Green improvements bring in another kind of green (cash), Unico managers say

According to Unico Corp.’s sustainability manager Brett Phillips, high-rise office buildings are a lot like people. They consume—energy rather than food. They take in a lot of water—for plumbing instead of hydration. And they produce waste—garbage rather than, well, you know. Traditionally, commercial buildings have ate, drank and wasted more than their share—commercial space accounts for 60 percent of the electricity consumption in the U.S., according to Phillips. Unico, however, is putting buildings in its portfolio on strict diets and getting them to operate at the most fit levels possible. In addition to being environmentally responsible, the strategy has proved to make good business sense. “Since 2007, we have made a $15 million investment,” Phillips told a crowd of about 60 people at the Sustainable Local (SLIP) green-business networking luncheon on Nov. 15. “Those investments have increased the asset value by $32 million. At the very least, this is a hedge against a declining market.” Based in Seattle, Unico owns the Bank of America Financial Center, the tallest building in downtown Spokane. That structure is part of the company’s portfolio that includes a total of 17 million square feet of office space in the western U.S. Roughly a third of its portfolio is in Washington state, and in addition to owning the tallest building in Eastern Washington, the company owns the tallest buildings in Idaho and Oregon. The company formed a Department of Sustainability in 2008 with two dedicated, full-time staffers. Now, Phillips said, 70 percent of its buildings are Energy Star certified and 75 percent of its portfolio is up for existing building LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. Phillips said the company started by setting the goal of cutting energy consumption by 2 percent annually. Since 2006, the company has reduced energy use in its buildings by 12 percent. In Spokane during the past four years, Unico has made a number of upgrades to the building intending to make it more energy efficient. As a result, the company has applied for and received Energy Star certification for the 30-year-old structure. The company also is seeking a LEED existing-building standard. In addition to upgrades that make the building more energy efficient, Unico developed the first whole-building recycling program in the city’s core last year. Solid waste produced at the building has decreased by 56 percent since then. Unico has been able to reduce the number of Dumpsters at the building from three to two, and it’s closer to needing just one Dumpster. Liz Fitzgerald, the Spokane building’s manager in recent years, said Unico now is working with the city to develop a composting program. The city currently has a residential composting program, through which it takes food waste and some food-soiled paper products, and Fitzgerald said they hope to have such a program in place at the building next year. The green improvements to Unico’s buildings have had business benefits in ways other than increasing property values. Phillips said that in some markets, companies are seeking out the environmentally-friendy, energy-efficient space. Also, the company has developed an expertise in LEED certification, and other building owners and developers have hired Unico to consult, creating an unexpected revenue stream for the company. To make all of this successful, the company has relied on cooperative tenants who will work to recycle and to be energy efficient. To assure compliance, the company has created green-lease addendums outlining what’s required of the tenants to keep the building operating in an environmentally responsible way. “We can’t do a lot of this work without our tenant’s cooperation,” Fitzgerald said. “That has not been a challenge. It’s been great.”