Green landscapes, green buildings

It only makes sense. When a company markets itself as a steward of the environment, then its new facility should reflect just as much green as the services it offers. That’s one of the primary reasons Ruppert Companies is seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for three new structures at its corporate campus in Laytonsville, Maryland.

The LEED rating is a nationally accepted benchmark of the U.S. Green Building Council for the design, construction, and op-eration of high-performance green buildings. To be certified as green, buildings have to meet criteria in five key areas of mea-surement: site sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. “There are so many details that go into building green,” says Dean Rasco, construction manager at Ruppert Properties and the developer of this project. “Depending on the certification level you seek, it’s about everything from the percentage and distribution of daylight, the type and geographic source of materials you use, and how your employees get to work, to how you recycle your waste.”

He continues, “We’re meeting our requirements using hybrid vehicles and offering alternative transportation; recapturing rainwater; installing a green roof; using low-flow plumbing; installing a customized, energy-efficient HVAC system; utilizing low-emitting materials in all adhesives, sealants, paints, and carpeting; controlling our lighting with motion detectors; and using alternative fuels, such as internally generated waste oil, and renewable energy sources, such as solar power. We’re still investigating the feasibility of wind power.

“If you visit our construction site, the one thing you’ll notice is its cleanliness. To build green, the debris has to be strictly ma-naged. More than 75 percent of our construction waste is diverted from landfills to be recycled and removed from the site as quickly as the dumpsters fill.”

First steps
Rasco advises owners who are thinking about building green to form a partnership very early on with an LEED-accredited professional. “We partnered with an LEED-accredited architect, but LEED professionals can also be engineers and construction managers. These professionals have the training to be able to analyze your situation as it pertains to the level of certification you are seeking and the credits you will need to gain certification.”
There are four levels of LEED certification — basic, silver, gold, and platinum. Ruppert is seeking LEED-NC 2.2 basic on two office buildings and platinum-level certification on a vehicle/equipment shop.

Building green has many advantages, Rasco adds. “Craig Ruppert is motivated to conserve our natural resources and do what’s right for the community in which we work. By building green and becoming more informed about the subject, we also put ourselves in a position to assist our customers who rely on us for this sort of knowledge.

Chris Davitt, president of Ruppert Nurseries, also acknowledges that going green has many benefits for the company as a whole. “In addition to the obvious environmental impact, we believe that our new green headquarters will help increase our productivity by making our employees happier and healthier in the long run. Doing something that makes your employees say that they’re proud to work here really has an immeasurable impact on morale.”

Both Davitt and Rasco point out that LEED-certified buildings feature lower operating costs and increased asset value. They also qualify for federal and state tax rebates and accelerated asset depreciation on certain renewable energy systems, among other incentives.

The facilities, which also support the local landscape construction and landscape maintenance branch offices, are scheduled for a late summer completion. They will be part of a 16-acre campus, which will be surrounded by 160 acres of Ruppert Nurseries’ trees in the Montgomery County agricultural preservation zone.

For more information about LEED certification, visit the U.S. Green Building Council Web site at usgbc.com.