Aye said green buildings can be strategic tools by increasing productivity, reducing operations and maintenance costs and reducing energy and water use.

Aye claimed that most people assume incorrectly that building to LEED standards costs significantly more than building to code. It costs about an additional 7 percent to build to LEED platinum and about an extra 2.2 percent to build to LEED gold, she said.

The four stages of greening existing buildings are assessment, corporate planning, implementation and project closeout. The assessment phase includes a building walk-through, energy-use audit and comprehensive report with cost analysis. The audit should address water efficiency, the building?EUR??,,????'?????<