The Jay Paul Co. is used to taking it up a notch — on project size, amenities and design. It’s no different when it comes to sustainability.

For Moffett Gateway, a roughly 600,000-square-foot spec office project in Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park, the San Francisco-based developer is targeting LEED Platinum for the core and shell. It’s the only Silicon Valley spec project under construction currently targeting such a high bar of sustainability.

What’s more, Jay Paul is extending the expectations for tenants, which will be required to do build-outs that at least meet LEED Gold standards for commercial interiors.

“It’s not like we’re pulling them kicking and screaming — as we look at the target population out there as tenants, sustainability is increasingly an important aspect for these companies,” said C. Thomas Gilman of DES Architects + Engineers, Moffett Gateway’s designer.

In some ways, much of Jay Paul’s industry-leading sustainability has now become more commonplace. But the company continues to try to push the envelope.

Indeed, there’s a payoff for going all-out on sustainability, said Matt Lituchy, Jay Paul’s chief investment officer. “Most major tenants want this stuff,” Lituchy said. “It’s something they need to show their employees they have. It’s part of recruiting and employee retention and what they put on their websites. It’s so important to the way they do business now.”

Part of the road to sustainability involves the site location and orientation. It’s 20 steps to a light rail stop, which execs hope will help achieve a 25 percent reduction in average daily trips. The site itself is more pedestrian oriented than your average suburban campus. That includes a 30,000-square-foot roof garden, which is a nice employee perk but also helps reduce the “heat island effect.”

“We’ve also created a series of pedestrian pathways through the project to promote this idea of people walking to lunch when they go off-site,” Gilman said.

Jay Paul also is offsetting 70 percent of Gateway’s energy consumption through green-power purchasing, building at least 40 electric chargers, and using lots of recycled materials in construction.

Moffett Gateway

• General contractor: Level 10 Construction
• Architect/engineer: DES Architects + Engineers
• Broker: Phil Mahoney, Newmark Cornish & Carey