University at Albany
OP-3: Building Operations and Maintenance

Institution owns and operates buildings that are:

1) Certified under a green building rating system for existing buildings, e.g. LEED® for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (O&M)

And/or

2) Operated and maintained in accordance with formally adopted sustainable operations and maintenance guidelines and policies that cover all of the following:

• Impacts on the surrounding site
• Energy consumption
• Building-level energy metering
• Usage of environmentally preferable materials
• Indoor environmental quality
• Water consumption
• Building-level water metering

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

This credit applies to all institutions that have any building space that is eligible for certification under a green building rating system for existing buildings. See “Eligible Building Space (Operations and Maintenance)” in Standards and Terms.

Institutions earn the maximum of 4 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 for Existing Buildings: 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 (see table below). For example, an institution that had 100 percent of its eligible building space certified at the minimum level would earn 2 points for this credit, while an institution that had 50 percent of its eligible building space certified at the minimum level would earn 1 point. 

See scoring table and example in the STARS Technical Manual.

Timeframe

Report on the current certification status of buildings at the time of STARS 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 for New Construction and Major Renovations, LEED for Core & Shell, LEED for Commercial Interiors) may be excluded from the calculations for this credit for up to 5 years following the date of certification. These buildings should not be counted for this credit unless they have been certified under a green building rating system for existing buildings.

Sampling and Data Standards

Include all eligible building space (operations and maintenance) as defined in Standards and Terms that is part of the institution’s overall STARS institutional boundary when reporting for this credit. 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.