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Green Building Programs the Foundation of Sustainable Development
Patrick Hughes
Portland, Oregon
Have you ever entered a building and noticed a bronzed plaque at the entrance with the word LEED engraved upon it? If you took just a second to glance at it you probably got the gist that it had something to do with "Green," or that ever trampled word "Sustainability." LEED is an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has utilized LEED as a green building rating system since 1998. The LEED 2009 rating system scores projects with an escalating point scale and four tiers of certification.
•Certified - 40-49 points
Certified - 40-49 points•Silver - 50-59 points
Silver - 50-59 points•Gold - 60-79 points
Gold - 60-79 points•Platinum - 80 points and above
Platinum - 80 points and above Points are awarded by how well the building meets a list of required prerequisites and credits in six major categories: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation and Design Process.
By establishing LEED, The United States Green Building Council set the precedent for green building. It also paved the way for numerous other green building programs to follow suit in creating initiatives designed to gauge the how green a building may be.
Listed below are a few of the current green building programs.
When considering how green a building is, it’s important to take a second and consider what that means. One way to look at this is through the lens of the “3 E’s of Sustainability.” Environment, Economy, and Equity/Social Benefits, are promoted by green building programs and policies by channeling building professionals in a direction that facilitates choices that create a smaller footprint and are more beneficial to the community at large. By creating a green building framework such as LEED and subsequently having these organizations sanctioned by the government and industry associations they become credible. In turn the effort made by builders, developers, and occupants to comply with the standards of LEED, the Living Building Challenge, or The Natural Step, etc., creates value in a marketplace that is beginning to put a premium on sustainable properties and structures. The perceived economic value becomes a motivating mechanism, which gradually enable the intrinsic benefits of the 3 E’s to be realized by society as whole.
For example, access to clean water ensures that humans, plants and animals have the opportunity to live healthy lives. The LEED Water Efficiency standards advance responsible water use practices. Utilizing efficient and appropriate use of water within the built environment, LEED is promoting a healthy overall environment, which is equitable and beneficial to society. Furthermore, by quantifying water and energy efficiency, the LEED program challenges architects, engineers, plumbers, landscape professionals, and construction workers to meet the standards of the LEED rating system. To meet this demand, technology is advanced and jobs are created to produce the goods and services needed to accommodate the requirements of LEED and the certification the building’s developers are seeking. In short a market is created.
The Living Building Challenge (LBC) put forward by the Seattle based International Living Building Institute have also created a framework, that inherently promotes the 3 E’s. Like LEED, LBC has a rating system consisting of seven imperatives arranged as flower petals, (Water, Beauty and Inspiration, Site, Materials, Energy, Equity and Indoor Quality) which developers must achieve to be certified. Living Building Challenge pushes designers, engineers, and developers, to strive for the highest level of sustainability attainable in the built environment. At completion a building must have net zero energy and water use. Although there are 60 projects registered with the International Living Building Institute, none are yet to be certified. The high standards put forward by LBC dares the building industry to continue to make advances. Resting the bar as high as LBC does, they advocate for continued advancement in technology and societal expectation of the building industry. It minimizes complacency and reminds professionals in the industry that there is much work to be done on the continued advancement of the 3 E’s.
Green building programs and policies are still very much in their infancy. They are not perfect. Like all rules or regulations loopholes exist. The idea of having to legislate how buildings are constructed is certainly not going intrigue all design firms or contractors. But given that in the U.S. buildings are responsible for 38% of CO2 emissions, 39% of all energy use, 40 % of all raw materials, and 72 % of electricity consumption a means to inspire the industry to erect better buildings for today’s inhabitants and tomorrows is of vital importance.* When building in a sustainable manner becomes the norm, then we can do away with green building programs. Now green building programs serve as a bridge between the way things have historically been done and how they will be accomplished in the future.
* According to US Green Building Council, http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1718
