This month, the AGC Environmental Forum and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) held a virtual town hall to discuss some of the proposed changes to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system, with specific focus on how the changes may impact construction practices. USGBC is expected to open its fifth comment period on the new version of LEED on Oct. 2 and accept public input through Dec. 10.
The Council reached out to AGC to hold this town hall as part of its broader effort to solicit input from the building community affected by changes to LEED. Some key questions and comments revolved around exploring USGBC’s motivation for such a robust series of changes, the greater incorporation of life cycle assessment in materials selection and use, regional considerations, where USGBC sees the building industry currently and where it is going, developments abroad (approximately 40 percent of LEED registrations are for projects outside of the United States), and the education gap for new requirements. Below is a summary of a few key points that were discussed during the town hall.
- Question: Why has USGBC proposed such a robust series of changes in its new version? Discussion: The emergence of green building codes raises the floor of what can be expected from our buildings and gives USGBC the opportunity to push for even greater improvements. Currently, more projects are being certified at the Gold level than any other level. (LEED has four levels of certification, moving from lowest to highest: Certified, Silver, Gold and Platinum.) This demonstrates that there is an opportunity for LEED to push the market and continue to be a leadership standard. This also may represent USGBC’s greatest challenge with the new version: strengthening the balance between technical rigor and the market.
- Question: Has USGBC undergone a cost-analysis for the new version? Discussion: Work is ongoing on this issue, and it remains a challenge because USGBC is not always made aware of the reasoning behind project team decisions. USGBC does not know whether a project team’s choices to pursue certain credits are influenced by financial considerations. Rather, USGBC is more focused on market acceptance and whether the rating system challenging yet still achievable. A beta test is underway to help inform decisions about the new version.
- Question: What is the role of life cycle assessment (LCA) in the new version? Are manufacturers ready? What impact will this have on contractors? Discussion: USGBC is relying more on LCA for products and materials as well as to deal with regional considerations. There will need to be a ramp up of the infrastructure for LCA in the market and also the development of user interfaces to make it possible for project teams to make informed decisions based on LCA without being experts. This transition will likely mirror that of the use of energy simulation for buildings, which was previously difficult and imprecise and has since become more commonplace. USGBC has been interfacing with manufacturers to receive their input on the greater role that LCA will contribute to LEED. Participants noted that there will be a learning curve for construction professionals and more of an administrative burden as they will need to gather and report on more product information than in prior versions.