LEED: should your building be retested each year to keep its certification?
Yesterday’s New York Times has a great overview on the the elephant in LEED’s room. The story, “Some Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label,” by Mireya Navarro, discusses how many buildings aren’t as efficient as they were planned to be, or should be.
It’s a good overview for those who don’t already live the problems and issues discussed in it. Though the article discusses a very valid question, I don’t know that it’s really fair, considering the
Should your building get retested?
USGBC did not even require a LEED building be more energy efficient than a standard building until June of 2007. Plus, both the main building cited in the article and the study of 121 buildings mentioned in it looked at buildings certified through 2006. (Doing a similar study looking at buildings designed and built since then would be fascinating but I digress.)
Anyhow, what I find most interesting is the last line of the story where Scot Horst of the USGBC says LEED may eventually move towards the EPA’s Energy Star Model where buildings must attain the label each year in order to keep it. “Ultimately, where we want to be is, once you’re performing at a certain level, you continue to be recertified,” he said.
This raises two main questions in my mind. First, if that’s where the USGBC wants to be, why isn’t it there now? LEED 2009 has some major changes in it, but it will be another couple years until the next version is released. I understand that LEED is still a growing tool (and money-maker) but if this is really the way it will be in the end, why not just bite the bullet and figure out a way to incorporate the goal now? The Living Building Challenge had some pretty audacious goals as a part of its first incarnation. Why can’t LEED make these changes now?
Which brings me to my other main question. Is the idea of making LEED something that can be rescinded even realistic? While there is no denying that it would be valuable to require LEED buildings be tested every year to retain their certification, LEED is an investment and an expensive one at that. Would it become a less attractive investment from a business perspective if your pretty little plaque could disappear due to let’s say a crummy building manager?… or to a changing system? What if further versions of LEED required changes that you simply couldn’t add on to a building. Would you be penalized and lose your certification because you, or the person you bought a building from, didn’t make a significantly different decision in design?
Maybe commissioning should become a required part of LEED. But that also adds costs to a project.
What do you think?
Tags: Architecture, LEED, Living Building Challenge, New York Times, Problems, USGBC
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August 31st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
It might be a little too soon for the USGBC to require annual or even periodic recertifications. The whole LEED certification program is just starting to catch fire, but really has not yet reached either critical mass or a tipping point. A recertification program, with its added administrative and financial burdens might put a damper on the growing enthusiasm we now see for LEED. There are also competing programs on the horizon coming from the International Code Council and ASHRAE, among others, which, if they don’t require recertification, might dilute the influence of LEED. Perhaps in three to five years, once the LEED program has gained some more traction in the marketplace, and its benefits are more clearly and broadly perceived, then it might work.
Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team
http://www.goodway.com/hvac-blog/
September 1st, 2009 at 8:38 am
This is only a good idea if USGBC wants to discourage developers and building owners to avoid the LEED process. Commissioning and certification is expensive, time consuming and paperwork intensive already. Add a yearly requirement to the process and it will be the death of the program. Which might not be the end of the world, surely there is a better way to get to sustainability, as the current green wash point system is flawed in many ways.
September 1st, 2009 at 11:51 am
If there is any point at all to LEED certification it must change from a prescriptive program to a performance program. Why mandate a bunch of requirements that don’t actually create more efficient buildings? That seems awfully wasteful.
For LEED to accomplish its stated objectives, the program should encourage innovation toward efficient buildings rather than expensive compliance to a set of rules whose track record has become increasingly questionable.
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:02 am
Requiring recertification to the latest score card will drastically reduce participation, which is counter productive. Frankly, we would likely stop recommending LEED certification if that were to be implemented.
It is more reasonable to add the year/version the project was certified under to the designation.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:55 am
If it fails in all other measurable qualities, LEED has been wildly successful in getting the discussion going on sustainable development. For that, us greenies should grateful.
Commissioning is already required under LEED pre-requisites. Given there are difficulties in energy modeling for a not-yet-built building whose building occupant behavior is unpredictable, but it isn’t as if the USGBC leaves it out and just smacks the plaque and flashes the thumbs up. LEED certification isn’t easy.
In Portland, it’s more than just a plaque. Sure, add all of the marketing and flashy ooo’s and ahh’s, but really…from what we know about Gerding Edlen Development, Portland’s pioneers, are they all about the image and the Benjamins?
So to answer your question “Is the idea of making LEED something that can be rescinded even realistic?” Yes, if the ultimate goal is to create a more sustainable building. As technologies improve for building systems monitoring, it is completely feasible if people (owners, architects, building managers) have those goals in their sites.
And, true: LEED is an investment - but, the buzz about how expensive it is, is like a quick blow to the gut. It takes all the air out of someone trying to make a case for it. In my conversations with architects and developers, the cost of seeking LEED certification can be closely monitored and is not always as costly as its opponents make it out to be. Any project, LEED or not, can blow its budget. Any project using unique building materials will have some added cost, but I think it is important to keep in mind why LEED was developed: to increase the market for alternative building materials aimed at reducing our impact on this earth.
September 2nd, 2009 at 11:52 pm
What these people that are promoting yearly testing fail to realize is how very difficult if not almost impossible it is to get building owners and developers to embrace the LEED process in the first place, as it does represent additional risk, cost, time and money. Add the additional risk and uncertainty of mandated yearly testing to the process and I will be the first to agree with my clients that its not worth the trouble, particularly in a struggling economy. I am a religious proponent of sustainable causes, but this is not the way to go about it. In short - this would be a nuclear disincentive — very stupid and short-sighted. If the idea is to promote sustainability, the bureaucratic mental midgets need to figure out how the real world works.
September 8th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I don’t know why this is all a big deal. Commercial building owners are likely going to have to monitor and rate their buildings in order to sell them, via the same system LEED EBOM currently uses, the EPA ENERGYSTAR modeling. If the current national energy legislation passes (HR2454) with their building requirements intact (Section 204), it’ll be a nationwide requirement for commercial buildings over 10,000 sq/ft. California already has this requirement for 2010 - and anyone who rents to the Feds will too.
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/14771/new-law-to-require-energy-rating-on-commercial-buildings/
Annual building benchmarking is on the way. And it looks like LEED will be reactive vs. proactive in its implementation. The EPA system dead simple to use, and takes about 5 minutes for someone to enter monthly.
The complaints about cost and time are vastly overstated.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Steve A. - I think a lot of the “big deal” revolves around whether or not your LEED certification can be taken away, not so much the benchmarking aspect. If a developer puts that extra money into certifying a building, they’re doing it for a financial reason no matter how green minded they are. If that investment can be here one day and gone the next, I imagine it would make LEED seem more flimsy.
As for the energy reporting requirement, I don’t know that that really frightens any one. Seattle has already agreed to move in that direction (see my story here http://www.djc.com/news/en/12005313) and makes the first step in 2010. A number of developers and members of Seattle’s business community vetted the idea and agreed to it.
And no, Monique, with super green developers like Gerding Edlen, it sure seems like it isn’t all about the Benjamins. But even if money isn’t the sole focus, green building still has to make financial sense. LEED itself may not really be that much more expensive. But the cost of recertification has yet to be determined.
Thank you all for your comments!