Each year on Earth Day, executives at the Bullitt Foundation touts their headquarters building in Seattle as “the greenest on the planet.” They claim its radical “green” design not only helps the environment but saves money. Last year Bullitt Foundation CEO Denis Hayes told the Seattle Times, “It has to make money, and it is.”

Here’s the problem: The Bullitt Foundation refuses to release key financial information that would allow independent architects and the public to determine whether what they are claiming is true.

Bullitt Foundation executives argue their building should be the model for the future. Three years ago on Earth Day, the Chair of the Foundation said “We are going to have this replicated."

On its third birthday, however, builders are not following this model. There is a good reason: architects, engineers and builders don’t believe the claims. Builders with knowledge of the project indicate the real costs are higher than claimed by the Bullitt Foundation.

It is certainly possible to save a huge amount of energy following a number of smart strategies. Many of those strategies, however, are extremely expensive. It makes no sense economically or for the environment to spend $100 to create one-dollar worth of environmental benefit.

To that end, we suggest the Bullitt Foundation release:

• Financials indicating the total cost of the building.
• Itemized expenditures for various elements. It may make sense to pay extra for LED lights, but not for triple-paned windows, for example. Itemization helps indicate the best strategies.
• The standard lease and rental information. This provides not only the lease rates, but also the water and energy use restrictions required of tenants.

Foundation executives frequently call their headquarters building an “experiment,” and the New York Times noted before the building was opened that, “its occupants are about to embark upon an unparalleled — and very public — experiment in sustainability.” Despite that, Bullitt Foundation officials and their supporters have declared the experiment a success without releasing much of the actual data.

Repeated requests for the data have been denied. In 2014, we asked CEO Hayes to release the financial data. We received no response. We also checked in with the University of Washington, who have been looking at the results from the building. They also refused to release any financial data.

To be clear, the Bullitt Foundation is a private organization, so they are not required to release any data. They cannot, however, call the building a “model,” and tout the success of the “experiment,” without releasing key details of that experiment.

Additionally, the Foundation has released topline financial data regarding the building. That data, however, makes it impossible to discern lessons learned. For example, the Foundation claims the solar panels on the building save costs. This is certainly untrue since solar panels are extremely expensive and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory rates Western Washington as the worst location in the lower-48 states for solar energy.

Tomorrow, on Earth Day, the Bullitt Foundation can take a step toward showing architects, engineers and builders what they have learned from the Bullitt Center’s experience and release their financial information. Unless they do that, however, the Bullitt Center is a “model” with missing pieces.