When LEED Falls Short
As a LEED AP it always pains me to see individuals or organizations who become disenfranchised with LEED certification because of building performance issues. What is even worse is when one of these organizations is a well respected college. I firmly believe that for sustainability and green building to evolve and adapt to the needs of the future it must be embraced by today's students. Tragically LEED is falling short of the expectations of Dartmouth College as reported by TheDartmouth. Dartmouth College has constructed five buildings to LEED standards, the McLaughlin Cluster and the McLane and Fahey residence halls have received gold LEED certifications, while Kemeny Hall, the Haldeman Center and the Floren Varsity House have silver certifications. Mr. Shadford, a Dartmouth energy engineer has the following to say about Dartmouth's LEED certified buildings:
I would say that, in general, the buildings are performing better than the older buildings that we have on campus,” “But I would also say that in some cases they are not performing as well as we would have hoped or expected based on energy modeling or design performance parameters that the design teams would have created during the design process.
While Dartmouth has not given up on LEED it appears that at the current time they will not be focusing on certification but rather energy efficiency:
We try to build high-performance buildings, We don’t let LEED drive the decision process.”
“What LEED does give us is an opportunity to think about what we’re doing and find ideas for new things to incorporate into this project,” “We’re trying to figure out how to let people know all the good invisible things that Dartmouth is doing, and LEED certification is just one way of doing it,
Is LEED evolving fast enough to address the concerns of organizations such as Dartmouth or will poorly performing certified buildings signal the demise of LEED? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Interesting pickup Rich. It would be nice if the article actually analyzed what points they went after and what the modeling v. performance was, that is the real question.
Tim,
Thanks! You are indeed correct the article is lacking in that it does not explain the credits which were sought. It appears that Dartmouth was trying to balance concern for the environment with energy efficiency. The article was interesting in that it exposed some of the various reasons for seeking LEED certification such as using locally sourced goods, creating healthy air quality, and of course marketing yourself to the world as a steward of the environment.
What struck me most about this summary of Dartmouth's experience with LEED is that they will no longer be focusing on certification, but energy efficiency. This is key, as not only does it make financial sense for the campus as a whole operations wise, but demonstrates critical long-term thinking. Energy efficiency is the key to reducing operating costs. Energy efficiency also reduces our collective dependence on fossil fuels. Now, in all truth, we will not stop using fossil fuels to generate power and etc. -and frankly and in all honesty, I don't think we should; we cannot power our current standard of living without them. By being more efficient with the use of current resources however, we open the door to supplementing these resources with other alternative sources, as well as continuing to find better, cleaner ways to burn the fossil sources we do use. This is no big news to anyone I know. But I appreciate Dartmouth taking note of this -even if indirectly, and in the process, being both financially and environmentally responsible; the two can go hand-in-hand, and in this case, will. LEED is a tool - a good one, but in the end, as Joe Lstiburek says, "it's the energy stupid." We need more critical thinking such as this. Thanks for the post Rich.
As always, very insightful Rich. I knew there was a reason to check your blog out. All of the credits in LEED that don't focus on energy efficiency and operations make LEED somewhat (and totally unintentionally) misleading. LEED certification may lead to some energy efficiencies, but LEED is not totally focused on that aspect of energy use. I think that this is a key point because to "sell" sustainability, cost savings, long term will be a big part of the pitch.
Sara,
Thanks for your comments. As always you raise some very interesting points. I think more and more individuals who have experience with LEED are starting to worry less about certification (or at least achieving higher certification levels) and more about energy efficiency and actual performance which impact the bottom line.
Chris,
Thanks for the kind words. I fully agree that to "sell" sustainability we must be able to show that building "green" and more specifically obtaining certification makes financial sense. Until the certification systems catch up to the pulse of the market, which wants actual performance and not just a fancy label, I believe we will see more individuals building energy efficient buildings but not pursuing certification.
Side note - very interesting to see Lstiburek appear in this context. He was quite a player in the EIFS litigation and I am familiar with him from there.
Came to this article via GreenerBuildings, where Rob Watson provided some excellent commentary as a follow-up to this article. I tried to find it online (as opposed to my inbox), but fell short. His basic argument was that the blame lies not with LEED but the limitations in energy modeling (and perhaps the architects and engineers). I've always recommended designing a building the best way possible first and then seeing where we fall with LEED at the end...
Joel,
Thanks for the comment. LEED is merely a tool to help us and is not nor ever was meant to be the stopping point. Rob's article was very well written and I appreciate him keeping the LEED gremlin in his basement for all of us.
LEED is currently the most recognized certification for Building Owners who wish to achieve recognition for their property's greenness (not a proper word but in evolution of language maybe it will be). It is true that it does not require the building design to be the most energy efficient. There is a perception that a LEED Building is very energy efficient. If a building owner is looking to sell their space base upon energy efficiency and green design than LEED is a good marketing tool. Also LEED is a good PR tool for owners wanting to show off their greenness. Because of this LEED building designs continue to grow in number. Some building owners are going to be disappointed with the energy efficiency of their LEED building if the Architect and Design Engineers do not explain up front the details of what LEED accomplishes. It is the Architect and Engineers responsibility to make sure the owners goals are meet. If the owner wants a green building then LEED is a good avenue. If the owner does not care about the greenness of the building but is looking for energy efficiency and return on investment then LEED may be the wrong direction to take. If an owner is asking for a LEED building design take the time to ask them what they want to achieve. Unless they have past experience with LEED they probably have little knowledge as to what LEED real accomplishes. You may need to lead them in another direction.
Rich -
One thing for the folks at Dartmouth to do going forward would be to sign on to the American College and University's Presidents Climate Commitment (http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/) sponsored by AASHE (www.aashe.org). This is a group of higher education decision makers signing on to band together to voice their concerns and implement best practices for creating the most sustainable institution as possible.
Good luck and congratulations. You know what I mean.
When I founded the LEED system for the U.S. Green Building Council 15 years ago, we were striving to create a credible benchmark for the environmental performance of buildings and transform the buildings sector, which is the largest emitter of CO2-twice that of cars and trucks-toward sustainability. Given that LEED is now employed by over 20% of new non-residential construction in the U.S., I think we have largely succeeded. However, being a standard of performance, LEED is completely innocent of any building's failure to perform; that's the owner, design team and builder's responsibility. As for the "choice" between LEED and energy efficiency that is another false dichotomy. The ONLY reasons LEED buildings fail on the energy front is that 1) the design/engineering team don't know what they're doing or 2) the owner doesn't care. There is zero in LEED that discourages energy efficiency and any choice to go point-whoring in the system is just that: a choice.