by Brianna Crandall — March 31, 2014—Kimberly-Clark Corporation recently received another environmental accolade, achieving its first ever LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council for its Kimberly-Clark Professional headquarters building (Building 100) in Roswell, Georgia. The building obtained LEED Platinum certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED EB: O+M) program for existing and new practices in energy use, water use, and indoor environmental quality (IEQ).
To obtain the LEED EB: O+M certification, the Roswell North Atlantic Facilities Management (NAFM) team focused on water efficiency, energy efficiency, the use of sustainable materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Fortunately, the facility already had many environmentally sustainable features in place, says the company, but the NAFM team also made several improvements to the four-story, 80,000-square-foot building, which houses about 350 employees and was originally constructed in 1980. Key achievements and resulting benefits include:
- Changing one gallon-per-flush restroom urinals to one pint-per-flush urinals, which helped the building reduce water use by 99,140 gallons per year;
- Improving the building’s EPA Energy Star rating from 72 to 79 after a comprehensive building commissioning and operational improvements which reduced energy use by 548,084 kilowatt hours per year, resulting in an energy cost savings of more than $40,000 and a maintenance cost savings of $2,605 per year;
- Increasing the recycling of office materials from paper and cardboard only to also include aluminum cans, glass, and plastic bottles, thus diverting 5,300 pounds of waste from the landfill;
- Using copy paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC);
- Using paints, carpet adhesives and other materials that have low volatile organic compounds (VOCs);
- Maintaining a furniture re-use program that limits the need to buy new furniture;
- Using low-mercury-content fluorescent bulbs throughout the building;
- Increasing the amount of outdoor air in the building from 1-5 cfm/person to more than 10 cfm/person;
- Reducing HVAC system operation from 24×7 to hours of occupancy only, resulting in an estimated energy savings of more than $39,000 per year;
- Instituting 100 percent occupant-controlled lighting in individual workstations and multi-occupant spaces—an achievement that qualifies as “exemplary performance” by USGBC;
- Instituting a Green Cleaning program that replaced paper towels and other paper products used for cleaning with WypAll brand microfiber cleaning cloths and dusters, which also significantly reduced the amount of cleaning chemicals and water used for cleaning; and
- Using restroom paper products that meet U.S. EPA Comprehensive Procurement Guidelines requiring a minimum percentage of post-consumer recycled content. All paper products used in Building 100 and throughout the entire Roswell campus are manufactured by Kimberly-Clark Professional, which achieved FSC chain-of-custody certification for a broad range of Kleenex brand and Scott brand tissue and towel products in August 2009.
Kimberly-Clark notes that as the company pursued LEED certification for this building, many of the best practices it developed were quickly adopted by other buildings on the campus, such as including bottles and cans in the recycling program for all campus buildings. Although the certification process took about two years, even with many sustainable practices already in place, Kimberly-Clark says that the time and energy invested were “well worth it,” allowing the company to set the highest standard for others to follow. Kimberly-Clark is encouraging other companies and organizations—even those with older buildings—to follow the same route, and is, itself, in the process of evaluating 15 of its other office buildings in the United States for potential certification.
“As one of Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s four global businesses, Kimberly-Clark Professional shares in our company-wide commitment to being a responsible steward of the environment and positive contributor to our communities,” says Suhas Apte, vice president, Global Sustainability, Kimberly-Clark. “Sustainability remains a focus of everything we do, as we strive to lead the world in essentials for a better life—from the sourcing of our raw materials and the design of our products, through manufacturing and distribution, and ultimately product use and disposal…Our sustainability approach is embraced by our engaged employees and in the maintenance and operation of the buildings they work in.”
The USGBC site features a video showcasing the Kimberly-Clark Professional LEED Platinum certification.
Kimberly-Clark’s Reduce Today, Respect Tomorrow company philosophy takes a bigger-picture approach to environmental sustainability: reducing the use of natural resources throughout the entire product lifecycle. This big-picture approach reportedly helps the company design products to eliminate waste from the start.
