Why a separate category for LEED related postings?

Personally I feel that a sustainable building  is a building that is designed to work with the environment/ site it is in.  A site and climate responsive building.  It utilizes daylighting, passive cooling, thermal mass or other such strategies to reduce the need for mechanical systems to achieve thermal comfort.  In other words, it works with the sun, wind, topography and other elements on the site.

Throw in other related building systems like the structure, materials, water efficiency, building footprint, etc that are designed to work together holistically and there you have it.  There were green buildings long before LEED came along and there will continue to be green buildings long after.

LEED is very succesful and I don’t kid myself about that.  After all I took the trouble to get accredited as a LEED accredited professional too.  Just like the other tens of thousands who did so.  I have worked on a number of LEED projects and currently am a LEED administrator on a LEED CS (Core & shell) office building which we hope to achieve at least a LEED silver rating (theoretically it’s at Gold but I prefer to be conservative in the predicted outcome).

I actually think that LEED coming along was a good thing because it made everyone in the building trades a little more aware about sustainability.  It is far better to do something that supports a sustainable method of construction then the conventional way which encouraged waste.

With that said, there is no program or standard in the world that can hope for perfection.  If you tell people that achieving your highest rating let’s the world know you have the greenest building in the world without any caveats, then you are going to find some projects that are going to shoot for points for the sake of it.

Yes, I know that the new version of LEED attempts to address regionality in its standards.  I’ll wait till the refrence manuals are published and readily available before I make any comments.   Truth of the matter is that everyone on the project needs to be well educated about these systems that they will be employing in their projects because of LEED.  A building still needs to function properly and not leak regardless of its LEED rating.  A LEED administrator on a project should be able to advise the building team and owner why some credits need to be avoided due to possible negative effects.  I’m not saying that there are bad credits or requirements in LEED.  I’m saying that because the climate is always key, you need to utilize the right credits to ensure that your building is climate responsive.  Doing the wrong thing can get you some points but actually hurt the building.

I have read “LEED reviews” by other consultants on various projects over the years that are supposed to guide the owner as to the LEED worthiness of their project.  Most times it’s just somebody ticking off credits and saying, your project can achieve these points.  Right.  And what basis did you derive that from? The design drawings or specifications? The project budget? The professional engineers design statement?  What?

There are plenty of LEED APs out there but only a few who know how a building goes together and even fewer who actually generate sustainable designs or research on it.  You are supposed to implement LEED at the start of the project to ensure an intergrated project.  Reality normally means a project owner deciding to pursue LEED well into the design phases.  It’s not impossible to achieve LEED in that scenario but it’s going to result in additional costs.

So a “review” done after the fact needs to address the possibility that the project may not be able to achieve LEED because of the design.  It’s not the design team’s fault since that was not their directive from the get go.  Reports that just tick of possible credits without really investigating the design are going to be the bane of the sustainability industry.  It reduces its credibility.

So let’s talk LEED in these postings as we move forward.