IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2011 - 22

right: A PnC bank branch can now be certified by a new volume LEED process for which many retailers are grateful. Far right: PnC expresses its green spirit with one of the U.S.’s largest green walls.

GAry SAULSon :: rEAL ESTATE DIrECTor + LEED PIonEEr

“The fact that we have reached over 100 certified projects under the USGBC’s LEED program not only is significant for PNC, but it’s really significant for those who care about the environment in general.”
This project launched a dedicated commitment by PNC to continue to build green, including—rather optimistically— all of its new bank branches. While Firstside entailed a steep learning curve, there had been a LEED New Construction guidelines and certification process in place to work with. Fulfilling PNC’s desire for 60 new green bank branches would be a different story. Documenting, registering, and certifying each and every branch would be an expensive, time-consuming proposition—if not redundant. Most retailers at the time would chose either to build a signature retail space or two or else opt out of LEED altogether. Nevertheless, Gary set out to forge a new streamlined LEED process with the USGBC that would harness the redundancy of high-volume building itself without compromising the technical integrity of LEED. Working closely with the sustainability consultant, Palladino and Associates, Gensler as architect, and the USGBC LEED retail committee, Gary helped to develop a prototype process—one that presented a fairly significant departure for the USGBC. LEED’s credibility has always depended upon the rigor of the required documentation—you must back up claims of sustainable processes, materials, systems and strategies to achieve certification—and the USGBC was loathe to relax such standards. Any departure from LEED’s building-by-building documentation process was a radical mind-shift. Resolute nonetheless, Gary’s team dedicated several years of documenting, designing, and building new bank branches the conventional way while working with the USGBC on a new approach, which eventually became a pilot program. For this new process, documentation focuses on a prototype that serves as the basis for all built branches and ensures a consistent sustainable end product. In November 2010, the USGBC announced the launch of LEED for Retail and the LEED Volume Program, based on this prototype model. PNC’s properties have evolved to 117 LEED-certified buildings today—more newly constructed LEED buildings than any company, period. Even more impressive is that this new potential for green retail has opened the floodgates for green building and interiors in general. Nearly 100 national and independent retailers and franchises, each with hundreds and thousands of retail spaces— including Best Buy, Chipotle, L.L.Bean, McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Target— have participated in the retail pilot program since its launch in 2007. Do the math and you’ll see that green building has moved forward exponentially.

Gary Saulson Director of Corporate real Estate, PnC Financial Services Group, Pittsburgh, PA

s the sustainability movement has stormed through the interiors and building industry over the last decade, a number of committed companies have been integral to propelling it forward. LEED headquarters for major corporations both made good copy and helped considerably to lay the groundwork for transforming LEED certification into the valued goal and mainstream standard that it’s become. However, putting green intentions into action hasn’t always been easy—especially when sustainability goals outpace the LEED framework. As a result, not a few corporate clients have been interested “green” participants but still left the heavy lifting to the building and design community. As PNC’s real estate director, Gary Saulson led the greening of the bank’s first LEED building, Firstside Center, which opened in 2000 in Pittsburgh.

Photography: Courtesy of PNC (portrait and green wall), Michael Moran (PNC Bank branch)

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2011