Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007)

"LEED" redirects here. For other uses, see LEED (disambiguation).

7 World Trade Center, considered New York City's first "green" office tower by gaining gold status in the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED program.^[1]

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Since its inception in 1998, LEED has grown to encompass over 14,000 projects in 50 US States and 30 countries covering 1.062 billion square feet (99 km²) of development area.^[2] The hallmark of LEED is that it is an open and transparent process where the technical criteria proposed by the LEED committees are publicly reviewed for approval by the more than 10,000 membership organizations that currently constitute the USGBC.

Individuals recognized for their knowledge of the LEED rating system are permitted to use the LEED Accredited Professional (AP) acronym after their name, indicating they have passed the accreditation exam given by the USGBC.

1 History
2 Benefits and Disadvantages
3 Certification
4 LEED versions
5 LEED and carbon trading
6 Professional accreditation
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

LEED began its development in 1994 spearheaded by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior scientist Robert K. Watson who, as founding chairman of the LEED Steering Committee until 2006, led a broad-based consensus process which included non-profit organizations, government agencies, architects, engineers, developers, builders, product manufacturers and other industry leaders. Early LEED committee members also included USGBC co-founder Mike Italiano, architects Bill Reed and Sandy Mendler, builder Gerard Heiber and engineer Richard Bourne. As interest in LEED grew, in 1996, engineers Tom Paladino and Lynn Barker co-chaired the newly formed LEED technical committee.

From 1994 to 2006, LEED grew from one standard for new construction to a comprehensive system of six interrelated standards covering all aspects of the development and construction process. LEED also has grown from six volunteers on one committee to over 200 volunteers on nearly 20 committees and nearly 150 professional staff.

LEED was created to accomplish the following:

Define "green building" by establishing a common standard of measurement
Promote integrated, whole-building design practices
Recognize environmental leadership in the building industry
Stimulate green competition
Raise consumer awareness of green building benefits
Transform the building market

Green Building Council members, representing every sector of the building industry, developed and continue to refine LEED. The rating system addresses six major areas:

Sustainable sites
Water efficiency
Energy and atmosphere
Materials and resources
Indoor environmental quality
Innovation and design process

[edit] Benefits and Disadvantages

The move towards LEED and green building practices has been driven greatly by the tremendous benefits which are a direct result of implementing a green approach. Green buildings use key resources more efficiently when compared to conventional buildings which are simply built to code. LEED creates healthier work and living environments, contributes to higher productivity and improved employee health and comfort. The USGBC has also compiled a long list of benefits of implementing a LEED strategy which ranges from improving air and water quality to reducing solid waste. The fundamental reduction in relative environmental impacts in addition to all of the economic and occupant benefits goes a long way for making a case for green building. It is also important to note that these benefits are reaped by anyone who comes into contact with the project which includes owners, designers, occupants and society as a whole.

These benefits do not come without a cost however. Green buildings cost more both to design and to construct when compared to conventional buildings. These increased costs typically represent initial up front costs which are incurred at the start of the project. However, these initial cost increases can be minimized by the economic gains associated with constructing a LEED certified green building. These economic gains can take the form of anything from productivity gains to decreased life cycle operating costs. Studies have suggested that an initial up front investment of 2% will yield over ten times the initial investment over the life cycle of the building.

Although the deployment of the LEED Standard has raised awareness of Green Building practices, its scoring system is skewed toward the ongoing use of fossil fuels. More than half of the available points in the Standard support efficient use of fossil fuels, while only a handful are awarded for the use of sustainable energy sources. Further the USGBC has stated support for the 2030 Challenge, an effort that has set a goal of efficient fossil fuel use by 2030.

[edit] Certification

Different LEED versions have varied scoring systems based on a set of required "prerequisites" and a variety of "credits" in the six major categories listed above. In LEED v2.2 for new construction and major renovations for commercial buildings there are 69 possible points and buildings can qualify for four levels of certification:

Certified - 26-32 points
Silver - 33-38 points
Gold - 39-51 points
Platinum - 52-69 points

LEED certification is obtained after submitting an application documenting compliance with the requirements of the rating system as well as paying registration and certification fees. Certification is granted solely by the Green Building Council responsible for issuing the LEED system used on the project.

Recently the application process for new construction certification has been streamlined electronically, via a set of active PDFs that automates the process of filing the documentation.

[edit] LEED versions

Different versions of the rating system are available for specific project types:^[3]

LEED for New Construction: New construction and major renovations (the most commonly applied-for LEED certification)^[4]
LEED for Existing Buildings: Existing buildings seeking LEED certification
LEED for Commercial Interiors: Commercial interior fitouts by tenants
LEED for Core and Shell: Core-and-shell projects (total building minus tenant fitouts)
LEED for Homes: Homes
LEED for Neighborhood Development: Neighborhood development
LEED for Schools: Recognizes the unique nature of the design and construction of K-12 schools
LEED for Retail: Consists of two rating systems. One is based on New Construction and Major Renovations version 2.2. The other track is based on LEED for Commercial Interiors version 2.0.

LEED has evolved since its original inception in 1998 to more accurately represent and incorporate emerging green building technologies. LEED-NC 1.0 was a pilot version. These projects helped inform the USGBC of the requirements for such a rating system, and this knowledge was incorporated into LEED-NC 2.0. The present version of LEED for new construction is LEED-NC v2.2. LEED also forms the basis for other sustainability rating systems such as the Environmental Protection Agency's Labs21.

LEED is a popular guide for green building in the United States and it is developed and continuously modified by workers in the green building industry, especially in the ten largest metro areas in the U.S.; however, LEED certified buildings have been slower to penetrate small and mid-major markets ^[5]. Also, some criticism suggests that while the LEED rating system is sensitive to local environmental conditions, its checklist system does not vary by the local environmental conditions enough (for instance, a building in Maine would receive the same credit as a building in Arizona for water conservation, though the principle is more important in the latter case). Another complaint is that its certification costs require money that could be used to make the building in question even more sustainable. Many critics have noted that compliance and certification costs have grown faster than staff support from the USGBC.

In 2003, the Canada Green Building Council received permission to create its own version of LEED based upon LEED-NC 2.0. This document is called LEED Canada-NC v1.0.

[edit] LEED and carbon trading

It is expected that LEED-NC 3.0 will include a requirement for a carbon footprint (carbon building print) and a significant reduction of GHG (green-house gases) beyond a baseline level. The reduction in carbon dioxide must be measured based on the direct and indirect carbon dioxide and equivalent reductions. These include emissions related to the consumption of grid delivered electricity, on-site combustion of fossil fuels, and fugitive refrigerant emissions.

The efforts to quantify emission and reductions in emissions will be in an effort to monetize the climate change externality in the same way that a Kyoto Clean Development Project (carbon project) does. There has been one green building project in the world to monetize the reductions that acts as the main precedent for this type of project. This was the ITC Hotel Sonar Bangla Sheraton & Towers Kolkata, India.

[edit] Professional accreditation

Green building professionals can become LEED accredited through the LEED Accredited Professional Exam. This accreditation enables an individual to facilitate the rating of buildings with the various LEED systems. Professional Accreditation is administered by the Green Building Certification Institute.