GREEN BLOG

All Things Considered: LEED In the News

The green building industry is mainstream, at least in the media, or so it seemed on NPR’s All Things Considered last week. The two-part series recognized the growth of green buildings - quoting stats from McGraw Hill Construction – as one bright spot in a dismal construction market.
Attributing this success largely to the U.S. Green Building Council, the series focuses first on the branding of LEED (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129699450), which is rightly acknowledged as really impressive. As noted on the broadcast by a representative of McGraw-Hill Construction, USGBC is “one of the most savvy nonprofits when it comes to how do you reach out to the press, how to do marketing, and how to communicate their message. The word LEED meant nothing 10 odd years ago. And now that is literally like Kleenex is to tissues. I mean, you think of a LEED building and people think, 'Oh, it's a green building.' "
USGBC has gained its phenomenal foothold through its primary product, the LEED green building rating systems. There are now nine of them available for use in the marketplace, some of which are still in the development process. LEED for Healthcare, for example just finished its third public comment period and is working its way through the process towards approval by the membership.
The truth of it is that LEED is almost always under scrutiny by a bevy of committees looking at the rigor, scientific validity, and technical up to date-ness of the credits and the rating systems themselves. That point is missing from Part 2 of the NPR report (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129727547), which gives a voice to LEED critics.
Critics quoted in the broadcast state that LEED is not rigorous about saving energy over the long term. "It's impossible to go out and buy a building with a guarantee for how much energy it won't use," says one vocal detractor. "And the LEED system, by basing everything on energy predictions, continues that. This is one of the reasons why it's so popular — because it's painless."
I disagree. One of the reasons LEED is so popular is because it’s measureable, documentable, and verifiable at a moment in time. Realistically we can’t ask more from it and the majority of credits are subject to abuse from those pesky occupants. The day after the plaque goes on the wall some thoughtless, or more likely clueless person could smoke a cigarette, block a view, switch out a lamp, flush more than once, disable a sensor, lock the recycling room door, set the thermostat too high or low, raise or lower a shade. There are multiple ways to mess up the metrics.
The broadcast does address this issue by quoting USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi. “Ultimately it's not just about the design — it's about how the building is run,” he says. " Version 3.0, released last year, includes requirements for 5-year tracking of energy performance. “Once a LEED plaque is assigned to a building, and there is proof that the building is no longer performing the way that it should, there's a very good chance that that information will then result in the ability for USGBC to remove the certification from the building — most likely on our website," Fedrizzi notes.
One of my favorite LEED-isms dates back to its beginnings – LEED is the triumph of good over perfect. It was true then – still is. What’s new is that the world is taking notice.

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