Welcome!

Welcome to Michael Shilale Architects, LLP's "going green" blog! We decided to start this blog to document our efforts to be LEED certified, as we feel this information could help a lot of you out there who are considering energy efficient renovations.

But let's back up a few steps. What do we mean when we say we're striving for LEED certification?

At MSA, we "walk the walk." We are currently helping several clients, especially school districts, make energy efficient upgrades that are not only good for the environment, they're good for the energy bill, as well. We help our clients see what improvements can be made, and how those measures will help. (More about that, later, though.)

So, we thought, if we're helping our clients "go green," we should do the same for our own building! To benchmark our efforts, we have set forth using LEED, the United States Green Building Council's rating system. LEED is basically a set of credits you can reach by modifying your building and some of your systems, for example how you dispose of your trash: do you separate by paper, cans and bottles, and waste? These LEED credits are grouped into categories: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation in Design. You can reach different levels of certification based on how many credits you can complete, Platinum being the highest level.

LEED certification is an ongoing process that not only includes physical changes to the building, but to how we operate in that building. That's why MSA will be keeping you posted on our hard work, so you can learn about LEED and the steps you can take to strive toward certification.

By Courtney Iseman