Green building

The Aluminum Association updates green building guidelines

The Aluminum Association, Arlington, Virginia, has released the 2017 version of “Aluminum in Green Buildings—A Guide to Environmental Declarations” as part of its series of guidelines for the building and construction market sector.

The association says the updated guidelines detail how life cycle assessments and environmental product declarations are awarded for green building credits in major rating systems, and what architects and designers can do to meet the rating system’s requirements.

The guidelines, created by the Aluminum Association, were drafted to reflect the latest development of environmental declaration requirements in major green building codes and rating systems. Examples of these codes and systems include:

• LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) v4;
• Green Globes 2013;
• IgCC 2012; and
• CALGreen 2010/2012

The guide is available at the association’s website at www.aluminum.org.

“Our industry is committed to utilizing aluminum’s many benefits to advance sustainability efforts in the building and construction sector,” Heidi Brock, president and CEO of The Aluminum Association, says. “The guide’s updates will help stakeholders in every stage of the process make informed decisions regarding environmental declarations as well as what aluminum can bring to the process.”

The guide looks at different stakeholders along the building product manufacturing value chain and how roles and responsibilities vary for each when it comes to meeting credit requirements using LEED v4, the latest version of the U.S. Green Building Council’s rating system, as an illustration.

The Aluminum Association says the updated guidelines provide stakeholders further information crucial to producing meaningful declarations on aluminum building products.

The association released the first set of guidelines, “A Guide to Green Building Development,” in 2015 at Greenbuild in Washington, which focused on guiding stakeholders to better use aluminum’s material properties and life cycle characteristics to maximize green building credits.

The Aluminum Association represents aluminum production and jobs in the U.S., ranging from primary production to value-added products to recycling, as well as suppliers to the industry.

Golden 1 Center wins GPM award

The Sacramento Kings and Golden 1 Center, in Sacramento, California, received the award for Project of the Year from Green Project Management (GPM), headquartered in Detroit. The award is given to an organization that GPM says demonstrates the impact and relevance of sustainability and project success from both a process and objective perspective.

“We are humbled to receive this international honor,” Vivek Ranadivé, Sacramento Kings owner and chairman, says. “We believe businesses have a responsibility to serve as agents of change and we are proud that Golden 1 Center has been recognized as a model of sustainability.”

GPM created the Sustainability Awards to highlight the successes of individuals and organizations from around the world through the implementation of sustainable practices, it says. Earlier last year, Golden 1 Center and the Sacramento Kings earned international recognition as Sport for Climate Action by Beyond Sport, an organization based in London that promotes the use of sports to address social issues. During the seventh annual Green Sports Alliance summit at Golden 1 Center, Ranadivé presented his vision for sports teams to leverage technology to identify new solutions to fight climate change, calling for the sports industry and community to continue to set higher standards for action and environmental awareness around the world.

Golden 1 Center is 100 percent solar powered and achieved the Washington-based U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Platinum certification. A food program sources 90 percent of the venue’s ingredients within 150 miles of the arena. To close the food cycle, Golden 1 Center has partnered with a local food bank to distribute unserved food items through the community and with a local organics program that develops fertilizers for the farms that supply its products to the arena.

Golden 1 Center also earned the Sports Business Journal’s Facility of the Year award for these efforts.

• 99 percent of demolition materials, nearly 101,000 tons, recycled and diverted from landfills;
• reducing travel-related greenhouse gas emissions per attendee by 36 percent by 2020;
• a 30 percent reduction in energy use above California Title 24 code requirement;
• a 45 percent reduction in use over California code;
• more than 28,650 pounds of usable food has been diverted to local food banks;
• fan-donated shoes recycled into the team’s court; and
• partnerships with the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), New York City, and the Green Sports Alliance (GSA), Portland, Oregon.

University of Rhode Island facility earns LEED certification

The Beaupre Center for Chemical and Forensic Sciences at the University of Rhode Island (URI), Kingston, Rhode Island, has been certified LEED Gold by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Washington.

The 134,623 square-foot center’s certification is the 11th for buildings at URI.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification is a third-party certification system for the design, construction and operation of green buildings.

“The key to LEED Gold for Beaupre is the HVAC equipment and system,” Mark Fisher, senior project manager for Keough Construction Management Inc., Walpole, Massachusetts, and the buyer’s representative for URI on the project, says. “Because this is a chemistry facility, the HVAC system must bring in 100 percent clean, new air on a constant basis and it must fully exhale the old air. The system cannot recycle the air, which makes managing energy consumption a challenge.”

“LEED Gold is very impressive for a science building, and we have to credit the architect, Wilson Architects Inc. of Boston, for designing such a great teaching, learning and research center that also reflects the value the university places on sustainability,” URI Director of Capital Projects Paul DePace says.

The building has 172 exhaust hoods and 171 exhaust snorkels that expel hazardous fumes from the building.

Despite the ventilation demands, the system is designed to capture energy used to heat the building in the winter and cool it in the summer. In addition, the exhaust hoods are equipped with sensors that activate them when the teaching and learning laboratories are in use and power them down when they are idle.

“This technology helps us achieve big energy savings,” DePace says. All lighting in the building is governed by sensors so lights go off when no one is in an office, lab or lecture hall. High-efficiency LED lights illuminate the building’s exterior.

The building was constructed using locally sourced materials to minimize fuel consumption related to shipping.

“We used sustainable materials throughout the building,” DePace says. “For instance, we used certified sustainable wood products, and all of the aggregate materials—stone, concrete and processed gravel—were obtained from nearby sources. All construction waste materials were recycled.”

The university required the contractor to segregate all debris so none of it wound up in the Rhode Island Resource Recovery landfill in Johnston, Rhode Island.

The project also includes open space and a rain garden that collects and filters storm runoff before it enters the White Horn Brook watershed.

The $68 million Beaupre Center opened in September 2016. Funded in large part by a $61 million general obligation bond issue approved by Rhode Island voters in the 2010 election, the facility bears the name of alumnus Richard E. Beaupre.

The contractor that constructed the LEED-certified building was Bacon Construction of Rumford, Rhode Island.