S outh Jordan » This suburb now boasts Utah's greenest office building.
Kennecott Land's Daybreak Corporate Center scored platinum -- the highest possible rating -- in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program. It is the first building in the state to do so.
"The [green] building market in Utah is moving," said Greg Schlegel, chairman of the USGBC Utah Chapter and an energy-efficiency expert. "We're starting to get the highest level of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly buildings in Utah. Hopefully, we'll see more and more in the future."
Close to 600 Rio Tinto employees, including those who work for Kennecott Land and Kennecott Utah Copper, moved into the three-story, 750,000-square-foot building, near 11400 South and 4700 West, this fall.
The Daybreak Corporate Center was designed to use 22 percent less energy than a standard office building. It features "smart lighting" that automatically shuts off in areas not in use and ample natural light from oversized, 11-foot windows. Rooftop solar panels generate about 2 percent of the building's electricity, while a super-efficient heating and cooling system uses 40 percent less energy than is typical.
"Commercial buildings are the biggest consumer of energy in our environment," said Scott Kaufmann, Kennecott Land's vice president of commercial development. "To knock that down by 30 to 40 percent is a pretty big achievement."
The building has a modern aesthetic that blends surprisingly well into the natural landscape surrounding Daybreak. Four different finishes define the exterior: sustainably harvested Brazilian hardwood, aluminum plates, concrete and stucco.
Employees enjoy views of the Oquirrh and Wasatch mountains and an adjacent reservoir, where ducks and Canada geese forage.
Workers also interact more now that Rio Tinto offices in Magna, Murray and at the Bingham Copper Mine have been merged under one roof and no one has a private office. The corporate center boasts open floor plans, where employees have "personal work spaces" -- not cubicles -- with short, transparent dividers.
"There's no demarcation between whether you're the head of Utah Copper or doing junior engineering work," said Jeff Tygesen, a general manager for Rio Tinto. "The collaboration has gone up 100 percent."
Piped-in "pink noise" blocks voices from carrying too far. However, employees have multiple options for taking conversations to conference rooms, which include a retro-looking "brainstorming" room that features orange and green chairs and an entire wall of whiteboard space.
The center's water-saving features include 12 waterless urinals -- each prevent 40,000 gallons of water a year from being flushed -- and 24 dual-flush toilets. Storm water is reused on site to water the drought-tolerant landscaping.
During construction, 95 percent of waste materials was recycled. More than a fifth of the materials used in the building came from recycled sources.
» Twelve waterless urinals and 24 dual-flush toilets save thousands of gallons a year.
» A 100 percent of energy consumed is offset with wind-power purchases.
» Twenty percent of building materials came from regional suppliers, reducing fuel used for transportation.
» Products with low levels of volatile organic compounds were used to boost indoor air quality.
» Storm water is reused to irrigate water-wise landscaping.
» An ultra-efficient heating and cooling system uses 40 percent less energy than a conventional one.
Source: Kennecott Land
