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By Leah Reddy

It’s hip to be green—but what does that mean? For an individual it might mean cutting back on meat consumption, biking to work, and carrying a reusable coffee mug. For a building—or, in the case of Trinity Real Estate, a portfolio of buildings—going green means retrofitting old buildings with new technologies designed to reduce energy consumption and cost.

“The vision here was to make these old buildings efficient,” Al Amore, Senior Vice President for Property Management explained. “We’ve been able to shrink our carbon footprint and lower energy costs for our tenants.”

Alec Salticov, Manager of Engineering, spearheaded the process. “To start, we did an initial assessment on all six million square feet of property. Then, we considered every possible approach [to making the buildings more sustainable] and devised a three to five year plan.”

The plan combined simple improvements (made on a grand scale) with long-term technology investments. Simple improvements included replacing all interior and exterior lightbulbs with LEDs. “I don’t think a full replacement has been tried on such a scale in New York City before,” Salticov said. Exposed hot water and steam pipes were also insulated.

More complex improvements included installing an Optimum Energy system that analyzes building energy conditions in real time and adjusts heating and cooling systems accordingly.

Additionally, some Trinity Real Estate buildings now have dual-fuel conversion, which allows the buildings to use either natural gas or oil. The option to use whichever fuel is cheaper at a given time lowers the overall energy cost to tenants.

Thanks to these green upgrades, 345 Hudson Street is the first building in Trinity Real Estate’s portfolio to have a zero carbon foot- print and is in the process of becoming LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certified. Three other buildings in the portfolio are now Energy Star Certified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Leah Reddy is Multimedia Producer at Trinity Wall Street.