Building an Arc: A look at the Green Team’s newest tool to measure KA’s environmental footprint
by Brenden Nickels
Brenden Nickels is Senior Office Assistant at Kraus-Anderson headquarters, and a member of KA’s Green Team.
The building industry – from construction to operations – generates nearly 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. As one of the region’s top construction management and development firms, Kraus-Anderson recognizes its role in building a more sustainable, resilient future. Building upon our 2018 investment in a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver-certified headquarters building in downtown Minneapolis, we recently partnered with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to implement Arc, a sustainability benchmarking tool, to elevate our commitment towards environmental stewardship.
What is Arc anyways?
Arc’s robust benchmarking capabilities offer Kraus-Anderson’s (KA) internal Green Team vast potential to reduce the organization’s greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint. The platform gathers data across five categories (energy, water, waste, transportation and human experience) and allows building owners to view and manage performance over time. By monitoring energy, water and waste consumption data, employee transportation methods, indoor air quality, and occupant satisfaction within KA’s 100,000 SF headquarters building, the Green Team aims to identify opportunities for improvement and ensure a safe and comfortable work environment as employees re-enter the office following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Green Team leaders Ryan Radzak and Lori Charlesworth, along with Property Manager Paige Morton, have partnered with the USGBC to activate Arc. After a few weeks of benchmarking, we have been pleasantly surprised by the proportion of waste our downtown employees divert from landfills. Using Arc, we have discovered that approximately 60 percent of the waste that we toss from our corporate headquarters is either recycled or composted, resulting in a total score of 7 out of 8 in Arc’s waste category. This information suggests that our office’s waste sorting options, the company’s investments in reusable water bottles and mugs as well as compostable cutlery, and the Green Team’s educational efforts are helping to encourage sustainable behavior. The Green Team hopes that Arc’s visible benchmarking capabilities will motivate our teammates to practice sustainability in the office, field and home.
“Having performed the first LEED-certified project in the state of Minnesota in 2003, and over $2 billion in LEED-certified projects since, KA has repeatedly delivered the highest standard of environmental responsibility and innovation in delivering construction services,” said Radzak. “Arc takes this commitment to the next level and further fulfills our core purpose of building enduring relationships and strong communities. I am super excited about its potential and proud to work at a company that shares these values.”
Expanding the Arc Beyond just Kraus-Anderson Construction Company
If successful at KA’s headquarters, the Green Team hopes to broaden the project’s scope to include Kraus-Anderson’s six regional offices and its 5 million SF commercial real estate portfolio. The Green Team believes Arc’s benchmarking capabilities could help the company’s realty interests by retaining tenants who share our commitment to sustainability.
“USGBC created Arc as a tool to help organizations like Kraus-Anderson measure progress toward achieving their sustainability goals, and it is just one of many companies using Arc’s real time data to identify areas of improvement to boost a building’s performance,” said USGBC Associate Director, Brent Suski. “KA’s case is also great example of how one company is embracing USGBC’s mission of building high performance and healthy spaces for the purpose of improving people’s lives.”
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