Green Buildings

Boston University incorporates sustainable building practices into small renovations and large construction projects alike. Building design and construction takes a broad spectrum of green building strategies into account. To accomplish this, the University uses the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Certification System to track opportunities in transportation, site development, water efficiency, energy efficiency, waste reduction, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. New construction projects will meet LEED Certification standards. A green building pilot project is being developed to determine how to reduce energy consumption and address certification under the existing buildings LEED Operations and Maintenance framework.

The Sustainability Committee’s Sustainable Building and Facility Operations Working Group is in place to identify goals, opportunities and best practices to reduce the environmental impact of new and existing buildings through increased resource efficiency, improved indoor environmental quality, material selection, and operational procedures.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Improve overall efficiency in buildings, grounds and operations
• Reducing the use of limited and non-renewable resources
• Improving the indoor environmental quality for new and existing buildings
• Develop and recommend criteria for building sustainability audits and action plans
• Recommend pilot programs and projects to test and verify the proposed strategies, policies and procedures
• Recommend projects to the Sustainability Steering Committee

Projects Completed:

• LEED Silver Sargent College
• 33 Harry Agganis Way
• 888 Commonwealth Avenue, Geothermal Building
• LEED Certified 670 Albany Street, BUMC Building

LEED Operations and Maintenance Pilot Project

The Energy Conservation Working Group, in collaboration with the Sustainable Buildings and Operations Working Group, has developed criteria to determine which buildings on campus should be used to pilot a new program to reduce energy consumption and improve green building performance across the sustainability spectrum. The pilot project will be chosen on the basis of its potential for improved energy performance, ability to measure and verify performance, opportunities for sustainability upgrades using LEED Operations and Maintenance protocol and occupant behavioral change.

LEED Standards

The Sustainable Buildings and Operations Working Group evaluates LEED standards to determine which LEED rating system (LEED for Homes, LEED for New Construction, etc.) is most appropriate for the building in question. Understanding each of these pathways allows the Working Group to choose the rating system that will serve as the best pathway for achieving  LEED certification. During the brainstorming and design process, they can also recommend building policies and procedures.

The Sustainable Buildings and Operations Working Group is developing standards for building design, site development, building energy efficiency, water efficiency, and material selection including the development of standard specifications for new construction and for renovations.