Taking Root. Owners and building team members have many reasons for going green.

Five year-old LEED, the rating system that has become widely accepted in the U.S. as the standard of sustainability for buildings, is becoming more user-friendly. Responding to complaints that the system is cumbersome, the U.S. Green Building Council is implementing a revamped certification process. Changes include a move from paper-intensive requirements to an online submittal and review process, reduction of some required documentation and a simplified pricing structure.

The new LEED, which will be in place by early 2006, will also allow project teams more opportunity for communication with reviewers, claim USGBC officials. Submittal will be split into design and construction phases, allowing the opportunity to modify design documents prior to construction.

"Design and construction can take years. It is too long to wait for feedback," said USGBC co-founder David Gottfried. San-Francisco based Gottfried led the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-streamlining effort and presented the changes at Greenbuild, the council’s annual conference, held Nov. 9-11 in Atlanta.

Registration to certification takes three to five years depending on size and complexity. – Thomas Hicks, USGBC Vice President

USGBC reports that 2,900 project teams have taken the initial step in the certification process, by registering their buildings with the council. About 345 projects have successfully achieved certification, which follows building completion. Registration to certification typically takes three to five years, "depending on the size and complexity of the project," says Thomas Hicks, USGBC vice president. He predicts 80% of registered projects will become certified.

With the move to an online system, project teams no longer will be required to submit large binders that include product information, energy modeling and waste disposal records. Attendees’ response was largely positive. "You have blown away a significant barrier to certification," said one session audience member.

Still, some users worry that a paperless system will result in less accountability. "Where is the validation if all I have to do is check a box and press submit?" asked Courtney France, LEED certification services coordinator for Architectural Energy Corp., Boulder, Colo.

The new system’s developers insist it will not compromise accountability. For building products, "at end of the construction phase the submitter must confirm that the specified product was actually installed," says Gregory Shank, vice president of CTG Energetics, Irvine, Calif. CTG helped develop the online forms and is one of several firms that conducts certification reviews for USGBC.

The next anticipated step in LEED’s maturation is the release of a version that takes into account local climate and utilizes life cycle assessment–a methodology that evaluates factors like embodied energy, waste disposal and the potential for global warming of building components. Release of this more scientific system, known as LEED 3.0, is at least three years away, according to the council.

One obstacle in adopting life cycle assessment is inconsistent protocols used by U.S. manufacturers and the difficulty of obtaining the copious amount of necessary data. Therefore, "LEED 3.0 won’t be completely LCA-based," said Nigel Howard, USGBC chief technology officer. "But we want to make sure that the relevant bits that can be LCA-based are."

Sources say this approach is appropriate. LCA is not suited to quantify health or social impacts, says Berkeley, Calif.-based Tom Lent, in charge of health-care standards and materials research for the Healthy Building Network. "I am encouraged by the way [the discussion] is framed now. It is focusing LCA on the things it is best suited to address."

Several sessions focused on efforts to quantify the performance of certified projects. The Center for the Built Environment, at the University of California, Berkeley, is using an occupant satisfaction survey to compare performance of LEED and non-

LEED buildings. To date it has administered the survey to occupants of 212 buildings, 16 of which are certified. Results give certified buildings good marks for overall satisfaction, indoor air quality and thermal comfort. There is no statistically significant difference in responses on lighting or acoustics, said CBE research specialist Charlie Huizenga.

In Seattle, an effort is under way to quantify the performance of two LEED buildings–City Hall and the Justice Center. Final results, expected in mid-2006, should debunk local press that characterized City Hall as an "energy hog," said Barbara Erwine, senior consultant for Paladino Green Building Strategies, Seattle.

USGBC plans its own performance analysis of 30 to 40 certified buildings. To provide more robust data, it will collaborate with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the council’s Pacific Northwest chapter, said Hicks.

Another conference theme was sustainable reconstruction of the Gulf Coast. Approximately 160 Greenbuild participants, including about 20 local representatives of preservation organizations, environmental groups and government, took part in a series of reconstruction charettes.

Bob Berkebile, principal of BNIM Architects, Kansas City, Mo., presented principles developed during sessions at a rebuilding conference held in New Orleans. Success of the reconstruction effort now depends on the ability of residents, officials and industry professionals "to overcome the inertia of the way things were [before Katrina] and the disaster that has visited them," he says.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita "are not one-time occurrences." – Bill Browning, principal Browning + Bannon, Washington, D.C.

Bill Browning, principal of Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm Browning + Bannon, and organizer of the charettes, said the council will develop a mechanism to respond to future natural disasters. He warns: "These [hurricanes] are not one-time occurrences."

(Photo top courtesy of Turner Construction Co.)