The new headquarters of ISO New England Inc. has been awarded gold-level environmental certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, ISO New England and its architectural firm, Spagnolo Gisness & Associates, Inc. (SG&A). The two-building Holyoke campus is the first corporate headquarters in New England to receive the gold ranking At 160,000 s/f, it is one of the largest commercial office facilities to receive gold certification in the region. "The design and renovation of ISO New England's buildings incorporated a number of features that were both environmentally friendly and cost effective," said Robert Ludlow, ISO New England's CFO. The LEED Green Building Rating System is the nationally accepted benchmark for evaluating site sustainability, water and energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and material and resource selection and management. Thus, cooperation from the entire project team was necessary to achieve certification. "ISO New England challenged the design, project management, and construction teams to create the most energy efficient and cost-effective building it could," saidSG&A founding principal, Jeff Tompkins. In addition to the ISO and SG&A, AHA Consulting Engineers, and project developer Jones Lang LaSalle, were instrumental in achieving the gold standard of LEED certification. The project team also included construction managers, Barr & Barr, Inc., and structural engineers, McNamara/Salvia, Inc. To further offset its carbon footprint, ISO New England purchased renewable energy credits totaling more than 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year for two years. By purchasing electricity generated from renewable fuels, the ISO will help avoid the additional production of harmful emissions. ISO New England plans to maintain practical and ecological facilities-management, waste management, and purchasing programs to ensure it continually makes wise use of resources.