About the Guide

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 HOW TO USE THE GUIDE
The Guide is designed for office-based and retail businesses, no matter how far they have journeyed along the path to environmental sustainability.  Guidelines and checklists are provided in each section to help provide useful information.  For businesses that have already taken a significant number of the steps outlined below, these actions will be recognized and can be attributed to the certification.  Additional points, and a higher certification level, can be achieved by striving for increased efficiency and savings.

This Guide also recognizes the fact that businesses that are leasing a space versus those that own it will be able to take different actions. For example, many of the energy efficiency and water conservation steps may not apply to businesses that are leasing the space while they would apply to those that are leaseholders. In recognition of this fact, we have different point requirements for tenants versus property managers below.  

This Guide is focused on certifying operations at one business location or many.  Therefore if your company has offices in many locations, you can start by choosing to certify your corporate headquarters and then expand to include your entire operations.  The certification does not cover operations up or down the business supply chain. Further, the focus of this guide is on office-based businesses and retail stores, and does not apply to industries such as manufacturing and extraction.  Future versions of the Guide will aim to incorporate other types of businesses and will have industry-specific requirements. 

This Guide has been developed to help you make your operations more environmentally sustainable while also reducing operational costs.  The information provided in the Guide was developed through an iterative process, where SB NOW worked closely with a working group comprised of representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), ENERGY STAR, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Calvert Group, The George Washington University, Montgomery County, Maryland, Eco-Coach, Erik Hoffland  and other representatives in the public and private sector, to ensure that the Guide is as comprehensive and easy to use as possible, while providing the maximum benefit to its users. 

The Guide can be used as a checklist to obtain certification or as a guideline for implementing ‘greener', more resource-efficient practices within your business or organization. It can also be used as a first step to an eco-assessment, which will help your organization identify where it stands today and determine the steps it needs to take in order to obtain the SB NOW Green Business Certification.

Please note that this guide does not include green building design suggestions, but is meant to complement existing standards such as the US Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System^TM. While LEED^TM focuses on building construction; this guide focuses on internal operations.  It is highly recommended that businesses that are interested in sustainable operations also consider obtaining the LEED^TM certification for their building space, leading to a holistic environmental approach, and further improving air quality, occupant productivity, and energy efficiency.  Because the Guide is modeled after the LEED^TM program, some of the requirements listed in it may be used in obtaining LEED^TM certification. These will be noted as such throughout the Guide. However, note that the documentation requirements may be different between the two certifications.