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LEED
If you employ green building products in building and remodeling projects, you’ll get better
quality, a cost savings, better indoor air, and a measure of protection for the environment.
If you’re building or remodeling, look for suppliers and service providers that use green
building products.
The U.S. Green Building Council offers a rating system called the Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED). With it, a suite of standards for environmentally
sustainable construction is supplied.
The project started in 1998, and since its inception LEED has grown to include more
than 14,000 projects in the United States and 30 other countries. If an organization meets
LEED certification, it is allowed to use the LEED Accredited Professional (AP) acronym
after its name, showing that it has passed accreditation.
Because of the inclusion of environmental consideration, LEED creates healthier work
environments. It also leads (no pun intended) to higher productivity and improved
employee health and comfort. These benefits do come with a cost, however. Green buildings
typically cost more to design and construct when compared to conventional buildings.
However, these initial costs are mitigated with cost savings over time, not to mention the
lessened environmental impact.
LEED certification is granted to buildings based on a 69-point scale, as follows:

• Certified 26–32 points PART III
• Silver 33–38 points
• Gold 39–51 points
• Platinum 52–69 points

For more information on LEED, go to the U.S. Green Building Council’s website at
http://www.usgbc.org, or via Link 5-5.

Teleworkers and Outsourcing
A major way you can reduce the amount of electricity you use and the need for new computers
is by simply not doing the work in your building. You still need the work to get done, of
course, but you don’t need to fill up your office building with workers.
In this section, we’ll talk about two methods of accomplishing this task—telecommuting
and outsourcing.

Telecommuting
Telecommuting is another good option to help reduce your environmental impact. The
biggest hurdle to telecommuting—like the paperless office—is getting people to sign onto it.
But this time it isn’t workers who might balk at it—a lot of times it is management.
Telecommuting is often wrongly perceived as a vacation and workers not having to do
their share of the work. But that isn’t the case.
Research organization IDC stated that 8.9 million Americans worked at home at least
3 days a month in 2004. That’s only a tiny increase from the 8.7 million people IDC reported
as teleworkers in 1999.