The U. S. Green Building Council and its LEED® green building rating system’s influence continues to grow and excel despite a less than ideal construction and building operations market.  This ongoing success also accelerates despite a growing list of critics from within and outside the industry.  While LEED is certainly not perfect, this market based tool of best practices is the finest we have to begin reducing and eventually overcoming the impacts our buildings have on the environment and the individuals that live and work in them.  

As a leader in a firm that is currently working on over 100 LEED projects, my team and I regularly encounter areas where LEED could be improved.   While we have our occasional frustrations, every day we see the benefits that a third party verification tool like LEED can deliver.  Our portfolio of projects includes existing buildings where we’ve measured water and energy reductions of 20% and 30% respectively.   Some of our new construction projects are diverting nearly all construction and demolition debris from landfills.   We’ve helped clients eliminate the majority of chemicals used by cleaning teams by implementing effective green cleaning programs.  While these and other wins are exciting for us and our clients, we recognize that these projects are still only onetime or one-project events.

As we apply our knowledge to more projects these wins tend to come easier or with even better results.  Our team as well as our clients learn a great deal from each project as we work to overcome the unique situations that can arise through the design and construction of so many buildings. As a result, our capability to reduce building impacts only improves with time.  Maybe this is one of the best things about LEED, the fact that our team and our clients are growing through the application of better habits to all projects, including those that are not pursuing LEED certification.

Vince Lombardy said, “You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing….” I couldn’t agree more and what I think we are seeing in the design, construction and operations marketplace is the continued application of better habits.  When we get in to the habit of applying the best practices available to us, relating to our particular role in buildings, everyone wins.

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.

1) The Battle for Our Green Souls - Who in the sustainability space could help but be captivated by the lively discussion between The Good Human and Sustainable Brands 2010?  In this post, we outlined the arguments and gave our take.

2) Thrilla in Manilla: The Battle for a Sustainable Culture - What can we say? Battles seem popular this month.  This is actually an older post from February that has been picking up steam about how having two sides of the sustainability debate butting heads can actually be good for us.

3) Sustainable Risk Management - Advisory Board member, Chris Hill, explains as only he can the issues around risk management.

4) Achieving Energy Efficiency Goals: Who Has the Responsibility? - My take on the role governments and individuals play in achieving energy efficiency goals.

We've also had a wonderful month on the podcast front with two new, exciting episodes.

First this month was Julie Urlaub from Taiga Company.  We talked Sustainability with her, particularly through the lens of business.

Then, we spoke with Paul Prosser of Prosser Architects about Adaptive Reuse in Green Building.

Excited to hear more sustainability discussions? Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes, and you'll never miss a beat. 

Happy Memorial Day!  Please remember all our heroes that gave their lives for our freedom.

This week, Advisory Board member Chris Hill addresses a sustainability issue near and dear to his heart.  For more information about Chris, please visit the B2S team page.

I am at heart a risk manager.  Both here at Build2Sustain and at my Musings blog, I have discussed the issues to do with LEED de-certification because of energy reporting (or lack thereof) by the owner of the building.  Remember the italicized portion of this last sentence, because the de-certification discussion has taken a new turn.  Now, not only can the Owner of a building tank its LEED Certification through its own failure to comply with USGBC rules, the certification of a building can be challenged by third parties.  Hidden in the USGBC LEED Policy Manual is language granting USGBC the right to retroactively review a project's LEED certification level on either it's own initiative or based upon the complaint of a third party.

My focus as a B2S advisory board member, as always, is on the "on the ground" risk management issues for designers, contractors and subcontractors on projects seeking LEED certification or other contractually or governmentally imposed energy efficiency goals.  The real issue here, from my perspective as a construction lawyer, is the further implication of third party action in the potential liability of the construction professional who designs or constructs the building.

Third party action is a big issue with risk management under LEED or any other “green” building or energy efficiency system.  The specter of actions beyond the control of those who will design and build our sustainable infrastructure abound. Just a few are outlined below:

• How will insurance companies and bonding companies deal with the totally uncontrollable possibility of a certification challenge?
• How will the ghost of liabilities future (like that mangled Dickens reference?) dampen the enthusiasm for sustainable construction overall?
• What sorts of issues will be created by new technologies and regulatory systems?

The Eeyore in me fears that our much needed shift to sustainable, energy efficient building stock will be hindered by the worries of contractors.  My hope (and, yes, I do have an optimistic side!) is that by asking these questions now, we can all work to deal with them and, with some luck and good planning, create a strong sustainable infrastructure that will be around for years to come.

Thankfully, good folks like those here at Build2Sustain are asking these questions and that’s a start.