Leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED)

Leadership in energy and environment design (LEED)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a rating system devised by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) to evaluate the environmental performance of a building and encourage market transformation towards sustainable design. The system is credit-based, allowing projects to earn points for environmentally friendly actions taken during construction and use of a building. LEED was launched in an effort to develop a “consensus-based, market-driven rating system to accelerate the development and implementation of green building practices.” The program is not rigidly structured; not every project must meet identical requirements to qualify.

Many cities and states either provide tax credits or grants for green buildings, or requiregreen building certification for public buildings. The U.S. government is adopting LEED or similar green building standards for the General Services Administration (which owns or leases over 8300 buildings), the U.S. Army, the Department of State, the Department of Energy (DOE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Numerous states including California, New York, Oregon, and Washington have adopted LEED for public buildings. Many agencies are requiring LEED silver certification as a minimum. Thirteen countries have expressed interest in LEED including China and India; these countries have exceptionally high levels of new building construction. Conditions vary and the list is growing, so please contact local jurisdictions or USGBC for details. Support for green buildings has increased rapidly each year over the last five years. 

LEED is a voluntary program; however, obtaining a LEED certification projects a positive environmental image to the community. Additionally, using many green building practices can result in energy and cost savings over the life of the structure. Other advantages include better indoor air quality and plenty of daylight. Studies have shown that workers in these environments have increased labor productivity, job retention, and days worked. These benefits contribute directly to a company’s profits because salaries—which are about ten times higher than rent, utilities, and maintenance combined—are the largest expense for most companies occupying office space. In addition, students in these environments have higher test scores and lower absenteeism. Retail sales are higher in daylit buildings.

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History

From 1994 to 2015, LEED grew from one standard for new construction to a comprehensive system of interrelated standards covering aspects from the design and construction to the maintenance and operation of buildings. LEED also has grown from six volunteers on one committee to 119,924 staff, volunteers and professionals. LEED standards have been applied to approximately 83,452 registered and certified LEED projects worldwide, covering around 13.8 billion square feet (1.28 billion square meters).

Many U.S. federal agencies and state and local governments require or reward LEED certification. However, four states (Alabama, Georgia, Maine, and Mississippi) have effectively banned the use of LEED in new public buildings, preferring other industry standards that the USGBC considers too lax.

Unlike model building codes, such as the International Building Code, only members of the USGBC and specific "in-house" committees may add, subtract, or edit the standard, subject to an internal review process. Proposals to modify the LEED standards are offered and publicly reviewed by USGBC's member organizations, which number almost 12,216.

USGBC's Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) offers various accreditation to people who demonstrate knowledge of the LEED rating system, including LEED Accredited Professional (LEED AP), LEED Green Associate, and since 2011, LEED Fellows, the highest designation for LEED professionals. GBCI also certifies projects pursuing LEED.

Benifits

LEED certified buildings are intended to use resources more efficiently when compared to conventional buildings simply built to code. However, analysis of energy and water use data from New York City shows that LEED certification does not necessarily make a building more energy or water efficient.^[58]

Often, when a LEED rating is pursued, the cost of initial design and construction rises. There may be a lack of abundant availability of manufactured building components that meet LEED specifications. Pursuing LEED certification for a project is an added cost in itself as well. This added cost comes in the form of USGBC correspondence, LEED design-aide consultants, and the hiring of the requiredCommissioning Authority (CxA)—all of which would not necessarily be included in an environmentally responsible project, unless it also sought a LEED rating.^{[citation needed]}

However, these higher initial costs can be effectively mitigated by the savings incurred over time due to the lower-than-industry-standard operational costs typical of a LEED certified building. This Life cycle costing is a method for assessing the total cost of ownership, taking into account all costs of acquiring, owning and operating, and the eventual disposal of a building. Additional economic payback may come in the form of employee productivity gains incurred as a result of working in a healthier environment. Studies suggest that an initial up-front investment of 2% extra yields over ten times that initial investment over the life cycle of the building.^[59]

Further, the USGBC has stated support for the Architecture 2030, an effort that has set a goal of using no fossil-fuel, greenhouse-gas-emitting energy to operate by 2030.^[60]

In the progression of sustainable design from simply meeting local buildings codes to USGBC LEED^[61] (Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum) to the Architecture 2030 Challenge,^[62] the Living Building Challenge is currently the most stringent sustainable design protocol. The LBC^[63] sets 20 imperatives that compel building owners, designers, operators and tenants beyond current USGBC^[64] LEED rating levels.

LEED is a design tool and not a performance measurement tool. It is also not yet climate-specific, although the newest version hopes to address this weakness partially. Because of this, designers may make materials or design choices that garner a LEED point, even though they may not be the most site- or climate-appropriate choice available. On top of this, LEED is also not energy-specific. Since it only measures the overall performances, builders are free to choose how to achieve points under various categories. A USA TODAY review showed that 7,100 certified commercial building projects targeted easy and cheap green points, such as creating healthy spaces and providing educational displays in the building.^[65] Few builders would really adopt renewable energy because the generators for those energy resources, such as solar photovoltaic, are costly. Builders game the rating system and use certain performances to compensate for the others, making energy conservation the weakest part in the overall evaluation.

LEED is a measurement tool 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.^[66] Also, some criticism suggests that the LEED rating system is not sensitive and does not vary enough with regard to local environmental conditions. 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.

For existing buildings LEED has developed LEED-EB. Research has demonstrated that buildings that can achieve LEED-EB equivalencies can generate a tremendous ROI^{[citation needed]}. In a 2008 white paper by the Leonardo Academy comparing LEED-EB buildings vs. data from BOMA's Experience Exchange Report 2007 demonstrated LEED-EB certified buildings achieved superior operating cost savings in 63% of the buildings surveyed ranging from $4.94 to $15.59 per square foot of floor space, with an average valuation of $6.68 and a median valuation of $6.07.^[67]

In addition the overall cost of LEED-EB implementation and certification ranged from $0.00 to $6.46 per square foot of floor space, with an average of $2.43 per square foot demonstrating that implementation is not expensive, especially in comparison to cost savings. These costs should be significantly reduced if automation and technology are integrated into the implementation.

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