Going Greener

In recent years, environmental sustainability has become a higher priority at State Street, especially in how we build and operate our facilities. Efforts to reduce emissions and investment in energy-efficient technologies enable us to lower costs while fulfilling our commitment to the environment. This commitment is particularly evident at our new facilities in Canary Wharf in London and Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin. Working with developers, we strived to attain the highest green standards as defined by Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), a UK-based rating system that provides guidance on ways of minimizing the adverse effects of buildings on the global and local environment.

Our Canary Wharf building, which opened in early 2009, received BREEAM’s top rating of “excellent.” Location was one key consideration; the facility was built next to a train station, encouraging increased use of public transportation. The building also provides access for bicycles and on-site showers for those who choose to bike, walk or jog to work. A high-speed lighting system uses outside ambient lighting to reduce brightness if it’s sunny outside. Less visible, but perhaps the source of the facility’s greatest efficiency, is its cooling system, which uses fan-powered boxes to run up DC motors, providing tighter temperature controls. In addition, only locally manufactured building materials were used in construction. Since the building’s completion, 20 percent of all electricity has come from green renewable sources.

Our new, 165,000 square-foot facility in Dublin was designed to achieve a BREEAM rating of “very good.” Due to be completed in 2009, the building features a rainwater harvesting system for all restrooms, free-cooling chillers that shut down the chiller plant during favorable weather conditions, condensing boilers that capture the heat normally lost in waste gases, high-performance glazing to reduce air conditioning needs and eliminate office glare, as well as air-handling units with thermal wheels to provide heat recovery efficiencies on the building’s vent system. Other green features include motion-detector controlled lighting, high-performance and fully dimmable lighting, carbon dioxide-sensing ventilation, lower fan coil flow and return temperatures, and variable speed drive pumps and fans.

In the US, 20 percent of our operations in Massachusetts are powered by renewable energy sources, reducing greenhouse gases. As a result, the US Environmental Protection Agency recognized State Street as a Green Power Partner and one of the top 25 companies in the agency’s Fortune 500 Challenge. State Street Financial Center in Boston achieved an annual savings of more than 3.3 million kilowatt-hours, an annual carbon dioxide reduction of nearly 2,000 tons, and annual cost savings of more than $460,000 from reprogramming 50 HVAC units, installing programmable thermostats on stairwell heaters and implementing a fresh-air purge program in 43 garage exhaust fans.