Founded in 2001 as a sustainable luxury real estate and property holdings company, Bently Holdings has become a benchmark for California's green building initiatives.
In all of our properties we use only green non-toxic janitorial supplies and renewable building supplies, and have succeeded in drastically reducing power consumption. Our offices are run in an almost paperless digital environment, and we use only recycled paper products printed with natural soy inks.
All new tenant spaces are mandated to be designed and built following LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building guidelines. Carpets, which take up some of the largest space in landfills, must be made from recycled materials in all of our new build-outs. We've even mandated that sheet rock, aluminum studs, nails, and concrete are to come from recycled materials. Demolition must all be recycled as well; we aim to have 0% waste going to land fills.
We are committed to using environmentally friendly paint products which contain no VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds). We are voluntarily upgrading all older, less environmentally friendly building systems such as HVAC chiller units to systems that not only emit near zero harmful emissions, but run on considerably less energy.
Bently Holdings is also engaged in alternative energies. We're looking to offset more than ninety percent of our energy consumption at Belvedere Place in Marin county with solar power. All the vehicles in our corporate fleet, as well as all generators, run on pure B100 biodiesel produced by our sister company, Bently Biofuels.
Buildings have an immediate impact on the quality of people's lives and the health of the planet, and it is our responsibility to protect the environment with sustainable building design, construction, and operation. At Bently Holdings we value "The Three Ps" of sustainability (people, planet, and profit) equally, and strive to maintain a balance of all three.
The places we live and work consume more than two-thirds of the nation's electricity and one-eigth of our water; they reshape the land that provides valuable ecological resources. According to the the USGBC, green buildings can conserve up to 50 percent of energy consumption, 38 percent of Carbon Dioxide emissions, 40 percent of water, and 70 percent of solid waste.
Green building also has an impact on the quality of our lives at home and the productivity of our workplaces. We spend more than ninety percent of our time indoors, and green buildings drastically improve the quality of the light, air, acoustics, and thermal environments in the spaces we inhabit. For businesses it's estimated that green buildings add $20 to $160 billion to worker productivity due to improved lighting, comfort, and employee satisfaction.
According to Ashley Katz, USGBC spokesperson, "By building green, everyone profits. Owners, in particular, benefit from an increased bottom line gained through energy savings, increased productivity, reduced absenteesim and turnover, and happier employees."
Bently Holdings recognizes the significant impact the real estate industry can have on the environment, and is committed to the people who live and work in the communities it's invested in. It takes a considerable investment to go green, but in the face of skyrocketing energy costs, stricter government regulations, and more tantalizing incentives for comapnies to conserve energy, a green investment will yield much higher profits over time.
While the initial cost of building and maintaining green properties may seem to some like a luxury, to us it's a necessity.
Although companies today are faced with skyrocketing energy costs and strict consumption thresholds, designers and engineers are pioneering new and better ways to go green. With both our nation's companies and our government taking more committed roles in protecting our planet, it's a bright future.
The green movement shows no signs of slowing down, and Bently Holdings is proud to have been setting the standard in sustainable building design and maintenance for the last decade. We will continue to operate with our people and our planet in mind, and we're looking forward to pushing our green goals to new levels.