GREEN BLOG

Defending LEED

For those who care about the environment and the huge role that the building industry plays in impacting it, there should be a strong sense of appreciation that the USGBC and LEED came along when they did and engendered many of the positive changes that have been realized. To be an effective and responsible critic, there needs to be a mature and nuanced understanding of history and true impact. Most LEED critics are not. In particular, if you have been in the industry for less than ten years, here is what you need to understand
Before LEED arrived on the scene, trying to practice “green building” was an extremely difficult affair. No – not difficult like it can be now – really, really difficult. In many markets you risked being laughed at if you mentioned green building – and the further back into the 1990s or 1980s you went, the less serious you were taken. Green was not cool and not wanted by most people. There was very little agreement on what green even meant (if you think that is still the case then imagine it 100 times worse). There were no standards that were meaningful and no common language to discuss what success looked like. LEED introduced a structure and a rigor to thinking about the issues – and for the first time on a coherent basis shaped the “language” of what it means to be green.
This framework cannot be underestimated in its importance. The success of LEED is much less about all the dozens of buildings that are now certified, and more about the change that has been made to the building culture – the issues that are now discussed and the expectations that people have, not to mention the new industries that it has spawned. Simply put, the USGBC and LEED brought credibility to the movement and provided the structure upon which green building could become a mainstream idea – even if it is not yet mainstream in practice. Many of us stand on the shoulders of the LEED rating system and do what we do because that program created the “space” for other things to exist. The Living Building Challenge, for example, existed as an idea before LEED even existed. Bob Berkebile and I tried to make the idea popular in the nineties – but the market was not ready for it then. It was not until LEED reached a particular point in the marketplace, sometime around 2005, that it was possible for the collective consciousness of the green building movement to accept an idea as radical as the Living Building Challenge. I am thankful to LEED for that.
I have also seen what LEED has done to reinvigorate the design professions – by helping to provide meaning to the work we all do – and to remind us that there is a deeper purpose to building shelter for our own species. The LEED system is not perfect, of course, and sometimes the “point system” can actually get in the way of some creative approaches as many designers know– but, nonetheless, it has been effective on the whole. Critics love to point out how with LEED you can “pursue the cheap points first” and game the system3 – and correctly point out that many LEED buildings are only marginally better than conventional building. But I think those folks should look into the mirror a little longer – LEED asks people to have integrity, but it is not their babysitter. It is a voluntary standard after all. Any system or protocol can and will be “gamed” and LEED is no exception. The fact that there are some energy-hog LEED buildings does not by itself condemn the system. There are also many, many LEED buildings that are truly exemplary and have made a real impact in their communities and have significantly lower environmental impact than conventional buildings.
The full article by Jason F. McLennan was originally printed in the Spring ’11 issue of Trim Tab, the International Living Future Institute’s magazine for transformational people and design. To see this and other issues of Trim Tab, go to www.cascadiagbc.org/trimtab.

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