Performance monitoring for LEED buildings (October 2009)

The U.S. Green Building Council, Washington,D.C., has launched the Building Performance Initiative, designed to put in place a comprehensive data collection effort from all buildings that have achieved LEED certification; implement an appropriate analysis methodology of that data; and provide feedback to building owners so they have better information with which to address any performance gaps that stem from predicted building performance versus actual performance. “This initiative is about gathering knowledge about building performance in a way no one has ever done before,” said USGBC LEED Senior Vice President Scot Horst. “The information that we collect from our certified projects is a workable, holistic approach for achieving better performing buildings.” Horst noted that the LEED green building program was created to transform the way buildings traditionally have been designed and constructed with the goal of reducing the building’s impact on the environment by being more energy, water and resource efficient, but a building’s day-to-day operation has a dramatic impact on its performance. Without better information, an owner or facility manager won’t know where the gaps are and be able to act on them. Numerous things affect the ability of a building to deliver high performance, including energy modeling tools, properly timed energy models, quality building commissioning, proper goal setting/benchmarking, and coordination between design and operation. The biggest issue by far is how the people use the building day to day: Do they forget to turn out the lights when they leave the room? Leave the water running in the sink? Do the facility managers have protocols for checking automatic controls? Do they know when those controls are malfunctioning?
“Plenty of people are content to simply point to these longstanding issues without offering a constructive way to address them. We’re going to take them on and engage practitioners and thought leaders alike in establishing a national road map to optimize building performance,” Horst said.