Tips for Maintaining Your LEED Certification
Earning a LEED certification for your building is a good sustainability goal and demonstrates your commitment to reducing energy waste. But stopping at certification only yields short-term results. To maximize the value of your facility , you must maintain, test, and verify that your systems and equipment is operating properly. Here are some LEED certification maintenance tips that provide ongoing solutions for your facility.
How to Make the Most of Your LEED Certification for Buildings
Sustainability is an ongoing endeavor for building owners. LEED buildings are sophisticated facilities with complex systems and equipment designed to minimize operating costs while delivering great performance. Preserving and protecting the operations of your LEED facility requires regular monitoring, maintenance and adjustments to ensure building systems are operating properly. Much like a sophisticated jet airplane or complex computer system, the complexity of LEED Building Systems is not “set it and forget it” operations. Sophisticated and complex equipment requires dedication to maintenance and a commitment to using data and processes to drive results.
Here are some tips to verify efforts continue to meet the standards for LEED certification.
Create a Plan
From the beginning, you set a goal to be LEED certified building and develop steps to achieve it. However, your plan for obtaining LEED certification won’t provide the support you need to maintain it. Start from scratch and create a new strategy that keeps your facility and BAS within the requirements. Make sure you continue taking the necessary actions to preserve and enhance your energy efficiency and ensure your indoor air quality continues to stay within design parameters.
Maintain Accountability
Your facilities team worked hard to reduce energy waste and create a cleaner environment for your employees and customers. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held accountable for future actions. Create a reporting process that enables them to document any equipment concerns and ensure they understand the long-term goals of your business. Also, developing a line of communication that provides transparency regarding who they should speak with about emerging problems. Finally, make sure they understand that accountability travels in both directions. They should feel comfortable approaching you about ongoing issues that aren’t being addressed.
Gather Data
The commissioning study you did gave you key insight into the operational capacity of your equipment and components. So why not regularly gather data to increase your knowledge of your building systems? Implementing a building management system that reports data allows your staff to make incremental improvements that deliver a long-term environmental impact. Using innovative building analytic software offers the transparency you need to maximize the capacity and efficiency of your systems.
Educate Staff
Continuously Educating your maintenance team and employees on the latest best practices gives them the knowledge they need to maintain a green building. Make sure they understand how to operate existing systems & equipment, and offer regular reminders about simple steps that reduce waste. Finally, suggest that your staff takes notes on how they consume energy while at work; this helps identify areas in their own actions that increase energy conservation.
Maintain Commitment
Making sure your building continues to meet the standards for LEED certifications is an ongoing process. Maintaining a dedication to preserving and where possible increasing energy efficiency keeps you motivated to seek areas of improvement.
Advantages of LEED Certification Operations and Maintenance
Taking the right steps to obtain and maintain LEED certification requires a dedication to improvement for the short- and long-term. However, the hard work does pay off in various ways. Here are some of the advantages a LEED-certified building gives business owners:
Reduced Costs
Maintaining the efficiency of your equipment reduces long-term costs by maximizing its useful life. Also, minimizing the waste your BAS produces lowers your utility bills and allows you to reinvest more into your certification program.
Improved Air Quality
Healthy indoor air quality is good for every occupant. Maintaining your BAS equipment allows business owners to prevent pollutants, allergens, and debris from entering their facility.
Enhanced Public Relations
According to a 2023 study, young employees are more concerned about IAQ than other generations. Being able to advertise your LEED-certified status may make it easier to attract and retain talent.
Do You Want to Maintain LEED Certification for Your Buildings?
BuildingLogiX’s CBS provides key insight into the operational efficiency of your equipment and enables your team to make cost-effective adjustments. Contact us today to learn more about the advantages of working with us.
Maintain Your LEED Certification With BuildingLogiX
Achieving your LEED certification is a major accomplishment, but maintaining it requires attention to detail and innovation. This is a challenging task for many companies because their staff lacks the headcount and resources to monitor equipment regularly. Also, many campuses have multiple OEM components, making it even more difficult to track performance. But what if there was a solution that gathers data across all vendors and translates them into a user-friendly dashboard?
BuildingLogiX’s Connected Building Services (CBS) collects the data generated from your building systems and helps your team interpret it to build actionable solutions that increase your equipment’s efficiency. CBS combines enhanced technology and our expertise to deliver key insight using the following features:
BuildingLogiX Data eXchange (BDX)
Traditional HVAC systems provide data, but it doesn’t deliver any advantages if your team can’t collect and arrange them. BDX connects to your building automation system, immediately gathers data, and organizes everything in a client-accessible portal. This database also creates graphs and charts that allow your maintenance team to easily monitor equipment and track progress.
Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD)
Inefficient equipment increases energy waste and impacts your ability to stay LEED certified. One reason why this occurs is your BAS continues working even after minor problems develop. With FDD, your team is alert whenever issues are identified in your system. This allows your staff to take proactive steps and provide cost-effective solutions.
Chiller Plant Optimization
Chillers are often the largest consumers of energy, and any long-term monitoring plan must include them. Our chiller plant optimization solutions provide increased transparency into their operational efficiency and allow your team to catch minor issues before developing into major problems.