Pulse - March 2021 - 18

business success. As well as talking to your
trash company, Dr. Shinkawa advises working
closely with city planning officials so you will
know what you can - and cannot - do.

Dr. Davidow
at BluePearl
Renton.
Dr. Davidow and
her business partner,
Jean Maixner, opened
their first practice in
2003 and the second seven years later.
Now a faculty member at Washington
State
University's
College of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Davidow said that she learned lessons in 2003
that were useful in 2010.
" When we built our first practice, we
had a tight budget and did just what our
architect and contractor recommended.
However, environmental concerns were
really important to us. "
Dr. Davidow attended a go-green conference for businesses in Seattle (https://
www.gogreenconference.net), she said, that
made her realize that businesses can have a
significant impact on environmental issues.
" That got me much more interested in
what I could do as a business owner that
could fit with the things that were important to me personally. "
" There was a lot more information available in 2010 about how to build a green
practice and we decided to see what we
could do. We also had more wiggle room in
our budget for the second hospital than we
did in 2003. "
" We couldn't find an architect who had
done veterinary work so we used one who
had helped me with the remodel of my
house and had done LEED-certified homes
and commercial buildings. "
What happens during the construction
phase is important, she said. " We made sure
that our contractor was going to sort, recycle and handle properly " all the demolition
detritus.
The two partners also tried to purchase
building materials from suppliers based
closer to the practice site to avoid higher
shipping costs. " That's definitely part of
your carbon footprint, " she said.

" One of the things we did that probably
made the most sense on a cost basis was to
design our lighting to use LED bulbs. But
we also tried to be really cognizant about
how much light we really would need. And
do you have to have it as bright-bright as
architects like to design it? "
Dr. Davidow said that " there are other
things you can do that are worthwhile but
it's harder to know what the payoff is. We
opted to buy doors that used only forestcertified woods in the doors we installed.
They were more expensive by 15 percent
but came from forests that have a " guaranteed sustainable " label. Those forests are
managed in a way that's environmental and
that has a huge impact on climate change.
" Doors from uncertified companies
would function and look the same. For us,
this was about doing the right thing. It's
like buying organic vegetables. Probably
a lot of the value of organic vegetables is
reimbursing farmers for doing the right
thing on their land. "
Although the original practice was not
built green, both practices did recycling and
worked with distributors to minimize waste.
The distributor's shipments arrived in bins
rather than cardboard boxes. The empty bins
would be exchanged for bins containing
new supplies the following week.

Dr. Calfee at
Nashville Veterinary Specialists
Hospital
Dr.
Calfee's
30,000-square-foot
building - the practice occupies 60 percent of the space
- was started in 2008
and finished in 2010.
It
includes
a
28-megawatt
photovoltaic solar panel system that provides
about 40 percent of the hospital's energy,
a 5,000-gallon rainwater collection system
that helps irrigate the landscape and six
4- by 4-foot skylights and large windows
in lobbies that provide natural light. It also
features stained concrete flooring in more
than half of the hospital that decreased the
use of materials during construction.

The practice uses Energy Star appliances and circulating hot-water pumps
in all treatment wards that reduce water
usage. It has a comprehensive recycling
program for paper, aluminum, packing
materials and glass. It also uses environmentally friendly cleaners.
Dr. Calfee shares his environmentalism
with the woman he met in college who
became his wife. " We met toward the end
of college and our relationship kind of
jelled around that. We are very environmentally conscious at home, too - about
how much waste is coming with something we buy and 'do I really need this?' "
The building's solar panels were installed
after " a company came to us and told us
that federal money was available to help
pay for it. " We just had to say yes. We got
two-thirds of the cost paid and there was a
long-term buy-back on the energy we produced so the math worked out very well in
that situation. "
Dr. Calfee said that it's " hard to quantify "
whether it is less expensive in the long run
to build a green practice. " But that is something that's articulated in the green building world and I believe it's likely true. It's
just very hard to measure.
" We were asking ourselves where is all
that plastic going? So we set up a proactive
recycling program and we're doing composting as well. For a while, I was taking all
that kitchen waste, including paper towels,
to my house and composting it there. Now,
we have a third-party vendor that picks it
up and takes it to a composting facility.
" People around here are not used to
composting, though. they're just used to
putting their waste in the trash can. I think
we need to be doing more of it. "
He said that the building has signs posted
to remind employees to throw certain
items they discard in recycling bins and
food items in a compost container. "
The natural lighting provided by skylights and view windows " provide sufficient
lighting so no lights need to be turned on
in some rooms during daylight hours, " Dr.
Calfee said. P

MARCH 2021

PULSE

https://www.gogreenconference.net https://www.gogreenconference.net

Pulse - March 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pulse - March 2021