CREDIT: Nick Procaylo, The Province Dale Mikkelsen enjoys the air quality in Vancouver’s National Ave. works yard, Canada’s first gold-rated green building.

Vancouver planners are setting out to change how developers think about buildings. It’s an ambitious plan to promote green building across the city and there’s no better place in the country to do it.

“Vancouver has a very educated public that is very aware of the environment — we sit and look at the trees and mountains and oceans every day,” said Dale Mikkelsen, a planner at city hall.

B.C. is already leading Canada on green-building initiatives, but Vancouver hopes to take it a step further and develop best practices for building following the LEED environmental rating system.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) was created by the U.S. Green Building Council in 1999 as a tool to rate commercial, institutional and high-rise residential buildings for environmental friendliness.

The system provides green building options and four levels of certification builders can achieve — and developers can market — depending on the number of green attributes.

In 2001, local planners adapted the U.S. LEED system for use in B.C. A national LEED Canada system was officially launched last year.

Meanwhile, Vancouver has pushed ahead with green building. Last year, the city set LEED “gold” standards for all new civic buildings, including specifications that reduce energy use by 30 per cent.

It is a high standard. Only a handful of buildings in Canada have qualified for gold certification and three are in B.C. In all, 63 buildings in the province have already registered to qualify for LEED Canada certification and six are certified.

City planners are hoping to work with private builders and developers on green building following LEED practices for all new projects.

“We want to propagate green building to the entire city and make this a new way of doing business,” Mikkelsen said. “It will be a new best practices for construction.”

Planners hope to present their strategy to city council next month on how they will work with stakeholders.

LEED awards points based on the number of green features in a building, up to a maximum of 70 points for platinum certification.

There are four levels of awards: Certified, silver, gold and platinum, with a minimum of 26 points required for basic certification.

Credits are awarded for things as simple as using low-toxicity interior wall paint or installing a system to capture rainwater to re-use in the garden. Buildings with higher ratings may use concrete that is partly made with recycled material or use solar or geothermal heating.

Vancouver‘s city works yard on National Avenue was the first building to achieve a LEED Canada gold rating. It is heated with geothermal energy, toilets are flushed with grey water and storm water is filtered, then re-used, to wash city vehicles.

The building also has excellent indoor air quality with huge windows that open, unfinished concrete floors and recycled carpet tiles that don’t give off chemicals.

“It’s fairly easy to get LEED certified at the lowest level — it’s just using good construction practices,” said Thomas Mueller, business and community services division manager for the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

“What LEED is trying to do is transform the construction industry to improve performance.”

It doesn’t have to cost more to add green features, Mueller said. A silver certification could add nothing or as little as two per cent to capital costs. The highest level, platinum, could be a significant outlay.

However, the savings on energy, increased worker productivity and lower vacancy rates provide a fairly quick return on the investment.

Although the benefits appeal more to building owners, and institutions, developers are quickly realizing health and environment-conscious consumers are willing to pay for green features.

Builders also have to consider the entire life cycle of a building, and the years of benefits, rather than short-term profits.

Victoria developer Joe Van Belleghem, president of Windmill Developments and a founder of the Canada Green Building Council, achieved LEED gold certification on the Vancouver Island Tech Park project in 2002.

He is now working with Vancity Enterprises on Dockside Green, a 1.3-million-square-foot development on a contaminated former industrial site in Victoria and is hoping for LEED platinum.

Construction is scheduled to begin this summer. The $300-million project involves 23 buildings, including light industrial and commercial use, office space, condominiums and a hotel.

There are so many green features it has garnered attention from around the world, said Van Belleghem, who has developed several green buildings in the country and consulted internationally.

The development, which is expected to take 10 years to complete, is to be greenhouse gas neutral, producing its own energy on-site with waste wood products.

It will have its own sewage treatment system and the treated water will be recycled to flush toilets. Rainwater will be diverted for re-use.

The development will even have its own mini-transit system powered by biodiesel made from recycled restaurant grease.

It will use 50 per cent less energy, 60 per cent less water and recycle storm water on site. Parking lots will mix grass and gravel so rainwater is absorbed rather than hitting pavement and running into drains.

“A lot of this is just common sense, like shading around windows and increasing natural light,” Van Belleghem said.

“Green buildings don’t have to look much different than other buildings — it’s just getting people to think a little differently.

“You almost have to forget what you know about building and be open to other ideas.”

© The Vancouver Province 2005