LEED-NC Silver certification for Ulagalla Resort, Anuradhapura

The Ulagalla Walawwa Resort has become first in the leisure industry to receive the LEED Silver certification, in recognition of its commitment to sustainable development.

The resort is owned by the International Construction Consortium Ltd. of Finco Group. Established in 1980, has become one of the largest and most respected Building and Civil Engineering contracting organisations in the country.

ICC has been positioning Ulagalla as a green resort to demonstrate its responsibility to protect the environment and reduce operating costs with ‘Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design’ (LEED) certification for the resort from the Green Building Council of the United States.

The new facility was awarded LEEDv2009-NC: Silver (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for New Construction) Certification by the US Green Building Council (USGBC).

Energy Solve International functioned as the LEED consultants for this project supporting the successful achievement of LEED Silver Certification.

Ulagalla Resort qualified for 55 credit points and eight prerequisites, with the threshold limit for achieving Silver being 50 points, Ulagalla Resort was awarded LEED SILVER certification on 4 December 2010.

 The LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) Green Building Rating System provides guidance on implementing sustainability for new and third party verification of the level of sustainability achieved.

All the LEED rating systems are voluntary, consensus-based national standards for high performance, sustainable buildings.

The LEED rating systems are a USGBC-sponsored program to encourage building owners to make their buildings sustainable and to maintain and improve universities, government agencies and non-profit organisations working together to promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work.

The International Construction Consortium (ICC), their parent company has also won a silver for construction excellence for the year 2010

Ulagalla is the brainchild of Senior Vice Chairman, Harsha de Saram. Currently the company is also looking at two other such similar projects, one in Trincomalee and the other one in Kalpitiya given that such boutique hotels are much sought after in Sri Lanka.