Questioning LEED certification

June 7, 2010 by cgaerig
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There was an op-ed last month in the New York Times that takes on the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program and certification. In it, author Alec Applebaum argues that LEED certification is little more than a snapshot taken at the time of the building’s completion, rather than a true indicator of a facility’s ongoing energy use as is often implied in marketing.

To be fair, the council never meant for its system to be a seal of green approval. Rather it was to be a set of guidelines for architects, engineers and others who want to make buildings less wasteful. However, developers quickly realized that its ratings—certified, silver, gold or platinum—were great marketing tools, allowing them to charge a premium on rents.

Such market-driven motives wouldn’t matter—if LEED in fact measured energy performance. But it can’t: some certified buildings end up using much more energy than the evaluators predicted, because the buildings are more popular than expected or busy at different times than developers forecast, or because tenants ignore or misuse green features.
Applebaum’s solution is a supplement to the system, rather than an amendment. He looks to government agencies to conduct regular—presumably annual or bi-annual—follow-ups on the buildings to ensure that they’re meeting the original energy efficiency requirements set out by the LEED program.
What are your thoughts about the current status of the USGBC's LEED program?

Comments

The LEED rating system has

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 10/07/2011.

The LEED rating system has created the environment where patient and staff friendly features can be incorporated into the most energy consuming buildings Hospitals. For military facilities this has placed the emphasis on using Integrated Project Planning and Design and Evidence Based Design. The results have positively affected patients and staff resulting in healing gardens, green roofs, 100% outside air for patient treatment areas, daylighting. LEED for Healthcare was developed using the principals of the Green Guide for Healthcare. Policies and practices taken from the GGHC for maintenance and operations personnel are being developed and implemented. The patients and staff will gain from environmental enhancements required by LEED that were previously ignored or discarded in value engineering exercises.

Richard D. Grulich R.A. LEED AP BD+C

Submitted by burc on Fri, 06/11/2010.
I've weighed in on this subject in your HCD Blog in the past, and I still feel the same as I nearly two years ago. LEED is not a good program. The Green Guide for Healthcare was vastly superior. There should be no certification and no point thresholds. If a green idea makes sense for a project, why does it make more sense if it increases the point tally beyond the "silver" threshold than it does when it is the only point earned? The USGBC could have avoided the controversy by resisting the temptation to become the authority capable of granting "green building status," but they didn't, the rewards were too great to resist.

Even heros and profits are corrupted by success.

Alan G. Burcope, AIA, MBA, LEED-AP

LEED - One hoax built upon another

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 10/12/2011.

I wholeheartedly agree. The whole thing reminds me of the federal reserve a quasi-governmental agency with impacts and powers far beyond what anybody ever imagined originally. The USGBC should be dismantled. LEED should be dismantled. Owners have been duped and are being duped. Architects are being duped the most with little hard science to back them up. Manufacturers feel forced to lie so that they can call themselves green. The whole thing is a mirage, a hoax, all predicated on the world believing algore's lies.

Registered Architect, but can't leave my name here because these comments are too politically incorrect and I have to survive within the green mirage which has become our world.