The GOOD 100: Ending LEED’s Monopoly
- Posted by: Jacob Gordon
- on October 7, 2009 at 9:30 am
Follow or Get out of the Way: The household name in green construction needs to innovate in order to keep up with the competition.
Imagine if teachers gave out grades on the first day of school based on students’ promises of how hard they each plan to study. Oddly, we use this backward system to grade green buildings in the United States.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the certification system created by the U.S. Green Building Council. The USGBC certifies houses, commercial buildings, and other structures like schools and hospitals, awarding them points for things like interior air quality, proximity to public transit, and energy efficiency. Since 1998, it has been the standard in green ratings for buildings.
But LEED’s big weakness is that all of its measurements happen on the computer screen before the first bulldozer arrives. According to the USGBC’s best calculations, LEED buildings use 25 to 30 percent less energy—while more critical calculations show them as no more efficient, or in some cases worse, than their non-LEED counterparts.
Because LEED buildings don’t have to perform up to spec in real life, LEED has contributed to a trend of showboating and point scrounging, leaving energy efficiency—arguably the most important metric—lost in the shuffle.
The average LEED building doesn’t even qualify for an Energy Star label.
Amidst a rising chorus of criticism, other standards are finally starting to get more attention. The Passive House standard, born almost 20 years ago in Germany, hones energy efficiency so finely that most certified Passive Houses need no conventional heating boiler. The overall energy use of a Passive House is around 70 to 80 percent less than a comparable conventional building.
I toured Passive House-certified buildings in Germany that ranged from homes to schools to gymnasiums. It quickly became clear that—at least when talking about energy—comparing LEED to Passive House is like comparing a Pontiac to a Porsche. And while the Passive House standard doesn’t require energy monitoring after the fact (and maybe it should), studies of the nearly 20,000 certified buildings have shown sterling results.
If the USGBC can’t look at this as a wake-up call, it may be looking at a worthy competitor: Passive House is carving a foothold in the United States among architects and builders who are fed up with LEED or just looking for a new challenge. I’ve personally spoken to architects who are steering clients away from LEED towards Passive House for reasons of certification costs and energy efficiency.
There is even inspiration here at home. Energy Star certification, administered by the EPA, has none of the sexy strut of LEED, but is quite rigorous, and includes actual performance testing. In fact, according to the USGBC, the average LEED building doesn’t even qualify for an Energy Star label.
But there’s hope for LEED, yet. This year, the USGBC rolled out the newest version of its LEED standards, requiring energy and water consumption data for the first five years of a building’s occupancy. If building operators don’t provide this info, the USGBC can strip a building of its plaque.
Finally, the idea that a building’s actual performance should determine its grade is gaining traction.
DISCUSSION: 4 Comments
It’s amazing how all of the criticism leveled at LEED (at least in the general press) revolves around a singular component of what LEED intends to measure (energy use) and generally involves an under-informed understanding of how the system works. A few thoughts… “But LEED’s big weakness is that all of its measurements happen on the computer screen before the first bulldozer arrives.”SOME measurements in SOME LEED systems happen before construction begins, but many credits can only be verified post-construction. Most of the credits surrounding materials (reduced toxicity adhesives and sealants, recycled, reused and rapidly renewable content, regional sourcing) are based on actual purchases, not design assumptions. Which LEED system is this article even referring to?LEED for Existing Buildings:Operations and Maintenance is based on actual energy use data, a fact that most articles on the subject fail to recognize. LEED-Homes certifications rely on in-the field testing of the effectiveness of the building envelope using the HERS rating system… Though not based on actual energy use, this is a rigorous test of how well sealed a home is, which is in many instances a primary driver of energy use overall. Regarding the use of actual energy data, Energy Star is far from perfect itself. Though a building is scored on the actual energy use of an individual building, the baseline it is compared to is a model that considers hours of operation, building location, and even the amount of computers in a building… all of which force the comparison to be based on design assumptions. Not all building types are able to be rated (mixed use buildings are particularly problematic). There is more to sustainability than energy use! Just recently a USD/CBRE joint study analyzed the impact of LEED and Energy Star buildings on worker productivity, with amazingly good results… out of 154 buildings, some 90% percent claimed to have the same or fewer sick days than their previous conventionally designed workspaces. Let’s hear what the authors of the study had to say about the 10% who found increased absenteeism after the move: “The 10% that reported more sick time after moving were in Energy Star labeled buildings and not LEED certified. It appears that they suffer what often happens to new buildings when ventilation systems are not kept clean or VOCs are not eliminated from new construction materials and finishes.”Reducing energy use frequently means a battle between providing additional ventilation (reducing contaminants in a space) and the energy required to condition that outdoor air. Narrowly focused ratings like Energy Star could care less about choosing low voc paints and finishes, yet LEED rewards architects and contractors for making the effort. It also allows architects to weigh the relative costs and benefits of issues like reusing windows (resource reuse points available) vs. replacing the windows with more efficient models (energy efficiency points available). Finally, there is the issue of practicality that every author seems to ignore as well. As it is, a building cannot even submit it’s project for final review until not only after the building is complete but after a commissioning agent (a independent engineer whose job it is to scrutinize every piece of major mechanical and electrical systems to ensure they’re operating at optimum efficiency) completes their investigation. The review itself can easily take a number of months (for yet another independent body to review the design and construction submittals), meaning it can easily be 6 months to a year before a building achieves it’s final rating. If we want to base it also on actual energy use, it’s generally recommended that recordings don’t happen until month six to allow time for the occupants to settle, meaning it will be 18 months before meaningful data could be used for a rating… now we’re looking at years before a building earns it’s plaque, leaving owners in an uncomfortable limbo for an excessive period of time.. Please forgive my rant, but it would be great to see your publication and others make more of an effort to get the full story instead of just repeating an argument that is largely the battle cry of one man (Henry Gifford) whose heart is in the right place but refuses to consider anything beyond energy efficiency as a metric for sustainability. Full disclosure – I write a blog specifically about LEED and also work at an architecture firm that works on a large volume of LEED projects. To say I wish to see the system succeed would be an understatement, but regardless of my financial stake in the matter I would still support the system because in my mind it is the only rating system that truly address ALL of what it means to be sustainable. Stormwater runoff, light pollution, the urban heat-island effect, occupant health, water use reductions, proper material selection, and a littany of other issues that have little or nothing to do with energy efficiency are a part of LEED but few others… Finally… I really like energy star for what it is, and though I don’t have any experience to date with passivhaus, everything I’ve heard suggests it’s an excellent standard as well.Joel McKellar
Yes Joel, there are many metrics to consider when determining if a building is sustainable. But the reality is that 40% of the word’s CO2 emissions come from buildings, which makes energy efficiency THE MOST important metric.
True… If it’s carbon reductions we’re after, LEED-NC designates almost 58% of the points available to strategies that reduce CO2 and other GHGs. Nearly a third of all available points (32.7%) come from points directly related to energy efficiency or on-site renewable generation strategies, another 15% of total points are for strategies aimed at reducing single passenger transportation trips (transportation accounts for approximately 27% of CO2 emissions), and another 10% of the points go to strategies that indirectly reduce emissions (e.g. sourcing local materials, REC purchases, measurement and verification plans, etc.).
I find the whole discussion about Green buildings to be so confusing that I’ll just go back to teaching my LEED 2009 class. Being new to the Green building movement, I enjoy promoting LEED in the Cincinnati region and volunteering for the local Chapter. All the different standards and judging methods are better than none. I enjoy LEED because it is more wholistic and teaching me much more about community planning, materials, human interaction with the buildings and even renewable energy which I teach an extensive class for Cincinnati State just about LEED Energy and Atmosphere credit 2 for renewable energy. Taking a page from the recent National Parks documentary I think publishing a book on all the Green buildings in Cincinnati and continuing the Chapter’s tours is the best promotional track. As well as planning for the hugh Greening the Heartland USGBC Conference and exhibition to be here in Cincinnati in the Summer of 2010. Thanks for your blog. I look forward to getting your notices. http://www.green-cincinnati.com, chuck(at)lohre.com.