A Green Initiative
Leading the way to sustainability
By Carrie Bui
With a growing societal awareness of environmental issues and an increasing demand for sustainability, S. M. Wilson & Co. is positioning itself as an environmentally friendly company and a leader in green building practices.
S. M. Wilson’s Green Team, led by LEED AP Tony Ruebsam, maintains the company’s focus on sustainability within the office. The company chose to go with a combination of measures, both minor and major, that have resulted in a greener, more sustainable office. The Green Team posted signs, reminding employees to turn off the lights when leaving an office and turning off their computers at the end of the day. The company also switched from Styrofoam coffee cups to mugs and stopped using bottled water. S. M. Wilson also replaced their 1960s boilers with two new high-efficiency ones and purchased fuel efficient vehicles for employee use. These changes motivated a Growing Green award nomination for S.M. Wilson from the St. Louis chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
It’s important for S. M. Wilson to take a proactive approach to sustainability because it makes sense environmentally and economically, said Mitch Miller, CCM, LEED AP, and Director of Pre-Construction Services. A typical U.S. Building project generates 2 ½ lbs. of solid waste per square foot of completed floor space and buildings annually consume more than 30 percent of total energy in the United States. “I believe it should be the obligation of every construction manager, architect, engineer and more importantly, the owners and developers of the world to make a concerted effort whenever possible to go green. Building green in today’s world should not be a process to claim a title of certification, but should be standardized as a construction norm,” he said.
LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a program and rating system designed by the USGBC that recognizes and certifies green buildings. According to the USGBC website, “LEED promotes a whole building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.” Green building provides a number of environmental, economic, health and community benefits including improving air and water quality, protecting ecosystems, improving productivity, reducing operating costs and contributing to the overall quality of life.
S. M. Wilson is a member of the USGBC and currently has 32 LEED Accredited Professionals (AP) on staff, growing from two to 32 in less than a year. Professionals must demonstrate a thorough understanding of green building practices and the LEED rating system in order to receive accreditation from the Green Building Certification Institute, explained Ruebsam. S. M. Wilson assists its employees in gaining LEED accreditation through a six-week class. The class ensures applicants’ understanding of LEED certification through class discussion and review, hosts an exam review session and provides practice tests. Miller said, “I decided to pursue my LEED accreditation when I first found out that Boone Hospital (an S. M. Wilson client) was very serious about achieving LEED certification for their new patient tower. I feel now that I am much more in tune to what is involved in sustainable construction. It has given me a much better understanding of the criteria and guidelines, and a reassurance that I can communicate effectively with owners, architects, and engineers about the LEED certification process.”
As noted by Miller, one of S. M. Wilson’s current LEED projects is the eight-level patient tower for Boone
Hospital Center in Columbia, Mo. Miller said the Boone Hospital Board of Trustees was focused on constructing the tower as a LEED project. S. M. Wilson worked with the hospital and the design team to incorporate environmentally responsible measures such as controlling light pollution, capturing and reusing stormwater runoff for irrigation, reducing potable water consumption by utilizing high-efficiency fixtures with low flow rates, specifying the use of recycled content and Forest Stewardship Council-approved wood products, and an indoor air quality management plan. S. M. Wilson already has one LEED-certified project and is also constructing five more.
Ruebsam said, “To put it simply, (green building) is the future of the industry. It’s shown to have advantages not only with life cycle costs of buildings, but there are a lot of studies about occupant health in buildings with proper ventilation and low VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Improving indoor environmental quality has a direct impact on occupant health and productivity.”
“The advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages,” Ruebsam added. “Our clients understand that. More and more, they are looking to us to provide the guidance on how they can get the most from their buildings. More people are beginning to see the benefits of building green, and we are seeing huge increases in the number of LEED-certified projects.” According to the U.S. Green Building Council, the number of LEED-registered and LEED-certified projects doubled in just a year, reaching more than 20,000 registered projects at the end of January 2009. The demand for green building will only continue to increase due to government initiatives, growing residential demand and improvements in sustainable materials.
“I see construction and sustainability as being hand in hand,” Miller said. “You won’t be doing one without the other. As more manufacturers develop green products and as more designers, vendors and construction firms take the initiative to understand, specify and incorporate green products and philosophies into their projects, costs will substantially decrease thus making sustainable projects more viable and eventually creating a sustainability standardization for all future major construction projects.”
S. M. Wilson’s proactive approach toward sustainability assures the company’s stability in today’s changing world and pushes S. M. Wilson to the forefront of the construction industry.