This month, The Ashkin Group has selected Adobe Systems Incorporated as the ‘Green Group of the Month’ for becoming the world’s first commercial enterprise to achieve a total of three Platinum certifications under the LEED program and also, for Adobe’s  commitment to conservation of natural resources and minimizing the company’s impact on the environment.

The Ashkin Group applauds Adobe for:

• Actively seeking out and implementing innovative methods and programs that increase efficiencies, conserve energy and water, improve air quality, and reduce waste.
• Complying with all environmental legislation and regulatory requirements particular to its business and the communities where it does business.
• Using recyclable materials.
• Communicating environmental policies and programs to Adobe employees to ensure that all employees are aware of their role and responsibility to fulfill and sustain Adobe's environmental commitment.

Recently, the San Jose software company became the first company in the country to receive the never-before-awarded three platinum certifications for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) -- the highest rating awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Most eco-friendly structures are built "green,'' but Adobe decided to turn its three existing towers downtown -- ranging in age from three years to 10 years and totaling almost 1 million square feet of offices and 940,000 square feet of garage space -- into an environmentally friendly campus.

"This is huge. Adobe is so respected and so recognized,'' said Rick Fedrizzi, president and founding member of the U.S. Green Building Council at the awards ceremony at Adobe headquarters on Almaden Boulevard Monday night. "This message will be heard: Adobe did it and they did it three times.''

The council, founded in 1993 in Washington, D.C., focused on new construction and did not offer a LEED program for already-built structures until 2004. The Joe Serna Jr. building in Sacramento was the first to receive a platinum rating under the council's pilot program, but Adobe earned the first platinum rating in June when the program went public.

The council also offers simple LEED certification, silver and gold ratings, with the platinum level being the toughest to earn because it involves substantial reductions in energy, water and waste.

The goal is to provide green buildings that are designed to be healthier for inhabitants, with natural light, fresh air, climate controls and fewer toxic chemicals.

While the certification program aims to make buildings more environmentally friendly, facilities managers discovered that perhaps the most telling part of the program is the savings to the bottom line.

Adobe spent $1.2 million to retrofit the three buildings, constructed in 1996, 1998 and 2003. To date, the company received $350,000 in rebates from Pacific Gas & Electric, the state and the city. The annual savings in reduced energy and water usage is $1 million.

"The simple payback is 10 1/2 and a half months and the return on investment is 115 percent,'' said George Denise, of Cushman & Wakefield, who manages Adobe's properties.

Those numbers should speak volumes to the business world, Fedrizzi said. "Nobody will doubt that Adobe has done the math.''

The program to reduce energy usage began during the state power crisis in 2001. Denise said he and Randy Knox III, Adobe's director of real estate, realized that cutting back by 10 percent was not that hard to achieve, so they decided to go further. First, however, they needed to ensure that Bruce Chizen, Adobe's chief executive, was on board.

"When I was presented with the idea that we could save money at Adobe and do good things for the environment, it was a no-brainer,'' Chizen said.

He knows it's a tough sell in the business world, but the numbers don't lie. "They don't believe it, that they can spend money up front and save money in facilities,'' he said. "We've reduced energy 36 percent, gas 41 percent. We reduce and recycle and we've reduced our solid waste by 85 percent. It's amazing.''

One of the most significant savings occurred when a metering system installed to track the energy usage on the building's chillers found a problem in the West Tower. Denise had sensed there was a problem, but three engineering firms could not discover anything wrong.

"As soon as we had the real-time graph running, we could see a little blip that shouldn't be there,'' Denise said. "I think we spent $500 to $1,500 to reprogram the system and we were able to save about $43,000 a year.''

Knox said one of the savings that took him by surprise was reducing the operation of the garage fans from around the clock to only when needed to clear out the exhaust, about six or seven hours a day.

"That really turned me around,'' said Knox, who stated that he is not a "tree hugger.'' Now Knox is taking the program to Adobe's 3.5 million square feet of real estate in San Franciso, Seattle, Ottawa and Noida, India. "We're trying to take this global,'' he said.

Both Knox and Denise said they have been surprised by the amount of interest shown by other companies.

"Basically, since the media began reporting on Adobe's green initiatives early this year, we've gone from 1 to 2 inquiries a month to an average of 30 to 40 per month about our work toward LEED certification,'' Knox said in an e-mail.

Denise said that in the past 12 months, he has given about 45 building tours, including several to a number of large software companies and high-tech companies in Silicon Valley that he declined to name. But he would list companies from outside the country, including Mitsubishi and the equivalent of China's environmental protection agency.