The Michigan Daily- Wednesday, January 28, 2009 0 0 0 0 0 a I Wednesday, January 28, 2009 - The Michigan Daily 5B HOW STUDENTS CONVINCED ROSS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATORS THAT MAKING' R NEW SCHOOL GREEN IS GOOD BUSINESS. BY LISA HAIDOSTIA. PHOTS Y SAM WOLL0 THE the dark marble countertops and heavy wood-paneled doors of the new Ross School of Business building's bathrooms, the electric green handles on the toilets seema little out of place. Coated to resist germs, the handle can be pushed either up or down, creating a high-intensity or low-in- tensity flush. The dual-flush toilets, estimated to reduce water consumption by as much as 67 percent, are just one example of the eco-friendly features included throughout the building. The new Tappan Street landmark has been officially open for nearly a month, but the buzz surrounding it has barely dimmed. Its modern, rust-colored exterior sits in sharp contrast to nearby buildings like the col- legial, ivy-coated buildings in the Law Quad. And any LSA student must be a little envious of the three-story atrium and 7,500-square-foot fitness center. But while the bold design and exceptional facilities have garnered the most attention, the most noteworthy aspect of the building might be in its environmentally- conscious features. Featuring huge skylights above the main atrium, the 270,000-square-foot building takes advantage of natural light while using high-efficiency electricity and daylight-dimming systems. Some of its roof is covered with soil and plants to insulate the building, filter rain- fall and improve air quality by trapping impurities. Receptacles throughout the building are dedicated to recycling cans and paper, and the building also has non-toxic carpets and waterless urinals. The walls are covered with low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paint, which reduces the emission of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. And from the start, 94 percent of demolition debris and 50 percent of debris from construction was recy- cled. Though the paperwork hasn't yet been submitted, administrators will apply for LEERD (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) certification and expect to achieve the Silver level. By no means a nation- al stand out - silver is only second out of four levels of certification - the Rossbuilding's biggest achievement might be to set a new standard for University build- ings. The Dana Building, home of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, is the only campus building to date that has received a LEED certification, attaining the Gold level. 0 This latest addition to campus suggests that envi-, ronmentally conscious construction may now be the norm for University projects. Students and faculty have begun to demand greener standards for campus devel- opment - and in the case of the Business School, have succeeded. "This was a watershed moment in changing how we design buildings at the University of Michigan," said University alum Brian Swett, who was one of several graduate students in the Erb Institute for Global Sus- tainable Enterprise who pushed for the LEERD certifica- tion of the Business School. Prof. Tom Lyon, Director of the Erb Institute, said it's especially important for business schools to achieve LEED certification because so many of the employers who recruit MBA and BBA students are doing so them- selves. "I think the fact that we got it LEED certified makes a very important statement because it says you're really on the cutting edge of what businesses should be doing in the future," said Graham Mercer, assistant dean of the Ross school. But the national benchmark for green construction has gotten so high that even with the steps it's taken, the Business School remains far from the environmen- tal cutting edge. The new Stanford Business School campus, set to open in 2010, is seeking the highest possible Platinum level LEED certification, as will the Glendale, Arizona- based Thunderbird School of Global Management. MIT's forthcoming Sloan School of Management will be solar-ready, allowing for the installation of solar panels at a later date, and New York University's Stern School of Business provides bottle filling stations to encourage students to reuse their water bottles. "We should not be tooting our own horns, and we're not taking a leadership role at all," Swett said, adding that the University of Michigan has a "terrible record of building green." Save for the Dana Building, which features solar pan- els and composting toilets, the University of Michigan has lagged in environmentally-conscious construction. Though its College Sustainability Report Card grade for green building rose from a C in 2007 to a B in 2008 and 2009, schools like the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill each scored an A in the category in the last two years. Sue Gott, a planner who worked on site consider- ations for the new building, insisted that green con- struction is a main priority for the University even if LEED certification isn't obtained due to administrative costs. "In anything that we are designing, we look for ways to be energy conscious and we look for sustainability approached the administration with "literally a binder opportunities," she said. of resources." The student team of "rabble rousers," as Swett called them, wanted to prove to the administra- tion that the price premium for achieving the certifica- According to several professors and students tion was not prohibitively high. Though some contend involved in the building's initial planning phases, Uni- the cost of LEED certifying a building can be up to 25 versity administrators, architects and the New York percent of the total cost, Lyon, with the Erb Institute, City-based architectural firm Kohn Pedersen Fox ini- said those estimates are far off base, with extra costs tially resisted certifying the building due to the extra usually being less than one percent. expense. "The numbers are not huge," said Prof. Andy Hoff- The LEED system faces criticism for not only add- man, an associate director of the Erb Institute. In a ing costs in the form of paperwork, extra research and paper he co-authored, Hoffman cited several recent LEED consultants, but also employing a too-rigid point studies showing that when lowered operating costs system. For example, the green roofs of the Ross build- are taken into account, the construction and certifica- ing - while no doubt environ- tion costs of green building mentally beneficial - do not and standard buildings are count toward a LEED certifi- - - - negated by savings in ener- cation. M-A R R , RtS2 H A O N gy costs within years. Despite itsfaults, the system .- - Mercer said the cost of is still widely well-regarded ' - '- - H - R certifying the Ross project because it helps force builders W U C N was one percent of the $110 to think more broadly about million total construction environmental options. It V . cost, which would mean a also serves as an recognizable hefty $L1 million. yardstick for green buildings nationwide. At the very In meetings with Ross administrators, the Erb stu- least,ea LEED certification generates good publicity. dents presented case studies, best practices and options "It would have been tremendously embarrassing if for materials. One student took Business School Assis- Ross had opened with less than the Silver, given what tant Dean Graham Mercer, who headed the project, on our competition is doing," Swett said. a tour of the LEED certified Ford Rouge plant in Dear- Several Erb Institute students started a petition for born. the Ross building to achieve LEED certification and set After a few meetings, Magnus said the administra- up meetings with Ross administrators to make their tion shifted from being "skeptically interested to sin- case for it. cerely interested" in pursuing the certification. "We just kind of took it on as a personal mission that "The Erb students were the instrumental factor in we wanted to convince the leadership of the business moving the school to go for LEED certification," Lyon school that they should consider making the build- said. Magnus said the administration "definitely hadn't ing LEED," said University alum Bryan Magnus, who considered" achieving the LEED label. was one of the first Erb students to begin research- "To their credit, the deans at Ross really listened to ing sustainable options for the building. He said they what the students had to say," Lyon said. "Once they ,YY t fI decided to pursue LEED certification, they've been very enthusiastic about it and really followed through." Mercer said that although the administration was "still debating" whether to certify the building when the Erb students first approached them, greening the building was a stated objective from the start. "Our goal was always to make it an environmentally- friendly building," he said. "We wanted to make some sort of statement that this is important." Mercer said a reason they decided to follow through with the certification was so students and employers would know the extent of the building's green fea- tures. "You can throw an awful lot of money into a build- ing trying to get to some esoteric level with not a lot of gain," he said. Of course, a lot of the decisions on what could and couldn't be made green came down to money. Swett said that by the time he got involved in the project, there were significantbudget constraints. "The costs very quickly were running out of con- trol," he said. "They were open to suggestions, but not at added costs. From a green perspective, it inhibits a little bit what you can do." But Mercer said that when plans had to be shifted around budget crunches, environmental features were never scrapped. "We said we're not doing it because that's a big part of the building, a big part of the design - we've got to leave it alone," he said. Unless two separate plans had been drawn up - one with LEED certification and the other without it - one could only guess at how much of the building's price tag the green attributes actually made up. See BUSINESS SCHOOL, Page 8B (LEFT and RIGHT) The three-story atrium inside the new Ross School of Business building. (FAR LEFT) Special tiles on the building's exterior insulate the building to save energy.