RELi 2.0 standard for sustainability, resilience being piloted

The RELi 2.0 standard, which combines resilience and sustainability, is available for pilot project use.

Similar in structure to U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, RELi is based on a system of points and prerequisites organized according to eight categories:

— Panoramic Approach (which covers pre-planning, discovery, and systems thinking)

— Hazard Preparedness

— Hazard Mitigation + Adaptation

— Community Cohesion/Social + Economic Vitality

— Productivity, Health + Diversity

— Energy, Water + On-site Food Production

— Materials + Artifacts

— Applied Creativity (which recognizes innovation)

RELi incorporates relevant strategies from other standards. About 20% of its agenda overlaps with LEED. While RELi is being piloted, it will be open to LEED-registered or -certified projects, with introductory pricing and support.

Two healthcare projects, CHRISTUS Spohn Shoreline Hospital, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and the University of Oklahoma Medical Center (OUMC), in Oklahoma City, are among the early trials.

Both facilities incorporate five-day emergency generator capacity, a minimum of four days’ food and water storage, redundancy in the central plant, an emergency plan, and facilities for community outreach and engagement.

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.