In recent conversations, I've heard talk about imbalance between various LEED points. How can someone think that changing rooms are as important as an enhanced commissioning? How is a walk to a restaurant or a bus stop as important as decreasing overall energy use? What's up with this crazy system if construction and design teams end up "point chasing" it to death?What if design teams have a philosophical sustainable commitment in place that uses LEED as the system instead of the goal?
Let's look at Penn State.
In Environmental Design + Construction magazine's September issue, Leidy Klotz, LEED AP, writes about Penn State's commitment to sustainability and how it uses LEED to achieve their goals.
On some LEED projects, the design and construction team get caught up in a futile exercise of which points are "easy" or "cheap" instead of which points contribute to strategic goals. We may, in a breezy approach to the system, say "that's a freebie point, let's go after it". The team them chases these points instead of concentrating on what's important to the project.
The team at Penn State has managed to avoid this practice by prioritizing the points based on their goals. For example, the school has listed the following as their priorities:
- Energy conservation with a minimum 30% improvement over ASHRAE
- Natural resource conservation
- Prevention of environmental degradation
- People's health, well being, and comfort
- Financial payback
With these goals in mind, they weigh each credit using the following:
- Mandatory: Compliance is required.
- Significant effort: Must show clear evidence that an attempt has been made and if compliance is not achieved, reason for the failure must be shown and accepted by the university.
- Minimal effort: The team will investigate the possibility of credit achievement but no additional resources will be made available to achieve it.
As we all gain experience working on LEED projects, an important item to remember is that LEED should be the process... the benchmark... the system we use to achieve sustainability. But is it the goal? I would argue that it is not.
Sustainability is the goal. Use LEED to bring those goals to life, and always keep your eye on that triple bottom line prize.
2 comments:
I like this a lot. One of my big concerns while watching the green movement take off is that it's been extremely handy as a marketing scheme...more than a true reduction in energy use or waste or a true realignment to thinking of finite resources and lifesystems, etc.
It goes hand in hand with the concern that sustainability is a luxury that most of the world's population won't be able to afford. Look at the most sustainable parts of this country...they're quite expensive. I hope to see sustainability becomes a way of life and a manner of living, more than just a "lifestyle" choice.
Jennifer is right - Sustainability must be more than a marketing tool. It is good too, if sustainability as a marketing tool is the motivating factor to move private developers and industrial companies in the green direction. Getting to green is the goal. Why they get there is important, but only a component of getting there.
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