Valmont Headquarters

As part of the sustainability goals for the building, Valmont committed to comprehensive educational signage throughout the building and hosts tours to educate the design community and the public on systems, strategies, and implementation on this project.

Valmont is a company dedicated to community development and improving life. The company consistently led by example through a desire to demonstrate trend-setting design strategies which would benefit the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) of the company while increasing employee retention and satisfaction. These benefits are anticipated to trickle down to the community through participation in volunteering, donations, and ongoing education.

An ongoing focus on wellness and health included reviewing and enhancing the company’s existing policies as they relate to caring for employees and their families as a result of the building design as well, using strategies like biophilic design, enhanced air quality, consideration of acoustics, and more.   There are many features that impact the daily life of occupants, such as lighting provided on the main stairwell to capture the occupant’s attention and promote utilizing the stairs over the elevator. This provides both a wellness benefit to the occupant and an energy savings benefit to the owner.

The HVAC system of water source heat pumps, natural gas fired boilers and cooling towers works with architectural components such as low-e windows and improved insulation, LED lighting systems, and plug load controls to maximize efficiency. An energy model was created by the design engineering firm and shows projected energy cost savings as 19% versus standard commercial construction, corresponding to nearly $24,000 per year of energy cost savings and over 198,000 pounds CO2 equivalent emissions of savings annually. This is equivalent to CO2 emissions from 41,170 pounds of coal burned, GHG emissions avoided by recycling 12.7 tons of waste instead of landfilling, or the carbon sequestered by 48.8 acres of U.S. forest in one year. 

Large windows supply daylight and views to outdoors. Additional emphasis was placed upon enhanced lighting controls and daylight sensors to allow for lights to dim or fully shut off so that the owner can benefit from energy savings. Each occupant has individual task lighting within their desk space to encourage adequate working conditions for all.  Performance testing of the lighting system ensured acceptable visual balance and light quality

The project is anticipated to save 32% or 357,000 gallons of water per year from baseline though the use of low-flow water-conserving plumbing fixtures. Many of the flush and flow plumbing fixtures used are also certified with the Water Sense label.