If Mother Nature is going to water the grass soon, it means Adobe doesn't have to.
Adobe is proud of more than just the eco-friendly image this system brings the company -- it also saves money. The $3,600 smart irrigation system will pay for itself in less than five months, by saving $10,000 each year.
That's just one of many innovative steps Adobe has taken to save money and conserve. The high-rise headquarters of the world's biggest maker of graphic-design software is on track to be recognized as among the most environmentally friendly in the nation. Inside the three towers, technology and frugality work together to save water and power, reduce waste and improve air quality.
Adobe is taking an approach that ``green'' building advocates hope others will follow.
Adobe is applying to the U.S. Green Building Council for the highest-level ``platinum'' certification it offers for environmentally friendly buildings. The ranking comes under its LEED program -- Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design -- the most commonly used rating to certify sustainable architecture.
If Adobe succeeds in winning certification, it would be the first platinum designation under a new LEED program for existing buildings. It is easier to build an eco-friendly building from scratch -- but Adobe also went back to the oldest towers in its headquarters and updated them to meet the standards. It also would be one of only 11 platinum-certified buildings in the country.
``It's tremendous. It's huge,'' said Tom Hicks, the Green Building Council's vice president of the LEED program.
Green buildings are designed to be more pleasant and healthful for occupants, with plenty of natural light, fresh air, climate controls and fewer toxic chemicals (Adobe claims to use only two in its buildings). But as more companies pursue the lower operating costs that accompany the measures, they also are watching the bottom line.
``If a large corporation undertakes a project like this, it's really saying to the rest of the world, `Look, this makes business sense,' '' said Gwyn Jones, marketing manager for the Green Building Council. ``They're not going to be making decisions just to feel better. They have stockholders they have to be responsible to.''
In Adobe's case, a $1.2 million total investment has yielded just under $1 million in annual cost savings, plus about $327,000 in rebates, mostly from PG&E.
Pursuing the environmental certification ``is in line with the general environmental commitment of Adobe's employees,'' said Randy Knox III, Adobe's director of real estate, facilities and security. ``And on the business side, we believe there will be long-term benefits in terms of cost savings and possibly an increase in the value of our buildings.''
George Denise of Cushman & Wakefield, the property manager for Adobe, said the quest for increased efficiency started in earnest even before the state's power crisis of 2001. In that era of rolling blackouts, then-Gov. Gray Davis asked large users to cut their energy consumption by 10 percent.
``We discovered that we had already reduced on our own, so we decided to see if we could go another 10 percent,'' he said. ``It never would have occurred to me that these buildings, with all these people and computers,'' could qualify for a PG&E Energy Star benchmark. With that in place, Knox and Denise decided to look into the LEED certification.
Adobe has reduced its water use by 30 percent overall, and by 75 percent in landscaping, Denise said. The methods include waterless urinals, automated toilets and faucets, and the Web-based irrigation control system that watches the weather and decides when to water the plants. Adobe also put 41 energy-saving projects in place, ranging in price from zero to almost $158,000.
Among them:
- Retrofitted parking garages in the East and West towers with fluorescent lighting at a cost of $157,775. Annual savings: $100,436.
- Installed automated faucets and toilet flush valves in all towers at a cost of $110,358. Annual savings: $24,949.
- Reduced run time of outdoor fountain from 119 hours a week to 60 at no cost. Annual savings: $4,418.
``The population here has grown by 35 percent, but our energy usage has actually gone down about 7 percent since 1999,'' Denise said. ``Effectively, when you factor in the population and everything else, it works out to about 27.3 percent.''
Steve Ashkin, an Indiana-based green-cleaning expert, said he expects the Adobe project to have wide-reaching implications for other Cushman & Wakefield properties and beyond.
``What's really valuable to me is sort of the effect that it's going to have on the broader building industry,'' he said. ``The implications of what George Denise has done is going to have this huge ripple effect in Cushman & Wakefield buildings.''
Denise said Adobe will submit its application to the Green Building Council later this month or early next. Coincidentally, the agency had approached Adobe over the summer to help it simplify application forms and put them online, not realizing that the company was planning to apply.
Said the building council's Hicks, ``It's really great to see our partners walking the walk.''
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