Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s new corporate headquarters stretches across three blocks of downtown Des Moines, but the 603,000-square-foot complex is designed to leave a relatively small footprint on the environment.

Wellmark officials expect that the energy-efficient building will enable the company to reduce its energy consumption by 25 percent, plus cut annual administrative expenses by $20 million.

In West Des Moines, Aviva USA employees are settling in at the company’s recently completed headquarters, which is expected to reduce the insurer’s energy usage by 30 percent. Situated on 88 acres, the eight-story building incorporates features ranging from motion-sensitive lighting to super-efficient plumbing fixtures. Outside, the campus includes a wetland habitat and rainwater recovery ponds for irrigating the handful of acres that are landscaped.

Both Wellmark and Aviva are seeking Gold certification for their new buildings through the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

“In broad terms, the design of the (Aviva) building from day one was to certainly go down the path of LEED Gold certification,” said Mike Hartschen, director of building and facilities for Aviva USA. “The outcome will be significant water and energy savings. It’s the right thing to do for the environment, and it contributes to Aviva being a carbon-neutral company.”

Regardless of which company receives that certification first, the Aviva and Wellmark facilities are likely to be among the initial major office buildings to achieve Gold-level certification in Greater Des Moines. According to a list of projects maintained on the USGBC’s website, the only buildings that have achieved this status locally are the MidAmerican Energy Exposition Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and the Principal Child Development Center in downtown Des Moines.

Iowa-based companies are still in the very early stages of applying for LEED certification, said Mike Morman, 2010 chairman of the Iowa chapter of the USGBC, which has about 150 members.

“We are quite new in this in comparison to other states,” said Morman, a LEED Accredited Professional in building design and construction with Durrant Architects and Engineers in Des Moines. “In California they have thousands of projects listed, whereas we are trying to get to 100 here in the state. There is a lot of interaction needed between design teams and contractors.”

Morman said it’s likely a number of the four dozen buildings in Greater Des Moines that have applied for LEED certification are no longer pursuing the designation because the owners have realized they won’t have sufficient points. On the other hand, there are probably other companies quietly pursuing the status, choosing not to make it public until they achieve the designation, he said.

Wellmark was not shy about making its aspirations for LEED Gold status public. Company officials announced the goal during the groundbreaking ceremony for the building in May 2008. The company expects to complete the certification process in the spring of 2011, said Matt Brown, Wellmark’s construction project manager.

“Getting a LEED Gold project of this scale is really quite an accomplishment,” Brown said. Formerly vice president of construction with Wells Fargo & Co., Brown oversaw the construction of the 970,000-square-foot Wells Fargo Home Mortgage headquarters in West Des Moines.

A unique aspect of Wellmark’s new headquarters is a rainwater cistern system that will serve the entire complex. One portion of the system will collect and store rainwater for use in flushing toilets, while another part of the system will be used to irrigate the landscaped portion of the grounds.

The system is a first for a Greater Des Moines office building of this size, Brown said, and will reduce the use of treated city water by 50 percent.

Wellmark’s anticipated $20 million annual savings from the new building will accrue from a combination of more efficient administrative spaces as well as LEED-associated efficiencies, Brown said.

“We’re doing LEED because it’s the right thing to do, but long-term, the LEED design features should save us money in how we operate this building,” he said.

Both Wellmark and Aviva worked with MidAmerican Energy Co., which offers an incentive fund for companies to incorporate energy-efficient features into their buildings.

“MidAmerican came to the table very early with a consultant that helped us with the initial design,” Aviva’s Hartschen said. “They analyzed the entire engineering envelope – lighting, heating and cooling – to determine a rebate amount that they would be willing to return to us.”

Until late 2010, Aviva USA employees were located in leased office spaces, “which presents a challenge when it comes to making significant gains on our environmental goals,” the company said in its most recent corporate responsibility report.

Nevertheless, in 2009 Aviva USA reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 16 percent compared with 2008, according to its report, based on a 9.5 percent reduction in both its electricity and natural gas usage as well as a 32 percent reduction in travel.

Aviva USA’s 1,300 Greater Des Moines employees recycled 65 percent of the total office waste generated in 2009, compared with 57 percent in 2008. The company also reduced its total paper and ink usage last year through initiatives such as default-setting all copiers to two-sided copying and all color copiers to print in black-and-white.

Both headquarters will literally be a breath of fresh air for employees. Aviva and Wellmark’s buildings each incorporated under-floor ventilation systems similar to that used in the Des Moines Public Library’s central library.

“What it does is deliver fresh air to the occupants and returns the stale area from above, so it’s not mixing fresh air with the stale air,” Wellmark’s Brown said.

Aviva’s building was designed so that every employee has access to a window view, in offices that use a high degree of natural lighting. And the ergonomic desks would make Dwight from “The Office” absolutely green with envy: They have motorized tops that enable employees to raise them from a sitting to a standing mode to vary their work posture.

“The goal was to provide an energized, productive work environment,” Hartschen said.