By Mark Ambrogi
Heather Ane Zeto has achieved a state and Midwest first.
Zeto, president of sustainability consulting firm Platinum Earth, has become the first Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology, or BREEAM, in-use licensed assessor in Indiana and first female assessor in the Midwest.
The globally recognized green certification standard for existing buildings, which started in the United Kingdom, officially launched in the U.S. last October as BREEAM USA. Zeto, a Fishers resident, was a participant in the third training session in Chicago in November. BREEAM is a method to assess, rate and certified buildings’ sustainability.
“It’s the first sustainable assessment tool for builders,” Zeto said. “It was created in 1990. It was made principally for new construction of office space (at the time). It has grown to take care of multiple variations of buildings.”
Zeto said this added tool will open up services she can provide.
“When I opened up the company six-and-a-half years ago, it was meant to be a sustainability consultant in a broader sense because of what everyone understands sustainability to be,” Zeto said. “I became known as a sustainable consultant but a LEED consultant.”
LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environment Design. The certification program is run by the nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council.
“Having the BREEAM certification opens up another service avenue and another certification,” Zeto said. “It doesn’t compete with LEED, it gives another option. So, depending on when you go out to look at a building, it gives you a feasibility study on what options the building would have to go through as far as sustainability factors. This opens up an avenue for buildings, which maybe couldn’t be certified under the LEED existing building category. It’s another tool to use when you meet with building owners and property managers on showing the sustainability of their property.”
Zeto founded Platinum Earth in 2010 with a mission of helping commercial buildings lessen their impact on the environment and improve their overall operating efficiency. Her husband, Eric, runs the business management side of Platinum Earth.
“I worked on my first LEED project in 2001, which was the Indianapolis airport,” said Zeto, who has a bachelor of architecture degree from Ball State. She previously received a bachelor of arts degree in architecture from Miami (Ohio) University.
