Acknowledging that buildings are responsible for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, both U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) leadership and many of the 13,000 USGBC members and other attendees at USGBC’s November 2006 Greenbuild conference in Denver expressed a clear and urgent intention to mitigate that contribution. With several announcements, USGBC signaled that it would use its LEED Rating System to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, by tightening LEED requirements and by increasing the number of buildings designed to LEED standards.
LEED and Carbon Reductions
Figures released by USGBC divide U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels into three sectors, with buildings topping the list at 38% of all contributions, compared with transportation (33%) and industry (29%). USGBC also projects that carbon dioxide emissions from buildings will grow faster than other sectors – 1.8% a year through 2030. Buildings can also be a source of carbon reductions. Building half of new commercial buildings to use 50% less energy would save over six million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, or the equivalent of emissions from one million cars, says the USGBC.At the opening plenary session of Greenbuild, USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi reported that LEED-certified buildings reduce carbon emissions by about 40% compared with conventional buildings. “But even that’s not enough,” he said. “We need to build more of them, we need to operate them properly, and we need to renovate the ones we have already built, because most of them are energy hogs of the first order.” Fedrizzi added, “Time, unfortunately, is not on our side.”
Following his call for action, Fedrizzi announced two new minimum requirements for future LEED projects.
USGBC’s first proposal is a 50% CO2 emissions reduction. All new commercial LEED projects would be required to reduce emissions by 50% compared to current emissions levels. That requirement will use a holistic accounting of a building’s “carbon footprint,” including contributions from energy and water use, transportation, and materials.
The second new requirement effectively raises the minimum energy performance prerequisite for LEED by requiring that all projects achieve at least two out of a possible ten points under Energy and Atmosphere (EA) Credit 1: Energy Optimization.
This requirement is not insignificant – a recent analysis by the New Buildings Institute of the 420 LEED buildings certified under LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) version 2 by the end of July 2005 reveals that 17% of those projects achieved less than two Energy Optimization points.
“Getting LEED buildings to go 50% beyond current practice – that’s really exciting,” said Scot Horst, chair of the LEED Steering Committee and President of Horst, Inc. “We still have to work out exactly how we’re going to calculate that. The two additional prerequisite points in energy probably get buildings closer to 40% beyond typical practice,” but given the desire to look at the whole carbon footprint of a building we need to start to quantify the carbon points relative to other credits. We think we can lead teams to achieving the requirement with a “carbon overlay” of other credits, leading teams to align carbon with their other goals for the project.”
Endorsing the 2030 Challenge
Architect Ed Mazria, whose tireless campaigning and “2030 Challenge” have pushed the design community to adopt aggressive energy reduction goals, participated in a post-conference meeting with leaders from USGBC, The American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The meeting was called to bring alignment between the organizations in terms of their energy efficiency goals and the means of measuring achievement against those goals.The group signed onto Mazria’s goals of 50% reductions in operating energy for all new buildings, with further reductions leading to carbon-neutral buildings by 2030. They also agreed to use average site energy use by existing buildings, reported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS), as the baseline.
USGBC carbon offset program
Fedrizzi also announced USGBC’s development of a carbon offset program, which would bring carbon reductions from LEED-certified buildings to the carbon offset market. He said the program would rely “on the verified performance data from LEED projects that deliver solid proof of LEED’s significant contributions to the reduction of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. This program will capture actual energy performance data along with associated CO2 emissions for those LEED-certified buildings that have achieved energy efficiency beyond the LEED prerequisites.”Anticipating a future rise in the cost of carbon offsets, Fedrizzi suggested that the program would spur owners and design teams to “make more aggressive and creative decisions,” increasing their incentives to use LEED and increasing the value of participating buildings.
One Million Plus LEED buildings
Speaking at the Greenbuild, Ira Magaziner, chair of the Clinton Climate Initiative and the Clinton Foundation described the available window for mitigating catastrophic effects from climate change at ten years, or 3,650 days.
For all the success LEED has achieved, it has certified a total of 600 buildings after six years – not a pace that can have a significant impact within the required time frame. To change that equation, USGBC leadership announced goals for dramatically increasing the rate at which buildings are certified. The goals had to be ambitious, according to incoming USGBC Board chair Sandy Wiggins, to drive home the urgency to staff and volunteers alike: “There is going to be a sea change in everything USGBC does as we stretch to make it happen,” he said.
USGBC announced goals to have 100,000 certified commercial buildings and one million certified homes by 2010 and ten times as many of each by 2020. The goals were derived, said Wiggins, based on rough calculations related to Kyoto Protocol targets. “We need 80 million metric tons of reductions from the commercial buildings sector to make the target.”
Cascadia Challenges Green to Go Beyond Platinum
The Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a USGBC chapter, challenged the green building community to go beyond platinum, the highest LEED score.
The objective of the Living Building Challenge is: “to define a true measure of sustainability in the built environment based on the best current thinking possible,” according to the draft version 1.0 of the standard, authored by Jason F. McLennan, CEO of Cascadia.
The draft continues, “Projects that achieve this level of performance can claim to be the most sustainable in North America.” He said, “until something is published as a standard, people can’t respond to it. Once it’s codified, Living Buildings will emerge.” Cascadia expects the first Living Buildings to be certified within three years.
Achieving Living Building certification will not be easy. There are no levels of certification; a building either passes or it doesn’t. “Our standard is much more rigorous [than LEED Platinum] from an environmental standpoint, but easier to document,” notes McLennan. In contrast to a LEED rating, where several prerequisites and credits are awa
rded based on modeling, a Living Building certification will not be awarded until a building has been operating and audited for at least one year
McLennan hopes the USGBC will find a way to incorporate the new standard into its next major overhaul of LEED perhaps as a rating level above Platinum.
In just the first week following the system’s Greenbuild debut, at least a dozen developers expressed interest in using it on their projects, said McLennan. The standard’s technical development team, which includes some big names in the green building realm, brings attention and credibility to the standard.
Turn to the next page for the Living Building standard.
Living Building prerequisites:
– Responsible site selection: With some exceptions, a Living Building may not be located within 50 feet of wetlands; on or adjacent to sensitive ecological habitats; on prime farmland; or within the 100-year floodplain.– Limits to growth: The building may be built only on a previously developed site.
– Habitat exchange: For each acre developed for the building, an acre must be set aside for wildlife habitat.
– Net-zero energy: All the building’s energy needs, on a net annual basis, must be supplied by onsite renewable energy.
– Materials red list: Living Buildings must avoid a long list of chemicals, which includes PVC, formaldehyde, and halogenated flame retardants.
– Construction carbon footprint: The building must offset the embodied carbon footprint of its construction through a one-time carbon offset.
– Responsible industry: All wood used in the building must be either salvaged or certified according to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards.
– Appropriate materials and services radius: Materials and services used to create the building must come from within an adjustable radius determined by the environmental costs of transportation. Renewable energy technologies, for example, must come from within 7,000 miles (11,000 km) of the site, while heavy materials are limited to 250 miles (400 km).
– Construction waste: Construction waste must be diverted from landfills, in percentages ranging from 80% to 100%, by weight, depending on the material type.
– Net-zero water: With the exception of water that is required to be potable, all water used in the building or on its site must be either captured rainwater or reused water that has been treated without the use of chemicals.
– Sustainable water discharge: All stormwater and water discharge must be handled on site.
– Civilized work environment: All occupiable spaces must have operable windows that provide access to fresh air and daylight.
– Healthy air and source control: Entryways must have both external and internal track-off systems; all kitchens, bathrooms, copy rooms, janitorial closets, and chemical storage spaces must be separately ventilated; and all interior finishes, paints, and adhesives may emit only low emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
– Ventilation: The building must be designed to deliver air exchange rates in compliance with California’s Title 24.
– Beauty and spirit: The building must include features intended solely for human delight and the celebration of culture, spirit, and place appropriate to the function of the building.
– Inspiration and education: Educational materials about the performance and operation of the building must be made available to the public, and non-sensitive areas of the building must be open to the public at least one day each year.
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Adapted from Environmental Building News, Dec 06, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.
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