Sheila Sheridan CFM, CPM has long been a proponent of sustainability. As director of facilities and services at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, she played a part in several of the University’s green initiatives. A former chair of the International Facility Management Association, Sheridan presently serves as Vice-Chair of the US Green Building Council’s committee on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings (LEED-EB), and is also a USGBC LEED faculty member.

We talked with Sheridan, a member of the VFA Client Advisory Board, about what sustainability means today and how that definition is evolving.

Q. The term sustainability means different things to different people. How do you define it?

A. The FM industry defines sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own.“ Personally, I believe the British philosopher Edmund Burke summed it up best by saying, “No man has made a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he can do so little.“ Sustainability means doing a little at a time and eventually making a difference. That’s really what Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED) is about, and it’s nice to see the FM community adopting this attitude toward sustainability.

Q. LEED is one part of a broader trend to support building sustainability. How do you see it fitting in today, and in the future?

A. LEED is the vehicle moving sustainability. I think that it will happen slowly through the education of the public, property owners, and vendors. Hopefully in time, the commitment will be there and vendors, suppliers, and companies will see the return on investment for its shareholders and it will become standard practice in the United States.

Q. How many organizations are LEED certified today, and what does the certification process encompass?

A. Approximately 53 existing buildings are currently LEED-EB certified, but another 511 are registered for certification. The total number of commercial projects registered for LEED certification, including new construction, totals almost 8,000.

The certification process for existing buildings entails submitting a formal application and achieving benchmarks on the LEED-EB checklist: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and innovation and operation and upgrades. How long it takes an organization to achieve those benchmarks and accrue enough points for LEED-EB certification varies—anywhere from six months to 18 months. The USGBC Web site has a link to the LEED-EB Reference Guide which lists all the criteria, as does a white paper on IFMA’s Web site entitled ”Delivering the Green.”

Q. What are the benefits of LEED certification for an organization? Does LEED certification increase a building’s value? Are there quantifiable measures?

A. The LEED-EB process allows an organization to measure, document and benchmark its sustainability efforts using a third-party vehicle. More importantly, it makes organizations aware of what their responsibility should be towards sustainability, particularly the energy component. That’s extremely important when you consider that the EPA estimates that if every office building in the U.S. reduced its energy use by 30 percent, we could save $30 billion a year! Quantitatively, LEED-EB certified properties extend the sustainability of a building by 2.6 years with an annual net savings of $170,000 when combined with best business practices. Perhaps the greatest benefit of a LEED-EB certification is productivity. Studies show a healthier workplace leads to healthier employees, translating to less absenteeism, greater retention and improved productivity.

Q. For organizations that want to take the first steps toward LEED certification, what types of improvements should they generally look at first?

A. It’s difficult to make improvements without a good assessment of how your building functions. By measuring where you are at the start, you can benchmark improvements as you go along. Since energy seems to be the largest dollar cost for most organizations, an energy assessment is a good starting point. Once you know how you’re using energy, it’s easier to make adjustments to save. Recycling and green cleaning—using environmentally-friendly products for your cleaning or only hiring maintenance firms that employ green cleaning practices—are other areas where it’s simple to make an immediate impact.