Pamela Lippe of e4, inc. helps developers and building owners go green and stay lean

Over thirteen years have passed since Pamela Lippe began her career as a green building consultant. Environmentally responsible development has gone from rare to an increasingly common feature in New York City construction. Most recently, in response to the slowing economy, Lippe has been shifting her focus to help owners green their existing buildings while saving money at the same time. Lippe's firm, e4, inc., consults on a wide variety of projects - from office towers to commercial fit-outs - from multi-unit residential to multi-block redevelopments. The firm's portfolio includes high-visibility projects such as the new 54-story crystalline Bank of America tower built by the Durst Organization and the 22-acre redevelopment at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn being built by Forest City Ratner and designed by Frank Gehry. Smaller projects include the American Cancer Society headquarters and Hope Lodge, the WNYC Relocation Project, the Bowery Hotel and the Museum for African Art. Each project and team has varying levels of experience in green building design and operations. e4 has created a niche for itself by crafting its services to meet the needs of each client. "We're utility players," Lippe said. "We track and manage green implementation from beginning to end. We step in where we're needed to provide research, management, backup or training." e4 is often called upon to help developers and owners achieve certification under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. Established by the U.S. Green Building Council, LEED consists of a checklist of performance benchmarks that provides significant flexibility to pick and chose what makes most sense for a particular project. "Our role is to simplify the process and keep it focused," Lippe said, "but clear mandates from the top are critical. Too much time is wasted arguing over whether something should be done, rather than how it can be done." Lippe began working on the greening of New York City skyscrapers around the time that the LEED rating system was being developed. Her first project was the Condé Nast building at 4 Times Sq. developed by the Durst Organization in the mid-1990s. It was the first skyscraper in the US to make significant advancements in sustainable design. Since the building was pre-LEED, there was little guidance on what green would mean to a 1.6 million s/f office tower. "Working on that project was very exciting and challenging," Lippe said. "We just had to figure it out for ourselves." The LEED certification process is known for its complexity. In order to comply, project teams often find themselves having to dig through a reference guide that's the size of a telephone directory in order to determine whether or not they've met the intent of the standard and provided the necessary documentation. It's a constantly changing and very time consuming process, especially for novices in an industry where time equals money. "Many of the owners we work with hire architects and engineers that they know can design, build or manage extremely complex projects," Lippe said. "Understandably, that's their first priority." Knowledge of how to green a building - and, more specifically, how to prove that you've done it - is not as critical. "That's where we come in. Our role," Lippe said, "is to support any project team in executing the owner's commitment to building or retrofitting green." "Word-of-mouth, not advertising keeps bringing us new projects." Lippe's firm helps flatten the LEED learning curve for owners, building managers, architects, and engineers, handling the bulk of the paperwork and engaging with the U.S. Green Building Council. Lippe and her staff are typically responsible for tracking progress, providing templates, reviewing work products and generally supporting the project team through design and construction and even into operations. The firm also helps owners secure government subsidies that help cover any added cost of going green. Since working on 4 Times Sq., Lippe has continued to serve as an environmental consultant to the Durst Organization's subsequent projects, including The Helena and the Epic, two residential towers on Manhattan's West Side, and the new Bank of America tower that is poised to become the city's most environmentally innovative building. Existing building projects include TIAA-CREF's headquarters in New York City and Charlotte, NC and a study for the City of New York evaluating the use of LEED for Existing Buildings - Operations & Maintenance, as a tool for saving energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A long-time environmentalist, Lippe has served for over 19 years (14 pro-bono) as the executive director of Earth Day New York, a non-profit environmental education organization that she helped to found in 1990. Earth Day New York publishes Lessons Learned publications based largely on what Lippe has learned and thinks is important for the real estate community to understand. "The information is designed to be succinct, accessible and useful," Lippe said. In addition, the organization hosts a yearly Earth Day celebration that brings thousands of visitors to Grand Central Terminal to see environmental exhibits, live bands, sample organic foods and other green products, and learn how the average person can help the environment. Lippe also provides general sustainability consulting services outside of the context of LEED. Through charettes, workshops, and presentations, she has helped executives at a number of organizations explore options for making their businesses more environmentally friendly. A recent client is Simon Property Group, the largest publicly traded retail real estate company in North America. As a student at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, Lippe studied mass media and communications and became deeply involved in the anti-nuclear movement when a local utility decided to build a plant not far from her school. Even closer to her home, was Indian Point, only 35 miles north of New York City. Lippe's 27th birthday coincided with the partial meltdown of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island. Six weeks later while working for Friends of the Earth, she was co-director of the May 6 March on Washington, a massive demonstration on the steps of the Capitol. From there, she went to work for Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), an organization that funded grassroots and nationwide safe energy campaigns with five nights of benefit concerts in Madison Square Garden, a triple album record set and feature film titled No Nukes. After a six year stint working for the National Committee for an Effective Congress, Lippe consulted for a variety of political and environmental entities until she was tapped to organize the New York City events for the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. The city-wide event mobilized about 2 million people with opening ceremonies in Times Sq., a 17-block EarthFair on Sixth Ave. and a massive concert in Central Park. "It was the largest event anywhere in the world for Earth Day 1990," Lippe said, "a rekindling of the original spirit of the first Earth Day."