“World’s Greenest Office Building” Makes Net-Zero Look Easy

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/world-s-greenest-office-building-makes-net-zero-look-easy-1367162255

Peering down Seattle’s Capitol Hill, the Bullitt Center appears to be just another high-end commercial building—until you look up and notice the roof, which is overlaid with shiny silver photovoltaic panels that extend far beyond the building’s exterior walls. Even in the cloudiest of cities, the panels generate all the electricity the six-story structure requires.

The building is a project of the Bullitt Foundation, which calls it “the greenest commercial building in the world.” The foundation, which was founded in 1952, has focused since the 1990s on helping to create cities that function more like ecosystems. Its new building provides office space for eco-conscious tenants, but also functions as a learning center that demonstrates how people and businesses can exist in harmony with nature.

The Bullitt Center was built according to a demanding green building certification program called the Living Building Challenge, which lists net zero use of energy and water among its many requirements. The standards specified by Living Buildings far surpass those of the better-known Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, program, which even at its highest level still produces buildings that harm the environment.

[demigoddess]

1. Hopefully a sign of the future.

The Bullitt Foundation hopes others will replicate their building.

If only, I have thought this could be done in so many places, especially the sun belt states. I used to live in Texas and with sunshine 99 percent of the year, and with air conditioning being so important, they should require this all over the place. Even private homes, public buildings. We skimped on our AC as much as possible but when we left the state I was suffering from heat stroke.