Commercial office parks spend millions chasing green building certifications. Low-flow fixtures, reflective roofing, EV charging stations, native landscaping — the checklist is long and the engineering is expensive. Teams model energy use, negotiate with utility providers, and redesign mechanical systems to earn every available point.
Meanwhile, hundreds of linear feet of perimeter fencing sit at the property’s edge doing absolutely nothing.
WaterFence™ turns that fence line into a creditable rainwater harvesting system — one that contributes LEED points without adding infrastructure, consuming floor area, or disrupting the site plan.
Where the Points Come From
LEED v4 and v4.1 award credits across several categories that rainwater harvesting directly supports. The two most accessible for a WaterFence™ installation are Water Efficiency and Sustainable Sites.
Under Water Efficiency, outdoor water use reduction is one of the most straightforward credits to earn — and one of the most commonly pursued. Replacing potable irrigation supply with harvested rainwater reduces baseline outdoor water consumption, and LEED awards points on a sliding scale based on the percentage reduced. A perimeter WaterFence™ installation feeding landscape irrigation zones can meaningfully move that number without touching the mechanical or plumbing systems inside the building.
Under Sustainable Sites, rainwater management credits reward projects that reduce runoff volume and improve stormwater quality. Every gallon captured in a WaterFence™ panel is a gallon that doesn’t sheet across the parking lot into the municipal storm drain. For office parks with large roof catchment areas and significant hardscape, that interception matters — both for the credit calculation and for the site’s actual stormwater performance.
No Cistern, No Pump House, No Lost Square Footage
The traditional path to rainwater harvesting credits involves underground cisterns, dedicated pump rooms, and the civil engineering to connect them. That means excavation, structural coordination, and — on a tight commercial site — the loss of leasable or parkable square footage.
WaterFence™ eliminates that entire layer. Each panel stores 240 gallons and installs like a standard six-foot privacy fence along the property perimeter. Panels daisy-chain in series, so capacity scales with the available fence line. A 400-foot perimeter run delivers roughly 6,600 gallons of stored capacity — captured from roof downspouts and available for gravity-fed or pump-assisted irrigation.
The system sits at the edge of the site, exactly where the landscaping tends to be. No excavation. No mechanical room allocation. No coordination with the structural engineer. And for properties with existing perimeter fencing, the surface-mount steel post system allows WaterFence™ panels to be installed inside the current fence line without removing what’s already there.
The Certification Math
Every LEED point has a cost. Project teams routinely evaluate credits on a cost-per-point basis, and some of the most commonly pursued strategies — advanced mechanical systems, on-site renewable energy, enhanced commissioning — carry high price tags per point earned.
Rainwater harvesting through WaterFence™ offers a comparatively low cost per point because the infrastructure serves a dual purpose. The property needs perimeter fencing regardless. The incremental cost of upgrading to WaterFence™ buys both the boundary treatment and the water credit — a single line item earning returns in two categories.
For developers and property managers navigating the gap between Silver and Gold, or Gold and Platinum, that kind of efficiency matters.
The Fence Was Always in the Budget
Office parks are already specifying perimeter fencing. They’re already pursuing LEED certification. And they’re already looking for credits that don’t require redesigning the building’s core systems.
WaterFence™ connects those three realities into a single asset — one that earns its place on the site plan and on the scorecard.
Ready to Put Rain to Work?
Whether you’re sizing a system, exploring your options, or just getting started — here’s where to go next.
