The “new” facility has received gold LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, carbon dioxide emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.
It’s been a long and tedious process, but worth every minute that has gone into it to help us get where we are today.It will also help us to continue to look at new ways to better serve our community. Some of the many things that they looked at can be used as great examples for all to follow:
Photovoltaic Panels: 192 solar panels that can help provide energy to the building.
Rainwater Harvest System: Collects rain water from the roof of the building which is used for 66% of the domestic water used in the building.
Rain Gardens: Four rain gardens are strategically placed around the complex.
The rain flows into the gardens instead of going into nearby rivers and storm drains.
Porous Asphalt:Our northeast parking lot was the first here at MSU to use this.
It acts as a natural drain, letting storm runoff flow through it, into a stone bed beneath, then into the soil. This acts as a natural filtration process to clean water as it filters through different layers in the ground.
Recycled Green Glass: 15% of the exterior concrete around the facility have green glass in them.One way to keep glass (especially green) out of the landfill is to mix it into concrete.
Thanks to the research that has been done here at MSU, we were able to use some on this project.
Low VOC Furnishings and Material: Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) refer to organic chemical compounds which have significant vapor pressures which can affect the environment and human health. All the paint, adhesives, carpeting and interior furnishings in the building meet the LEED standards by having low or no volatile organic compounds.
These are just some of the many examples used throughout the building, all of which have helped us to reach the gold.
Posts
