Barclays Whippany, New Jersey LEED Certified Campus
On Thursday December 5th I attended the Building Transformation Forum: Decarbonization hosted by the local USGBC New Jersey Council at the Barclays Whippany, New Jersey campus. The event included a campus tour lead by Christian Knox who is the Sustainability Manager at ISS Facilities Services that manages the facility along with a Thought Leadership Panel and a keynote speech from Commissioner Zenon Christodoulou of the NJ Board of Public Utilities. The Barclays Whippany campus has many sustainability features throughout the campus including LEED certifications for all of the office buildings on the campus, along with the childcare facility, fitness center and canteen that are also used by the nearly 4,000 employees. The push for sustainable building practices on a campus this size shows that when large companies invest in sustainable building practices sets a standard among competitors.
Christian Knox who is the Sustainability Manager with ISS Facility Services who manages the facilities services for the Barclays Whippany campus started in the canteen snaking through the campus to building B400, the main focus of the tour. B400 is LEED v4 BD+C Silver that scored 51 out of 110 possible points according to the USGBC website. One of the coolest aspects of the Whippany campus is that on all of the parking garages there are solar panels that cover the tops of the garages. Currently, Barclays has the maximum number of panels that a campus of this size is allotted allowing for a steep offset in energy bill spending. In upgrading the property to become LEED certified Barclays has planted grasses local to New Jersey and the Northeast allowing for local pollinators to feed on them. Given that it was a December evening in Northern New Jersey we were unable to see much of the grasses or pollinators in full form. Having been born and raised in Northern New Jersey it is great to see large organizations like Barclays take their sustainability initiatives seriously and this campus has shown that investment in sustainable building practices helps to save money and inspire the next generation of sustainability leaders.
Interested in learning more about Barclays Whippany Facility? Find more about the LEED Certification on the USGBC Website: https://www.usgbc.org/projects/barclays-b400?view=overview