Go for Gold!

In August, my company moved the corporate office out of what was essentially a warehouse with cubes to a beautiful, new, LEED Gold Certified building. I think most of the employees would have been happy with just the new building bit, but the certification is pretty cool, too.

I'm not exactly sure what all goes into making the building Gold, but here are some of the things that my company did:

• the carpet is made up of panels, which is easier to replace than traditional carpeting
• every employee received a plastic glass and mug, as there are no longer paper cups in the break rooms
• the vending machines are Energy Star rated
• the toilets are low-flow
• the A/C is programed to only be on when people are actually in the building
• the cubes are made of post-consumer waste of some sort
• the offices are that really cool easy-to-disassemble-non-permanent wall stuff
• there's a TON of natural light
• there are way fewer printers
• there are no plastic utensils, paper plates, etc. in the break rooms
• there's a gym, and it's actually pretty decent
• there are wellness rooms, where, I kid you not, we were told we were allowed to nap, as long as our nap time didn't exceed our normal break or lunch time
• we all received these really cool color-coded power strips--the strip knows that when whatever's in the red box is turned off, it's ok to turn off everything else. This works well in an office, as all of our docking stations are in the red box...if we're not using our docking station, we're probably going home!
• we have a parking garage (here in SoCal this is nice, because before my car was baking in the sun all day) with priority parking for carpoolers/hybrids/and other low emissions vehicles
• and my new favorite feature, the walk station. It's a treadmill with a table where you can walk really slowly while you work. It's not really a substitute for an exercise program, but it is a nice alternative to sitting at your desk all day.

Now if only the building came with a view of the ocean and not the freeway!