"[image-nocss] The first step is realizing every commercial enterprise can participate in being green," added Isadore Khrasch, president of Bannockburn, Ill.-based Green Hospitality Certified. "Every business, no matter how small, can have an impact on both their local environment and their bottom line."
For Kum & Go, other green efforts got the ball rolling before opening the two LEED-certified stores. "We had the advantage of having built a few dozen stores that would have been very close to qualifying for LEED certification before we undertook these projects," John Feldman, vice president of construction, told CSP Daily News.
Kum & Go said it plans to certify at least one more new build this year and incorporate many of the same designs and practices into all new construction. "We are working on simplifying and standardizing the documentation and submission processes so it will become practical to certify more stores," Feldman said.
In addition to being a green solution, LEED certification can have other auxiliary benefits:
Customer Buy-In. "For organizations that are thinking about sustainability now, it's going to prove to them in the future that people are going to put their dollars where their values are," Schaffer said. "They're going to have that purchasing power to select a green store over a non-green store."
Feldman said Kum & Go has found that to be true. "Many of our customers understand, respect and reward our commitment with their business," he said. "In addition, we have found that cities take us very seriously when we tell them we build an environmentally friendly store, even if the proposed store is not slated for LEED certification."
He added, "Our mantra throughout these projects was to do what made engineering, financial and operational sense and would matter to a typical customer. Customers understand things like clean water in their local streams and rivers, energy efficiency and rational use of recycled and regional materials."
Employee Buy-In. "There's a different generation out there; they want to work for a sustainable organization, and they want to be associated with green," Schaffer said. "And going for LEED certification says we're providing you with this LEED-certified workplace, a healthier building to work in."
Shareholder Buy-In. Because LEED certification comes from a third party, people tend to believe in a company's efforts more, Schaffer said. "LEED can be a great component to that overall corporate social responsibility effort," he said. "You can show your shareholders how much you're doing, and say, 'We're achieving LEED certification on all these buildings, and they're using less energy'."
Media Buy-In. "Different environmental organizations are going to pay more attention to you; overall it's great press," said Schaffer. "That has always been a strong point for LEED; it has really been a really good thing for these organizations in the amount of press that they've been able to receive for free." Some day LEED certification might not even be a choice, but a necessity. Schaffer said that some municipalities, as he has seen in northern Virginia, are now requiring LEED certification or the equivalent for a retailer to build in their city. "[Businesses] may not go through the certification process, but they have to prove to the city or county that they built it to LEED standards," he said.
As Wayne Howell, principal for Princeton, N.J.-based Clive Samuels & Associates Inc., part of Emerson's Retail Solutions group, put it, "I think overall, in general, more and more projects are doing it because it's almost becoming a standardand because a lot of the LEED criteria are making their way into building codes. If it's nearly code-mandated anyway, why not go ahead and file your project and register it to become LEED?"
West Des Moines, Iowa-based Kum & Go has to more than 430 c-stores in 11 states (Iowa, Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wyoming). In addition to a wide selection of products, Kum & Go provides customers a proprietary mix of products under the well-known Hiland brand name. Other proprietary product offerings include Java Ridge Premium Coffee, Napa Creek and Sea Ridge wines, Go Fresh Market sandwiches and Nuclear energy drinks.
[Editor's Note: For information on what it takes to become a LEED-certified c-store, as well as a look at Kum & Go's efforts, read "LEED By Example" in the April 2010 issue of CSP magazine.]
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