Great Basin Hall, the newest residence hall at the University of Nevada, Reno, which opened in 2018, met the LEED Gold standard earlier this year based on its sustainable construction and environmental practices.

According to the U.S. Green Building Council, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED, is “the most widely used green building rating system in the world,” making this award a huge achievement for the University. The internationally recognized green building standard provides third-party verification that a building was designed or built using strategies aimed to lower the impact on the environment across the metrics that matter the most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Other buildings on campus have been built with these expectations in mind, with big projects such as the Joe Crowley Student Union and the Matthewson-IGT Knowledge Center built to the equivalent of LEED Silver or better standards.

A lot of time, effort and detail went into the construction of this building so that it could meet these environmental standards, according to Peter Gatto, the University’s assistant director for Residential Life Housing and Food Services.

“Whenever I would talk to students and parents during orientation about how Great Basin is green in nature, there was always a lot of buzz around it,” Gatto said. “I appreciate seeing the City of Reno recognizing Great Basin Hall and the University for these sustainability efforts.”

Great Basin Hall was one of 11 winners in GREENevada’s 2020 Golden Pinecone Sustainability Awards, part of the City of Reno’s  ReLEAF Reno program. The annual awards ceremony, this year held Dec. 3, was co-hosted by GREENevada and greenUP! and honored organizations and individuals for their sustainability efforts in the community. This year’s theme was Celebrate Reno’s Sustainability & Climate Action Plan.