When approaching any project, a building owner must ask themselves many questions. From financing, building location, needed space, and who to hire to help design and build the project, there are numerous questions that have very definitive answers. Other questions, including those regarding cost and the length of time needed to design and build a project, are a bit tougher to answer. These answers may be less definitive until an appropriate amount of information is generated to base a decision. This is especially true for those considering incorporating sustainable elements into their building and who may be wondering if LEED certification is worth the effort.
There have been some building owners who choose to follow the U.S. Green Building Council‘s LEED rating system but never certify the building. Those who have followed this path feel they reap all of the benefits of following the rating system and avoid the cost associated with actual certification.
Many choose to certify for a number of reasons, including prestige, the guarantee of energy efficiency, the advantage of owning a building that promotes a healthy indoor environment, the ability to measure the building’s performance or even to meet a municipal mandate. Validating the design and construction of a project using LEED is unique to each organization.
There is one thing, however, that all building owners who have chosen to certify their project have in common: The motivation to certify made sense to them or it addressed a need. If using sustainability and certification does not make sense, it is not a sustainable solution.
LEED addresses a project with a multidisciplinary integrated approach. It is very difficult to explore the possibility of achieving any one credit without analyzing how that decision may impact all of the other aspects of a building. A design team may use the requirements of the LEED prerequisites and credit points as a guide, but understanding the impacts and interconnectivity by going through the process of documenting the credits is another issue. It is easy to say a guideline is being followed; however, it is quite different to document all of the steps that have been taken to evidence the effort.
Take for example the Indoor Environmental Quality credit, IEQc5: Indoor pollutant Source Control. This credit requires the designers to incorporate a number of items into the design, including:
- An entryway system that is at least 10 feet long at each of the primary entrances to the building.
- Direct, outside ventilation in every location where chemicals are stored or mixed.
-
- These rooms must have deck-to-deck sealed partitions.
- Doors to those rooms must be self-closing.
- Rooms must be negatively pressured.
- Mechanical equipment must accommodate a MERV 13 rated filter, with filters on both the supply and return side of the ventilation equipment.
It may be easy to place a walk-off mat system at the front door, but to document all of the individual requirements of this credit, demonstrating that the design contains all of the elements and the contractor has constructed in accordance with the plans and specifications, requires a greater amount of effort.
Even more effort must be expended to understand how the decision to pursue this credit is interconnected to other aspects of the building. A 10-foot-long entryway system is at times difficult to make aesthetically pleasing. Plans and specifications must include construction details indicating deck-to-deck partitions for those rooms. The mechanical design must take into account the need to exhaust these rooms to the outside of the building with no recirculation of exhaust air. The required MERV 13-rated filter will affect the energy needed to power fans within the ventilation system. The owner’s facility management department must understand the additional cost of maintaining the high-efficiency filters.
Is it worth going through all of this effort to gain one LEED credit point? If providing a healthy indoor environment for all who occupy and visit a building is important to a building owner, then the answer is yes.
There are many other common questions that owners often ask when deciding whether to certify their buildings:
“If I get my building certified will it use less electricity?”
Compliance with the LEED prerequisites will achieve a minimum amount of energy savings compared to a similar building, but savings beyond that point will be dependent on the design of the building and how the building is operated.
“Will a LEED-certified building provide a healthier work environment for my employees?”
It depends on whether the design team and delivery team included all of the elements that contribute to indoor environmental quality and if the contractors employ a low-emitting strategy during construction.
“Will seeking LEED certification add more cost to the project?”
It depends on the experience of the delivery team and what elements the owners were going to include in the building before making the decision to pursue certification.
There are no easy answers when it comes to LEED. More often than not, questions asked are dependent on many other factors. Project team members and owners need to consider these factors before deciding whether LEED certification is right for them.
—
Thomas Taylor, a 30-year veteran of the construction industry and noted expert on sustainability, is a principal and co-founder of St. Louis-based Vertegy. To learn more about Vertegy or Taylor, visit www.vertegyconsultants.com.