Stanford University
OP-4: Building Design and Construction

The Knight Management Center (Graduate School of Business) is certified LEED-NC Platinum. A brief description of the physical campus can be found on the Our Campus page of the Graduate School of Business website: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/stanford-gsb-experience/life/campus. In 2010, California adopted green building standards into its building code. Known as CALGreen, these standards have minimum mandatory sustainability requirements to which all buildings in California are required to be designed and built. CALGreen also provides optional sustainability standards, Tier One and Tier Two, which are respectively more stringent than the mandatory measures. All of Stanford’s new buildings are designed and constructed to CALGreen Tier One standards (the highest level) and certified by Santa Clara County. More information on CALGreen is available at http://www.bsc.ca.gov/Home/CALGreen.aspx.

In its existing Guidelines for Sustainable Buildings, Stanford lists its project targets as 30% below Title 24 and 25% below code-allowed water consumption. In addition, Stanford’s new buildings are now being designed to meet a whole-building, energy performance target. The target is unique to each new building, but based on performance of existing campus buildings of the same space type. Each new building is targeted to perform better than the peer buildings that were built before it. For descriptions of some of the "greenest" buildings on Stanford's campus, please visit the website below: http://sustainable.stanford.edu/green-buildings Stanford has also invested significant resources over the last several years in building out its Arts district, which includes buildings focused on the mindset of the user inside. From museums, such as the new Anderson Collection and the new McMurtry Building, to contemplative centers like Windhover Pavilion, these buildings not only incorporated key sustainability features in their construction, but they also contribute to the overall health, wellness, and vibrance of the campus community. For instance, Windhover is a contemplative center located in the heart of campus accessible to Stanford students, staff and faculty. Art by Nathan Oliveira inspired both its name and its construction, turning Windhover into an elegant and natural space.

Title-24, California's Green Building Standards, and Santa Clara County all set sustainability standards with which Stanford must comply. In order to comply with these standards, a LEED-NC equivalency analysis is performed on each new building project and submitted to appropriate jurisdictions. On every project, Stanford allocates budget to include high-efficiency transformers, sophisticated energy management systems, and building-level energy and water metering, among other components. Stanford's Department of Project Management (http://dpm.stanford.edu) is responsible for the development, design and construction of major capital projects at Stanford University. DPM reports to the Associate Vice President for Academic Projects and Operations within Land, Buildings, and Real Estate, and includes professionals with backgrounds in architecture, engineering, construction and cost management. These professionals serve as Project Managers and Project Engineers, Quality Assurance Field Inspectors, and Project Coordinators, who work as a project team that involves multiple stakeholders to ensure the successful delivery of facilities that support the University’s academic mission. Together with its colleagues in the departments of Sustainability and Energy Management (http://sem.stanford.edu) and Buildings and Ground Maintenance (http://bgm.stanford.edu), DPM strives to employ life cycle cost analysis and sustainability measures in the delivery of all capital projects.

Please note that Stanford does not have a blanket policy that requires LEED certification, but rather guidelines with equivalent standards and an emphasis on prioritizing selection of the most appropriate high-performance features for a particular building function. The decision of whether or not to seek formal certification lies with the particular school or department for whom the new building is intended. For the majority of new construction in the past three years, the decision was made not to pursue certification under LEED-NC, and instead, to put the money that would have been spent on certification towards heightened sustainability features. These innovative features within Stanford's high-performance buildings add value without formal certification and should be recognized as such. By taking potential certification fees and putting them back into its projects, Stanford can leverage its resources to achieve a real and quantitative impact instead of a plaque and accolade.