Calls for LEED To Raise Its Game

Before LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) there was nothing. So you could ban smoking in your restaurant and call it green, according to Randy Udall and Auden Schendler in their classic and controversial article in Grist online magazine, "LEED Is Broken: Let's Fix It.

Then, in 2000, the U.S. Green Building Council got in the act and things got more credible. More building categories were added, costs went up, numbers of LEED certifications went up. Most important, perhaps, is that the LEED standard has become de rigueur for new real estate projects, according to "The Green Standard?" by Anya Kamenetz, Fast Company, October 2007.

[This article gives a layperson's explanation of how the rating system works. For a more comprehensive description, you need the LEED Reference Guides.)

But according to Udall and Schendler, "...for many reasons, LEED is fast becoming its own worst enemy. The program's early bloom is fading. Green building has a robust future, but LEED may not. For instance Kamenetz reports that, the categories for which you earn points are not weighted, e.g., a bike rack "can get you the same point as buying 50% of your energy from renewable sources." Another example: there are no regional adjustments, "saving water earns a point in Seattle just as it does in Tucson."

Growing pains are to be expected for LEED. But the Green Building Council needs to act quickly before the outstanding brand equity they have built for LEED begins to erode.

Carla E. Dearing