McKinney York Architects is committed to sustainability and we have been practicing its principles since the inception of the firm in 1983.  We feel it is our responsibility to incorporate sustainable practices into our work whenever possible and we encourage our clients to adopt this sentiment for their projects.  There are many initiatives like daylighting and natural ventilation that have little to no initial cost, and you will find these in almost all of our projects.  For issues impacting the project budget, we advise our clients of various options so they can make informed decisions.  In many cases, life cycle cost and sustainability interests are in agreement, particularly regarding energy efficiency.  We have included project specific comments about sustainability in our portfolio of work (please look for the round icons at the bottom of each project description).

While all of our work exhibits some degree of sustainability, some clients come to us with project certification as a desire or requirement.  The most universal green building certification standard is the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating system and we have LEED accredited professionals in our office that can be relied upon to take a project through this process.  We’re also experienced with the Austin Energy Green Building Program, having completed a five-star rated residence, which is only achieved by .5% of the submitted projects (as of 2005).