“They were open to suggestions, but not at added costs. From a green perspective, it inhibits a little bit what you can do.”

But Mercer said that when plans had to be shifted around budget crunches, environmental features were never scrapped.

“We said we’re not doing it because that’s a big part of the building, a big part of the design — we’ve got to leave it alone,” he said.

Unless two separate plans had been drawn up — one with LEED certification and the other without it — one could only guess at how much of the building’s price tag the green attributes actually made up.

“It definitely costs you money — there’s no doubt about it — but you really don’t know how much,” Mercer said.

The dean acknowledged that cost concerns inhibited their flexibility to take extra environmental steps. However, several of the Erb students said that scrapping the expensive architectural firm, New York-based Kohn Pederson Fox, that doesn’t specialize in educational or green building would have allowed for considerably more wiggle room in the budget.

Swett said that instead of hiring a “starchitect” — slang for a high-profile and high-cost architectural firm — he would have focused more on using local, recycled materials for the building.

The Ross building’s environmental plan could have gone further, according to Erb Institute Prof. Andy Hoffman, by including an energy-saving geothermal heating and cooling system and solar panels.

Third year Erb Institute student Jackie Pitera, who helped research eco-conscious carpet options for the building, said that while she liked how the environmental aspects merged well with the aesthetic design of the building, she wished the administration had taken more steps to make the building a national example.

“If they’re going to go through the efforts of making a green building, it would have been nice if they had taken it a bit further so it could have been a demonstration piece or learning tool,” she said.

But Swett said that given the initial resistance, he was pleased with how the building turned out.

“Do I think we made a lot of progress? Yeah,” he said. “And is it a good building for the university? Definitely.”

Swett and others are quick to point out that lobbying efforts have also resulted in plans for the C.S. Mott Children’s and Women’s Hospital to achieve LEED certification, and possibly the Law School expansion as well.

Administrators haven’t announced any plans for North Quad, the residential hall set to open in 2010, to achieve certification. According to a November University budget request, the complex aims to exceed code-minimum energy requirements by about 40 percent and will have maximum insulation.

“If the business school building going LEED Silver sets a minimum bar for future (University of Michigan) buildings, then that’s a great accomplishment,” Swett said.