Siemens Building Technologies Green Building Web Page Offers New Tools and Information To Help Companies Realize A More Sustainable, Efficient Future

The benefits of building green are wide-ranging — from increasing operating efficiency in facilities, enhancing property values and improving employee health and productivity — to generating good community and shareholder relations. Realizing these benefits, however, can be easier said than done. To assist building owners and facility managers’ frame this important discussion, Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. offers its Green Building web page, a comprehensive source of facts and relevant information that aims to help visitors initiate a meaningful dialogue on how to "go green".

The Green Building page is modular and divided into six windows so visitors can easily navigate the site and find pertinent information fast. Beginning with the introductory “About” window, the company’s Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) team describes how Siemens can help identify and implement systems and procedures to achieve virtually any organization's Green Building visions and goals.

In the Life-Cycle window, EES experts outline Siemens’ holistic approach to green buildings which begins with well-planned design and construction and assures as-specified environmental quality over the long term through sound and effective operating and maintenance practices. Existing facilities are addressed as well, and the page offers owners even more opportunities and insight into renewal strategies that will support greening strategies across any enterprise.

Many organizations are looking to achieve U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for new or existing facilities. The LEED Certification window offers an in-depth portal into the universe of LEED certification and what it takes to achieve this coveted high-profile designation.

New Online Tools
The site also offers relevant, easy-to-use online tools: A LEED Certification tool, a Greenhouse Gas Calculator and The Green Guide for Healthcare tool-kit. The LEED tool provides users with an overview of the key LEED rating systems and the Siemens Building Technologies solutions and services that will ensure companies can meet and obtain LEED certification.

A large part of what Siemens EES team offers are strategies and technologies that save energy and increase the efficiency of existing buildings. To help express the value building energy-efficiency gains can deliver in relation to the impact on the environment, the avoided use of energy can be expressed in equivalents of greenhouse gas emissions, barrels of oil consumed and other revealing measures. By plugging in a value, expressed as either an annual kWh electricity savings or saved therms of natural gas, the Siemens Greenhouse Gas Calculator will reveal how reducing electricity or fossil fuel consumption will reduce a facilities’ overall environmental impact.

Aimed specifically toward the healthcare industry, the Green Guide for Healthcare (GGHC) is the first comprehensive tool kit that specifically addresses both green construction and green operations of healthcare facilities. It is a voluntary, self-certifying program that combines many of the credits found in USGBC’s LEED rating system with the unique requirements of the healthcare industry. Siemens’ online tool is designed to make navigating the GGHC easy and assist industry stake holders so they may quickly locate topics and specific credits that are most relevant to them.

Also available on the Siemens EES Green Buildings page is a link to the executive summary of our ground-breaking SmartMarket report the “Greening of Corporate America,” and registration to receive the full report. The study provides insights into the changing attitude towards Green by some of corporate America’s largest companies and thorough overview of how the color of corporate citizenship is increasingly becoming a deeper shade of green as the movement becomes a more integral part of the bottom line.