Verdical Group’s Impact Metrics: One Year Later

By Alex Spire

Even if a goal may seem long-term or vague, motivation is more easily maintained when tangible, solid numbers can quantify your efforts.  Metrics help our team at Verdical Group see the bigger picture, and they demonstrate that the time and effort necessary to build structures to the highest sustainable design standards can guarantee environmental and financial benefits for decades to come.  Our Verdical Group Impact Metrics show just how big those benefits can be — particularly when you look holistically at our many completed and ongoing projects.  Metrics like these are integral to the broader sustainability movement.

It can often be discouraging to fight against what seems like an impossibly nebulous and large problem like global climate change, but by quantifying our work’s impact, we are able to demonstrate that small actions do add up to make a big difference — and they do this faster than it may seem (to see just how quickly, check out our last metrics update).  We hope this inspires others to make efforts to benefit the environment through green building or any other means, as every effort adds up, and we have the numbers to prove it.

Verdical Group has measured its positive impact on the environment by tracking the energy, water, and waste savings from projects we have helped to earn LEED certifications. Our metrics are based on carefully calculated data submitted to USGBC for the projects on which we have consulted; these are the same numbers that earn points in the LEED rating system, so they are third-party verified and accurate.

What else are we looking at?

In addition to these metrics, we are tracking attendee numbers at our many educational events and presentations, such as our Net Zero Conference, through which we can create an even larger impact than we can on our own. Our hope for these events is that attendees will come away inspired to work with our firm to incorporate green concepts from all kinds of industries into their own projects. All of these metrics let us know how we are doing in that effort.

We have also begun tracking the hours our team participates in community service and pro-bono work that we hope will demonstrate the extensive potential and value of buildings constructed with green design in mind. For example, have been working on the Perlita House project pro-bono to demonstrate how the Living Building Challenge takes green building to its logical extreme by building a house that is totally net zero in its use of water and power as well as production of waste. Verdical Group hopes this project will help others understand the feasibility and benefits of building passively and inspire others to aspire to these lofty (but attainable!) building standards.

Digging a little deeper…

Since Verdical Group was founded almost seven years ago, we have seen energy savings of over 9 million kilowatt hours across our projects. Additionally, our projects have saved almost 3 million gallons of water and diverted nearly 24 million pounds of waste from landfills.

To put some of these numbers and savings in perspective, Johnson & Johnson’s Irvine Campus, spanning ten buildings, has:

• Offset an amount of carbon equivalent to planting more than 160,000 trees
• Saved enough water to fill more than 37 swimming pools
• Diverted more than 19 garbage trucks worth of waste from landfills

Verdical Group is proud to have provided LEED ID+C Project Management and Commissioning services for the successful achievement of LEED certifications spanning Certified through Gold for their buildings. It is exciting to see our work translate into huge savings for our clients and the environment.

By continuing to monitor how Verdical Group is impacting the environment through green building and the people who we educate about sustainability and its benefits, we will see the growing impact that the firm is having on the world and the people who inhabit it.  In the bigger picture, we hope these numbers prove that day-to-day energy, water, and waste savings add up, and that decisions and efforts that businesses and people make every day can have a huge impact on others and the planet.  The impact metrics we track are central to Verdical Group’s commitment to our missions laid forth as both a 1% for the Planet member and as a B Corp. They reinforce that while we are a for-profit company, planet and community wellness are integral to our work–and we will continue to update and share our progress in that endeavor.