Muhlenberg College
OP-3: Building Operations and Maintenance

Institution owns and operates buildings that are:

1)     Certified under a green building rating system focused on the operations and maintenance of existing buildings, e.g. LEED^®: Building Operations + Maintenance (O+M)

And/or

2)     Operated and maintained in accordance with published sustainable operations and maintenance guidelines and policies that include one or more of the following:

• Indoor air quality (IAQ) management policy or protocol
• Green cleaning policy, program or contract
• Energy management or benchmarking program
• Water management or benchmarking program

Energy and water management and benchmarking programs include dashboards, analytics tools, and other mechanisms to assess performance, set goals, create and implement action plans, and evaluate progress. See, for example ENERGY STAR Guidelines for Energy Management and U.S. EPA Portfolio Manager.

Building space that meets multiple criteria listed above should not be double-counted.

Building space that is certified under a green building rating system for new construction and major renovation must also be certified under a rating system focusing on operations and maintenance to count as certified space for this credit. For example, a building that is certified under LEED: Building Design + Construction (BD+C) but not LEED: Building Operations + Maintenance (O+M) should not be counted as certified space. Sustainability in new construction and major renovation projects is covered in the Building Design and Construction credit.

This credit applies to all institutions that have occupied building space that is eligible for certification under a green building rating system for existing buildings. See “Eligible building space (operations and maintenance)” in G. Standards and Terms.

Institutions earn the maximum of 5 points available for this credit by having all eligible building space certified at the highest achievable level under a rating system for existing buildings used by an Established Green Building Council (GBC) in the institution’s locality, e.g. LEED O+M, certification level Platinum. Incremental points are awarded based on the percentage of building space that is certified at each level and/or maintained in accordance with sustainable operations and maintenance policies. For example, an institution that had 100 percent of its eligible building space certified at the minimum level would earn 2.5 points for this credit, while an institution that had 50 percent of its eligible building space certified at the minimum level would earn 1.25 points.

Points for certified space are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Points for uncertified space are calculated automatically in the STARS Reporting Tool as follows:

Floor area of uncertified space = (Total floor area of building space) - (Floor area of certified space)

Timeframe

Report on the current certification status of buildings at the time of submission.

Buildings for which certification has lapsed should not be counted as certified space. Likewise, buildings for which certification is pending should not be counted as certified space; these buildings may be excluded from the calculations for this credit for up to 2 years following registration with LEED or another rating system. Finally, buildings that have been certified under a rating system that focuses on design and construction (e.g. LEED BD+C) may be excluded from the calculations for this credit for up to 5 years following the date of certification.

Sampling and Data Standards

Include all eligible building space (operations and maintenance) as defined in G. Standards and Terms that is part of the institution’s overall STARS institutional boundary. Reporting on a sample or subset of eligible building space is not allowed for this credit.

An institution may use any standard definition of floor area (e.g. ASHRAE, ANSI/BOMA, IECC), as long as it uses the same definition for both the total floor area of eligible building space and the floor area of building space that is certified and/or sustainably operated and maintained.

Buildings that are not owned by the institution and in which the institution is one of multiple tenants may be excluded. If the institution chooses to include such buildings, it must include all multi-tenant buildings that are included in the institution’s overall STARS boundary (see Institutional Characteristics) and in which the institution is a tenant; institutions cannot choose to include some leased spaces and omit others. If an institution chooses to include leased spaces, the institution should count only the square footage of building space it occupies and not the entire building.

Buildings that the institution leases entirely (i.e. the institution is the only tenant) should be included.