Leopold Center Earns LEED Platinum

Built in honor of one of the world’s most famed conservationists, the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, located on Leopold’s farm near Baraboo, Wisconsin, has earned 61 out of a possible 69 LEED points, the most earned by any LEED-certified building to date and enough to qualify for a Platinum rating. The net-zero-energy building produces as much energy as it consumes with a grid-tied photovoltaic system and a ground-source heat pump serving a radiant-floor heating system; wood stoves add additional heat. Fresh air is pumped into the building through a series of underground pipes, moderating extreme outdoor temperatures before entering conditioned space, thereby lessening the energy needed for heating and cooling. The Center is also the first LEED building to earn an innovation credit for being carbon neutral; emissions from the Aldo Leopold Foundation’s activities and the generation of electricity for those activities are offset by the carbon sequestration of the foundation’s 35 acres of forest certified to Forest Stewardship Council standards. Much of the lumber used in the center—90,000 board feet (200 m³), including many trees planted by Leopold—also came from this forest. More information is available at www.aldoleopold.org/legacycenter/.