Green Building Movement Grows in Oil-Storied Houston
HOUSTON — The Greater Houston Partnership hosted the first of two symposiums designed to educate business leaders about environmentally sustainable buildings.
GHP — the city’s premiere advocacy group and informational clearinghouse — attracted several hundred business leaders, developers and architects to the event, which featured USGBC President Rick Fedrizzi and Houston Mayor Bill White.
The discussion program focused on strategies, practices and benefits of developing sustainable-design buildings, which yield lower resource consumption and operational costs. Sustainable design practices also mitigate the environmental impact of development through the local sourcing and recycling of project materials and enhance the environmental quality of the building through optimizing natural light and air quality.
Notable members of the panel discussion included Jeri Ballard, Shell Oil’s director of real estate and facilities, and Rick Schnieders, chairman and CEO of Houston-based food distributor Sysco.
Sysco, which has almost 50,000 employees and a fleet of 9,000 trucks, designed its new corporate campus as a LEED project with the aim of reducing the company’s environmental impact, officials say. In addition, the company is developing a program to reduce energy consumption at its warehouse facilities across the United States.
Shell is implementing environmentally sustainable design practices in the expansion of its Woodcreek campus in west Houston’s energy corridor, which hosts the region’s energy companies in a tightly clustered enclave.
Houston’s mayor, who has made environmental sustainability a major theme during his term in office, emphasized the city’s need and desire to become a leader in the areas of green building, sustainable development and energy efficiency.
Of the approximately 14,000 LEED-certified buildings in the world, 14 are located in Houston, officials say.
With the first symposium focusing on sustainable design and practices for new construction, the second event, scheduled for October, will feature a program of discussion focused on environmental sustainability in retrofitting and renovating existing structures, officials say.