Our Goal at Back to Terra is to help make your project beautiful, sustainable, and affordable. We start working with design teams as early as possible to best incorporate Sustainable goals and strategies into your design. The end result is an integrated or holistic design effort that continues through completion of the project and beyond. Click here to see our past green commercial projects:
One of the most commonly used green rating systems is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). We start off with brainstorming and goal setting in the early pre-design and schematic design phases of the project. We also work closely with construction teams to help them through the LEED submittal and management process. Our expertise with LEED includes LEED for New Construction, Existing Building Operations and Maintenance, Core and Shell, Commercial Interiors and LEED for Schools programs. Our LEED consulting services include:
* LEED goal setting and strategy development - from Eco-charettes and Construction Kick-Off meetings to Architecture and Engineering Consultant integrated design meetings, Back to Terra can help.
* Project facilitation and coordination - We can keep your project team on track, clarifying responsibility of Consultants, Contractor or Owner credits and tracking them for efficient response from start to finish. Chuck has developed a living spreadsheet to follow action items and track credits.
* LEED documentation and quality assurance - We will help document many credits on line and help train your team members to document their assigned credits. We will review your on line documentation to verify its likelyhood for acceptance by the LEED reviewer.
* Drawing and specification review - Chuck has written and edited Division 1 Sustainability specification sections and incorporated language into all spec divisions. We can suggest modifications to your projects drawings and specs.
* LEED Online training - We can come to your office or work with you via teleconference to help you understand how to document your project credit by credit via LEED Online.
* Post-certification services such as Energy Star tracking and green cleaning plan development - We have taken part in post occupancey studies and worked with the Engineering team to document savings in the first year, fifth year or other time period and will customize to meet your needs.
LEED is not the only green rating system available. If you are interested in sustainable design, but shy away from a predetermined set of goals in one of the many green rating systems, we offer services to help define and meet your own goals for your project such as:
* Eco-charrette planning and facilitation - We can develop goals for your project that either follow a green rating system without the formal documentation or that spring from your own green ideas and understanding of sustainability.
* Sustainability guidelines and assessment for buildings and campuses - We can help you incorporate sustainability for future or existing buildings or campus masterplanning, customizing to your specific goals and needs.
* Net zero energy and water strategic assessment - Working with you, civil, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical engineers, we can find ways to make your goals reality. Net zero is exciting as the goal is to turn the building into a living machine that can produce as much energy and water resources as it uses.
* Building material and furnishings research and recommendations - We are continually researching and introducing new products to projects that are ecologically sound, use less new resources to produce, and careful avoidance of Greenwashing products - products that claim to be Green, but are not. Many products we recommend have been used in other countries for many years with an already proven track record.
* Existing building analysis and review - We can help you explore energy systems that will cost less to operate and maintain than your current system. That might include replacing some equipment in your building, re-lamping current light fixtures or replacing them with more efficient fixtures, upgrading plumbing fixtures, swapping out building materials with more eco-friendly ones or as simple as modifying some day-to-day processes.
* Greenhouse gas reduction and carbon neutrality recommendations - We can help you explore ways to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint. There are systems available that allow you to produce energy and sell it back to your local utility or to filter your wastewater and use it for irrigation before it returns to the earth, rather than using public sewer systems.
* Green cleaning program development - We can help you tailor a program, point you in the right direction for staff training, and help with selection of environmentally friendly products.
* Green education and messaging - We can help you with signage in your facility, examples of messages and building data you might post to a green screen and how to use your website to promote your building's sustainability and encourage others doing the same.
* Strategic sustainability plans for firms or organizations - There are many plans we can use as models and fine tune them to your business or organization, such as plans others have put together for the 2030 Challenge. Such plans can encompass short term, medium and long range goals.
Living Building Challenge:
If your goal is to achieve the highest green rating system, then you want the Living Building Challenge. The Living Building Challenge was spurred ahead by the Cascadia Green Building Council in the Pacific Northwest and has evolved through great discussions at the Living Future unConferences held in either Portland, Seattle or Vancouver, BC on alternating years. I have had many years of exciting involvement in the Cascadia Chapter in Spokane, Washington.
"The Living Building Challenge is a green building certification program that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today and acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions. Projects that achieve this level of performance can claim to be the ‘greenest’ anywhere, and will serve as role models for others that follow.
"The Challenge is comprised of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals’: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. Petals are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. This compilation of Imperatives can be applied to almost every conceivable Typology, or project type, be it a building (both renovation of an existing structure, or new construction), infrastructure, landscape or community development."
Download the
Living Building Challenge
Standard 3.1 (PDF)
At Back to Terra, we agree that this is the ultimate goal of any project and if this is your goal, then we will work hard to help you achieve it.
One of the most commonly used green rating systems is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). We start off with brainstorming and goal setting in the early pre-design and schematic design phases of the project. We also work closely with construction teams to help them through the LEED submittal and management process. Our expertise with LEED includes LEED for New Construction, Existing Building Operations and Maintenance, Core and Shell, Commercial Interiors and LEED for Schools programs. Our LEED consulting services include:
* LEED goal setting and strategy development - from Eco-charettes and Construction Kick-Off meetings to Architecture and Engineering Consultant integrated design meetings, Back to Terra can help.
* Project facilitation and coordination - We can keep your project team on track, clarifying responsibility of Consultants, Contractor or Owner credits and tracking them for efficient response from start to finish. Chuck has developed a living spreadsheet to follow action items and track credits.
* LEED documentation and quality assurance - We will help document many credits on line and help train your team members to document their assigned credits. We will review your on line documentation to verify its likelyhood for acceptance by the LEED reviewer.
* Drawing and specification review - Chuck has written and edited Division 1 Sustainability specification sections and incorporated language into all spec divisions. We can suggest modifications to your projects drawings and specs.
* LEED Online training - We can come to your office or work with you via teleconference to help you understand how to document your project credit by credit via LEED Online.
* Post-certification services such as Energy Star tracking and green cleaning plan development - We have taken part in post occupancey studies and worked with the Engineering team to document savings in the first year, fifth year or other time period and will customize to meet your needs.
LEED is not the only green rating system available. If you are interested in sustainable design, but shy away from a predetermined set of goals in one of the many green rating systems, we offer services to help define and meet your own goals for your project such as:
* Eco-charrette planning and facilitation - We can develop goals for your project that either follow a green rating system without the formal documentation or that spring from your own green ideas and understanding of sustainability.
* Sustainability guidelines and assessment for buildings and campuses - We can help you incorporate sustainability for future or existing buildings or campus masterplanning, customizing to your specific goals and needs.
* Net zero energy and water strategic assessment - Working with you, civil, mechanical, plumbing, and electrical engineers, we can find ways to make your goals reality. Net zero is exciting as the goal is to turn the building into a living machine that can produce as much energy and water resources as it uses.
* Building material and furnishings research and recommendations - We are continually researching and introducing new products to projects that are ecologically sound, use less new resources to produce, and careful avoidance of Greenwashing products - products that claim to be Green, but are not. Many products we recommend have been used in other countries for many years with an already proven track record.
* Existing building analysis and review - We can help you explore energy systems that will cost less to operate and maintain than your current system. That might include replacing some equipment in your building, re-lamping current light fixtures or replacing them with more efficient fixtures, upgrading plumbing fixtures, swapping out building materials with more eco-friendly ones or as simple as modifying some day-to-day processes.
* Greenhouse gas reduction and carbon neutrality recommendations - We can help you explore ways to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint. There are systems available that allow you to produce energy and sell it back to your local utility or to filter your wastewater and use it for irrigation before it returns to the earth, rather than using public sewer systems.
* Green cleaning program development - We can help you tailor a program, point you in the right direction for staff training, and help with selection of environmentally friendly products.
* Green education and messaging - We can help you with signage in your facility, examples of messages and building data you might post to a green screen and how to use your website to promote your building's sustainability and encourage others doing the same.
* Strategic sustainability plans for firms or organizations - There are many plans we can use as models and fine tune them to your business or organization, such as plans others have put together for the 2030 Challenge. Such plans can encompass short term, medium and long range goals.
Living Building Challenge:
If your goal is to achieve the highest green rating system, then you want the Living Building Challenge. The Living Building Challenge was spurred ahead by the Cascadia Green Building Council in the Pacific Northwest and has evolved through great discussions at the Living Future unConferences held in either Portland, Seattle or Vancouver, BC on alternating years. I have had many years of exciting involvement in the Cascadia Chapter in Spokane, Washington.
"The Living Building Challenge is a green building certification program that defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today and acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions. Projects that achieve this level of performance can claim to be the ‘greenest’ anywhere, and will serve as role models for others that follow.
"The Challenge is comprised of seven performance areas, or ‘Petals’: Site, Water, Energy, Health, Materials, Equity and Beauty. Petals are subdivided into a total of twenty Imperatives, each of which focuses on a specific sphere of influence. This compilation of Imperatives can be applied to almost every conceivable Typology, or project type, be it a building (both renovation of an existing structure, or new construction), infrastructure, landscape or community development."
Download the
Living Building Challenge
Standard 3.1 (PDF)
At Back to Terra, we agree that this is the ultimate goal of any project and if this is your goal, then we will work hard to help you achieve it.
Green Rating Systems:
