The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a widely-used rating system around the world which validates sustainability in the built environment. It has been developed by USGBC (United States Green Building Council) to evaluate the buildings and communities within the environmental and social framework of health, efficiency, and economy. This way LEED has encouraged and pushed the designers to build enhanced quality of life for people by encapsulating ecological factors.
Sunbolt represents efficiency, stability, and durability with its comprehensive range of solar powered products. Sunbolt products can help projects acquire LEED certification by providing credit points in the following categories:
- Sustainable Sites Credit – Heat Island reduction
- Heat Island effect is a phenomenon where heat is absorbed by dark, non-reflective surfaces such as pavement and buildings and then it is radiated to surrounding areas. This phenomenon is usually caused due to vehicle exhaust, air-conditioners, and street equipment, but sometimes tall buildings and narrow streets also reduce airflow and exacerbate this effect. To amplify this situation, heat island reduction credit intends on providing roof and non-roof shading areas around the site. In which case, Sunbolt products including the CampusXL, Momentum, Velocity and Carousels can qualify as energy-generating shade structures on site to curb this effect.
- Energy and Atmosphere Credit – Renewable Energy Production
- With rise in environmental and economic destruction due to fossil fuels, it has become more important to explore renewable sources that produce clean energy. Thus, this credit motivates projects to generate non-polluting renewable power on site by potentially utilizing solar, wind, hydro, or geothermal energy. Sunbolt, with its portfolio of solar-powered products, can help such projects in generating renewable energy on site and earn credit points.
- Materials and Resources Credit – Building product disclosure and optimization – Sourcing of raw materials and use of recycled content
- This credit focuses on using environment-friendly materials in projects sourced responsibly or have bio-based, wood-based or recyclable content. Sunbolt products are essentially constructed of steel (as the primary component), aluminum, wood, and recycled lumber. Thus, by using Sunbolt products, large projects can grab credit points towards the certification.
- Innovation Credit– School as a teaching tool
- This innovation credit encourages schools to integrate their onsite sustainable features with school educational missions. To earn points towards this credit, schools are required to educate students about the relationship between natural and built environments by incorporating sustainable solutions in their facilities as examples. Sunbolt products such as the Momentum, Velocity and Solar Carousels can provide sustainable outdoor learning space for students. Also, being solar-powered structures, Sunbolt products can help students understand the workability of solar panels by utilizing the sun’s energy to charge cell phones, laptops, and other electronic devices.
The Sunbolt team is continuously working towards fabricating better solutions which are not only coherent but can help build social and ecological communities around the world. Sunbolt’s entire product portfolio desires to support building projects with their environment-friendly goals.
Sources:
https://www.usgbc.org/credits
https://www.greence.com/
Contributed by Mugdha Singhal, LEED Green Associate and Product Designer at Sunbolt
