The Green Standard?

By: Anya KamenetzWed Dec 19, 2007 at 8:24 AM

LEED buildings get lots of buzz, but the point is getting lost.

Shades Of Green Developers of the Visionaire condos in New York are shooting for platinum with 35% energy savings.

2007 Masters of Design

The business case isn't just that green building saves money on energy. It's that LEED certification sells buildings to high-end clients and governments, gets architects and builders sparkling free publicity, and creates a hook for selling new products, materials, and systems to builders. It's a whole new commercial ecosystem. "Here in DC," says architect Russell Perry, who's active in the Green Building Council, "for a speculative developer to go out and advertise their property as being Class A [the highest-quality commercial building], they've got to have a LEED rating. The brokers need that as part of their pitch. People who would have been ambivalent about that as a moral issue are finding that it's a commercial necessity." Perry also cites the mushrooming of markets for products and services such as less toxic paints.

Fedrizzi is now talking to holders of multibillion-dollar real-estate portfolios, such as Cushman & Wakefield and Transwestern, about the possibility of trading carbon credits from green buildings.

Even skeptics recognize the council's achievement. "There's nothing else out there. LEED is what's for dinner," says Auden Schendler, the director of environmental affairs at Aspen Skiing Co. and the author, with Randy Udall, of a much-discussed 2005 article in Grist, the online environmental magazine, titled "LEED Is Broken: Let's Fix It." "Plus, it's a good idea. Previously, nobody knew what a green building was."

But, Schendler adds, "one of the reasons you'll find very few critics out there is that lots of folks make money on LEED. And it is a bit of a cabal--it's like criticizing the pope in Rome. People don't want to alienate themselves from this great emerging movement."

The limitations of LEED proceed from its design. The categories aren't weighted, meaning that bike rack, to use an oft-cited example, can get you the same point as buying 50% of your energy from renewable sources. And there are no regional adjustments; saving water earns a point in Seattle just as it does in Tucson. What's more, says Schendler, "until recently, you could certify a building to LEED with no energy measures." Now beating a widely accepted international baseline (ASHRAE/IESNA) by 14% is required. But is that enough? "All 10 points [in the LEED energy category] should be mandatory," Schendler asserts. That would mean beating the ASHRAE baseline by 42%--which, he says, "is achievable and frankly isn't even enough to solve the climate problem."

The temptation for developers and builders is point mongering--picking one action from column A, another from column B. "I think people have the idea that sustainability is just a collection of exciting ideas that you can peel and stick onto your building," says David White, a climate engineer with the German firm Transsolar. "Unfortunately, the exuberant creative stuff--the expensive buzz words such as 'geothermal,' 'photovoltaic,' 'double facade,' and 'absorption chiller'--only makes sense when the basic requirements, such as a well-insulated, airtight facade with good solar control, are satisfied."

Jerry Yudelson, who has written five books on LEED and marketing green buildings, highlights the peel-and-stick method in his forthcoming book Marketing Green Building Services: Strategies for Success. He calls solar panels and green roofs "two of the most important emerging green technologies." Yet most engineers say that solar panels have limited applications on large buildings, and reflective roofs can save as much energy as "green" ones covered with plants. But Yudelson writes, "Nothing beats publicity like having your project, with its green roof, PV [photovoltaic, or solar, power] system, and LEED Gold plaque highlighted as a lead story on the 6 o'clock or 10 o'clock network news station in your city. You'll get on camera; dozens, possibly hundreds of clients, prospective employees, and others in your industry will see it, almost guaranteed."

New York architect Chris Benedict--whose residential buildings use only 15% as much energy for heat and hot water as the typical New York apartment building--says, "I've spent hours explaining my systems-based approach to a newspaper reporter, and at the end, the photographer asked me, 'Do you have a solar panel or something I could photograph?'" With her design partner, Henry Gifford, a former boiler mechanic, Benedict delves into the infrastructure of buildings, incorporating basic factors such as heavy-duty insulation, radiant heating and cooling, room-by-room temperature controls, and thicker glass.