Green Building Services

This time last year, the Green Building World was nursing their collective GreenBuild 08 Boston hangovers and preparing for what looked to be a tough 2009 for our collective economy and our own commercial real estate industry.

GBS tightened our belts and made sure that our existing clients remained happy and sought out new opportunities; A/E firms designing beautiful sustainable buildings as well as a number of building owners leveraging green retrofits as a way to stay competitive, attract tenants and lower costs.

Some Highlights:

LEED 2009 Reference Guides: As green building professionals we all get to know these guides intimately.  GBS was part of the team who the USGBC contracted to develop the LEED 2009 Reference Guides.  As long time LEED project reviewers, we worked closely with the USGBC on this effort and continue to receive thanks for this work.

Existing Buildings: Our existing building world took center stage as the number of non-government new construction projects abated.  Elaine Aye’s Building Management Solutions (BMS group is managing a number of great projects focused on improving our existing buildings’ efficiency of operations and reduced energy use, water, carbon, etc.  The Oregonian did a front cover piece on Elaine’s efforts.  Give it a read.  In addition we underwent a great project with Kennedy Associates out of Seattle who are pursuing certification under the Volume program with the USGBC for LEED-EB:O&M.  Great project and a great client!

Advanced Climate Solutions: GBS expanded our technical offerings by forming our Advanced Climate Solutions (ACS) group.  With the added emphasis on Carbon, energy efficiency and the built environment’s impact on the natural environment, our ACS group augments our consulting practice. For example, A/E firms leverage their technical solutions to confirm optimal building performance based on design decisions.  Our ACS team has been very active helping form the dialogue around these issues in our building community as well as with our new and existing clients.

Commissioning & Energy Audits: GBS has always been known for our Green Building insight, LEED Consulting and project management work but we have continued to provide commissioning services and energy audits to a number of clients…whether they are pursuing LEED or not.  Our highly experienced team has a number of very happy clients who see commissioning as one of the best things anyone could do in a down economy to improve building performance and value.

LEED Certification: We certified our 100^th and 150^th buildings using the USGBSC’s LEED framework in the past year.  This client-served number continues to tick upwards as we successfully finish projects.  We have over 300 projects in the hopper at different stages of certification.

LEED 2009 Study Guides: In addition to the Reference Guide work mentioned above, we were thrilled to work with the USGBC again on their development of their first official LEED AP study guides.  So when you are out there studying with your official Study Guide from the USGBC for your LEED GA, or any of the different LEED AP designations…remember GBS and their Verification and Program Development (VPD) team.

Going Global: GBS formed a strategic partnership with ECADI.  ECADI is a professional provider for comprehensive design services including architectural design; structural and mechanical engineering; interior and landscape design; and urban planning. GBS will provide consulting services to support ECADI’s sustainable design, research and training efforts throughout China and across the globe.   We are currently working on two projects in China, Peru, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan and others(more to come on these soon).

EverGreen Development: GBS formed partnership with Evergreen Development (out of Phoenix) to improve our overall product by combining our best in class services to deliver fully integrated green building service to our mutual clients.

Historic Restoration: Ralph’s work with the National Trust in DC and our organization’s dedication to the reuse of our existing buildings has led to an internal and external emphasis of discovering projects that focus on historic restoration.  One example was that our Texas office had the opportunity to do an assessment on the the Moody Mansion in Galveston Texas, and we were proud to work with Mercy Corp on their new world HQ in a partially restored downtown Portland facility in Old Town.

GreenBuild Phoenix: The GBS team was in full swing down in the heat in Phoenix.  Not just there for Vitamin D, Elaine, Ralph, Alan, Ted all gave well attended presentations while all of our principals engaged with our great friends at the USGBC. 

There are many more that didn’t make this list, but that is a nice selection of some of the things we are very proud of here at GBS from 2009.

As usual the real credit goes to our employees who continue to put our clients first.  As green building consultants we are always striving to support, guide and occasionally push the most environmentally and economically sound decisions for our clients.  Here is to a great 2010 and we will see everyone in Chicago for GreenBuild next November.

- Andrew