July 24, 2008

Second Oregon Home Achieves Platinum LEED Certification

Earning the U.S. Green Building Council’s Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is no easy task. Because it’s the most stringent standard to which a building or developmental project can strive, until recently there was only one home in the entire state of Oregon and 56 in the nation certified Platinum. But now our client, Teeny Development, LLC, has achieved Platinum LEED certification on its first of 18 townhomes under construction in Lincoln City.

The homes are located in the Villages at Cascade Head residential project and employ cutting edge technology that incorporates sustainable architectural concepts. Because they are made of high-quality concrete “polysteel” construction, the units are extremely efficient and require very little maintenance. The addition of high efficiency windows, doors, ventilation and lights, in addition to solar energy use, geothermal and storm water reclamation and hydronics heating, all equal a highly sustainable design.

The remaining homes in the Maplewood Village subdivision are certifiable at either Gold or Platinum level by the USGBC. The addition of several Platinum certifications is a huge achievement and reinforces the Village’s claim that it is part of the only certified sustainable resort on the West Coast.

December 17, 2007

Green Buildings Could Mean Healthier Employees

The mainstream attention to green business practices may be a new phenomenon, but the reason for it is as old as time – increased evidence that green business practices mean a net benefit to the bottom line. That evidence can come from surprising places. The Portland Office of Sustainable Development (OSD) has relocated their offices from the Portland Building, often criticized as dark and moldy, to the LEED gold-certified Jean Vollum Natural Capital Center (also known as the Ecotrust Building). Since the move, sick days among OSD employees have dropped 30%.

This anecdotal evidence of an unexpected economic benefit of green building is worth a more systematic study. If the OSD's results hold true, companies located in healthy buildings will see increased productivity and, eventually, lower health insurance costs as insurance companies begin to take notice. Also, to the extent those healthy buildings are also energy efficient, that means less money sent out of the region for energy costs and instead available to boost the local economy, all to the benefit of those same local businesses.

Posted by David J. Petersen, partner practicing in the Sustainability and Real Estate & Land Use Practice Groups.