Connect with Fast Company

When this magazine moved to 7 World Trade Center this past spring, we were pleased to be settling into the first New York office tower to score a "gold" for environmental sustainability from the United States Green Building Council, or USGBC. Buildings account for 71% of America's electricity use and 38% of all greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Department of Energy. Anything that cuts those numbers--as USGBC-certfied buildings do, by an average of 25% to 30%--is surely a plus.

But what does the plaque on the front of a $700 million glass tower really mean? Asking that question exposes some serious cracks in the world's biggest green-building brand name--Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED--as well as a very human tendency to reach for easy solutions to difficult problems.

As alarm over the environment intensifies, LEED has been in the right place at the right time. Two federal agencies, 22 states, and 75 localities from Seattle to Boston have instituted policies to require or encourage LEED; in New York, the new rules are expected to affect $12 billion in new construction in the next few years. A host of major New York projects, including new luxury condos in Battery Park City, a 2‑million-square-foot skyscraper on Bryant Park in midtown, and the rest of the buildings around the World Trade Center site, have all sought the council's stamp of approval.

But critics say that the LEED standard falls short of what's possible in terms of saving energy. While a 25% to 30% improvement in energy use over conventional buildings sounds impressive, it pales compared with, say, the 50% target adopted by the dozens of firms that have signed on to the Architecture 2030 initiative. Assessing LEED is further complicated by the business growth of the Green Building Council. Awarding gold--and silver and platinum--certification has been a gold mine for the nonprofit organization. Once a small operation with seven paid employees, it now fields a 116-member staff and earns 95% of its $50 million annual budget.

Which raises another question: Could the council's financial success be standing in the way of cutting-edge green-building standards?

The Green Building Council started 14 years back with an unlikely alliance between a real-estate developer, David Gottfried, and a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, Rob Watson. "The great majority of environmental organizations had invested in keeping companies on the other side of a fence," says Richard Fedrizzi, the current CEO of the council. "David [Gottfried] thought that we could do things differently. If we could invite business to the table, we could develop standards relative to building performance, buy in at the very top, and be able to transform the marketplace toward sustainable buildings."

The result, introduced in 2000, was LEED. The LEED rating system is simple in concept. Architects and engineers shoot for points in six categories: siting, water use, energy, materials, indoor air quality, and "innovation in design." Once a building is complete, a representative from the Green Building Council reviews the documentation--plans, engineers' calculations--and awards points out of a possible 69: certified (at least 26 points for new construction), silver, gold, or platinum (at least 52 points).