Page 196 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

174 CHAPTER 6

folio, which ranged from office to retail to industrial warehousing. We decided to
revamp our approach to managing these properties by developing a set of sustainable
property management guidelines, known collectively as the Mark of a Difference
(MOAD) program. This program, a precursor to going LEED, focuses on improving
the health and well being of building occupants, as well as on reducing financial over-
head by decreasing electricity and water costs. MOAD covers six areas of property
management (interior care, exterior care, tenant relations, mechanical systems, build-
ings and systems, and tenant build-out and common area improvement). Each topic
section includes a goal. Each section’s goal is the “what,” the result we want, the
bigger sustainability issue we’re working to address. The goal for “Interior Care:
Entryway Systems,” for example, is to reduce building occupants’ and maintenance
personnel’s exposure to potentially hazardous contaminants. According to the Environ-
mental Protection Agency, indoor air quality is estimated to be five times worse than
outside air, and Americans spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors. The
specific property management challenge entails lessening the amounts of dirt (dust,
mud, gravel), debris (paper, leaves, chewing gum), and pollutants (oil, grease, pesti-
cides) that people accumulate on their shoes that get tracked into our buildings. To
attain the goal, we’ve developed requirements and strategies that will achieve the
desired result, which in this case is a more passive variation of something your par-
ents probably told you, over and over: Wipe your feet before you come in the house.
Our requirements cover the “where,” “who,” and “when” of the story—specific actions
we take to get the results we want. For entryway systems (to continue this example), we
use grilles, grates, or mats to trap dirt, dust, pollen, and other particulates at the door.
As people walk over them, the soles of their shoes get cleaner, and they bring less of
what they were carrying on their shoes into our building. Requirements also designate
who maintains the system (in this case, it’s the janitorial staff) and how often the sys-
tem requires maintenance (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly).
The approach gets even more detailed in the strategies section for each topic, which
includes additional actions we can take that will help us meet our goal. The specific
strategies for “Interior Care: Entryway Systems” include design considerations for
renovation or construction that affect entranceways (like providing a water spigot and
electrical outlet near or accessible to entranceways for maintenance and cleaning
activities) and guidelines for landscaping practices at building entrances.
Some goals and requirements of the MOAD program are more straightforward,
incorporating both sustainability issues and financial ones. For example, the goal for
“Exterior Care: Parking Lot Lighting” covers reducing electricity used for external
lighting and reducing levels of light pollution. Three things are at work here: reducing
electricity consumption to mitigate environmental impacts of electricity generation,
reducing electricity consumption to spend less money on utility bills, and reducing the
amount of light a property contributes to light pollution. The requirements for reach-
ing that goal are simple and direct. First, install photo-sensors on exterior parking
lights (so they aren’t on when they don’t need to be, thus reducing consumption util-
ity bills and creating a solution that works automatically). Second, when retrofitting,