LEED Gold Certified Welcoming Center

In keeping with our commitment to environmental justice and education, we invite all our guests to reflect on their need to revere and preserve the earth and their responsibility to work towards a just and sustainable future for all creation. Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life. Our hope is that this building will be a means to that end.

Our Welcoming Center is a certified "green" building utilizing the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building certification process and received the Gold Certification Award from the U.S. Green Building Council. This high level of certification is quite rare—our building was the first to qualify in Santa Clara County (please see the listing of Gold and Platinum buildings in California). Our Welcoming Center has also received the 2007 Design Honor Award for Energy and Sustainability from the San Francisco Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and was named “Best of 2006 Northern California: Green Building Winner” by California Construction, a monthly periodical from McGraw-Hill Publishers.

Our focus with this building has been to use eco-friendly materials in the building process and to reduce energy and water consumption throughout the life of the center. We also tried to limit the overall disturbance of the site as much as possible. After construction was finished, we restored 50% of the site area that does not fall within the building footprint. In the other 50%, we used pervious paving techniques instead of concrete or asphalt, which allow rainwater to percolate naturally in to the soil.

The 10,170 square foot building includes a reception area, bookstore, an eco-display, state-of-the art kitchen and three dining rooms to accommodate a total of 200 people.

Our goal with these pages is to provide information about the many green features found in our Welcoming Center in hopes of inspiring others on the path to sustainability. Specific information about the companies that provided the services and materials for the project can be found on the resources page.