as companies are encouraged to have greener corporate images.  The US Green Building Council has a number of certified building profiled incluing an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house.(source)

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