Gateway West Sustainable I

Our headquarters building, known as Gateway West Sustainable I, is recognized as a showcase for practical sustainability.  Constructed between April and December of 2009, Gateway West is a model of efficiency and a reflection of ESI’s culture of collaboration and continuous learning.

From the outset the project team worked on ways to implement “Practical Sustainable Design” within the project and reviewed numerous strategies.  All sustainable design approaches were reviewed based on the first cost, return on investment, life­cycle cost, and innovation with all of these considerations carrying equal weight. 

As a provider of technology and solutions that increase building energy efficiency and sustainability, we felt it was an opportunity to leverage both our expertise in providing innovative solutions and deliver on our commitment to a sustainable future.

ESI’s “leading by example approach” showcases the educational elements of the building by incorporating intelligent, integrated applications with a high performance mechanical and lighting system design, and sustainable building elements to provide a working example for other businesses of how these can lead to a building that is achieving a 41% energy efficiency improvement over baseline, as measured in real time. 

Employee comfort and indoor environmental quality were high priorities for the project, and creating workspaces that supported our culture of collaboration and open communication. These features contribute to a higher level of employee satisfaction and performance, as well as contributing to a lower absentee rate due to illness.  Key features contributing to employee comfort include:

• Exterior views and natural light for 100% of work areas
• 30% greater fresh air volume over code requirements
• Zone control with humidification

Did we achieve Our Goals?

For the first full year of occupancy, January through December of 2010, we achieved:

• Energy savings of 41% over baseline (ASHRAE 90.1-2004) = $31,914
• Eliminated 223 tons of CO₂
• LEED Platinum certification
• Energy Star rating of 98
• Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council’s Green Masters designation

Next Steps

To ensure that we maintain this high level of performance, we are currently implementing our LEED EBOM process.  This, coupled with our Building Performance Manager™ intelligent application platform that provides continuous commissioning, fault detection, optimization and work order management, will keep Gateway West performing at peak efficiency and the lowest possible cost.

We invite you to visit our headquarters and see for yourself, how Efficient design, Sustainable practices and Intelligent applications deliver high performance and bottom line value.

Integrated building systems and applications

• HVAC, lighting, access, video, security, fire, audio-visual and digital signage
• BACnet, LonTalk and Modbus protocols
• Fire extinguisher monitoring
• Energy metering and sub-metering
• Energy analysis
• Occupancy tracking
• Fault Detection and Diagnostics
• Computerized Maintenance Management
• Video analytics