Why LEED Should Not Shoulder All the Blame for Toxicity

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Jun042010

Friday, June 4, 2010 at 9:41AM

As Fast Company outlines in its article this month, a study by Environment and Human Health, Inc. has criticized LEED buildings for failing to protect against toxic indoor environments. The studies found that even the higher levels of certification allowed hazardous chemicals in the door. I have no doubt that there are things that can be implemented in LEED to encourage reduction of these chemicals in their buildings. There is no doubt that LEED has some flaws, as any rating system would, and that it will need to be continuously updated to continue to push the standards of green building.

But, should we really be pointing the fingers at LEED in this case? What they fail to talk about is how these buildings compare to traditional buildings. Is there any reduction in harmful substances? After all, particularly in the LEED-EBOM standard, there are several credits given for things like Green Cleaning and improved ventilation. They're doing more than most.

But the toxicity argument has an entirely different obstacle to overcome. Even the study itself notes, "The underlying problem is that thousands of different chemicals, many of them well recognized to be hazardous, are allowed by the federal government to become components of building materials. Very few of these chemicals have been tested to identify their toxicity, environmental fate or the danger they pose to human health."

These toxic chemicals are prevalent, not just where we live and work, but in all kinds of products we buy--many of which don't have to disclose all of their ingredients on the label. Organizations like Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families have been actively fighting for improved regulation and protections from the government, but with limited media exposure.

So, could LEED find ways to make their rating system more encouraging of toxic-free environments? Of course. But just pointing the finger their way for failing to eradicate harmful chemicals from their buildings misses the opportunity to raise the awareness and discussion towards the greater problem of toxic chemicals in all aspects of our lives.

Raquel |

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Reader Comments (15)

I think this report fails to consider LEED as a change the process of building design, construction, and operation of buildings. LEED promotes an integrated design approach which includes explicit consideration of indoor air quality in design, construction, operation, and maintenance of buildings, and this is a significant change over traditional the standard design-construct- turn-over process.

The most important IAQ elements in LEED were not acknowledged in this report; namely, verification and documentation that environmental systems in buildings are properly designed and commissioned, and that all elements of ASHRAE IAQ Standard 62 followed – including verification of provision of outdoor air, maintainability of ventilation systems, and full documentation of design, operations and maintenance for these systems.

This report continues the myth that the most important elements to IAQ in buildings are associated with off-gassing of building materials, when in the real world buildings fail in terms of IAQ by not providing adequate outdoor air, and poor maintenance of building systems.

This report does not address building maintenance and its effect on IAQ AT ALL! And it does not address commissioning of building systems AT ALL. And it does not address the integrated building design process AT ALL. These are the key elements for attaining improved IAQ in buildings and they were not even mentioned in this report.

An example of how this report misstates LEED is their discussion of how LEED handles tobacco smoke in buildings. LEED allows tobacco smoke in building locations where that location can be isolated from the rest of the indoor space. This is allowed principally to allow apartment dwellers to smoke in their apartments if they choose. This report’s objection to this LEED element is that filtration is inadequate to prevent second-hand smoke. In fact the LEED standard does not rely on filtration but on isolation and exhaust of these spaces to prevent air movement from these spaces into other occupies spaces.

This report also impugns ASHRAE and SMACNA in stating “public has no ability or right to participate in the standard-setting process”. In fact these are internationally respected membership organizations and anyone can join and become involved in them.

Clifford A. Cooper, MS, CIH
LEED AP-BD&C

June 7, 2010 |

Clifford Cooper CIH

Occupant driven problems. The building can be operating fine without any people. Start bringing in the hand sanitizers, soda , smoking deck residuals, perfumes, lotions, cleaning products ( even the "green" ones) and suddenly there is a problem. I do the testing and I often have to fix the problem after its gotten out of hand. Perhaps, ventilation, filtration AND purification would be the big three instead of V and F alone.?
Maggie Michel
LEED AP BD and C
HERS rater
IAQ guru

June 8, 2010 |

Maggie Michel

The EHHI report (I wouldn't call it a study) on LEED and health issues was pretty harsh, but apparently that's how a lot of people see LEED—they can't understand how a high-performing building could have lots of toxic chemicals in it. It's not getting as much press, but the federal government is really taken to task just as much as LEED. I wrote about it here:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2010/6/3/New-Report-Criticizes-LEED-on-Public-Health-Issues/

Other thoughts? Does LEED do too little to protect public health? How can it balance that and its goal of gaining market share?

June 8, 2010 |

Tristan Roberts

Your response points out the two most glaring errors in the viewpoint presented in the Fast Company article. The first error is in charging LEED with the task of solving all environmental issues in each building certified. The second is in failing to put our building products in perspective with all of our toxicity problems.
LEED is about Improvements in sustainable building, not perfection. The greatest emphasis is on energy efficiency. Nothing we know of has a greater impact on keeping green house gasses under control than reducing energy consumption . Controlling green house gasses is one of the two biggest challenges to being able to sustain life on our planet. The other challenge is keeping our oceans alive. As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows, these two are sometimes related in unpredictable ways.
LEED certified buildings go a long way toward reducing energy consumption, particularly the energy supplied in unsustainable ways.
The toxicity found in some building materials is a problem, yes, but it is a drop in the bucket. We live in a toxic world. One program can’t fix it all. As we humans have groped our way along to providing more and more for ourselves, we have unwittingly introduced a host of toxic elements in our everyday lives. There is toxic content to what we wear, what we eat, what our children play with and the electronic devices we are so addicted to. It is everywhere. It is even in the medical treatments we rely on to extend our lives.
In light of all this, the Fast Company article seems a bit petty to me.

June 8, 2010 |

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