LEED - green washing is it ?

[trombe]

With all the talk about LEED and supposedly its impending future take up more widely, its probably worth asking a few questions about the process and the actual value , and (structural) integrity of the LEED system and of the USGBC.
Here is one critical viewpoint and, (perhaps) a valuable counterpoint to all of the hype by industry surrounding the greening of our industries.
I know in NZ last year there was a push by the ruling administration to remove incandescent bulbs form the market before the end of 2009 (in practical terms). They had not provided the manufacturers with the appropriate time to fix the problems associated with a lot of the fittings for things such as CFLs and some fires were noted. Similarly, in the US, this has been a problem I have noted (ands presumably is so in Canada ?).
In NZ the new semi conservative "National Party" administration voted in last November, has scrapped the program at least for now.

So, since we have a NZGBC (open to corporate members only !!! -= lot of use that is to really promote the issues ! doh!) and ultimately, LEED might make it this far, (yeah maybe Ecotect will one day as well !), zooming out and having a different viewpoint to the hype seems worthwhile.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/03/the-four-sins-of-leedwashing.php

any comments ?
trombe

[mwiggins121466]

Very interesting point of view. I think its funny that if you put a bike rack on the site for a building you can get a LEED point. I live in Michigan (lotta good that will do in winter)

[ejburrell67787]

Interesting Article. I think LEED is based on the UK BREEAM, which is open to exactly the same criticism - arbitrary weighting of credits makes it easy to get some points by doing little and hard to get others even by doing a lot. BREEAM has just been revised though so now a building has to be assessed at design stage and again once constructed so no getting away with a good design that gets 'value engineered' back to an ordinary energy guzzler.

Assessing buildings is a good start but it has to be done in a much wider context. Bioregional UK (http://www.bioregional.com/) did some studies, particularly around the process of building BedZed (http://www.bioregional.com/programme_projects/ecohous_prog/bedzed/bedzed_hpg.htm) in south London and concluded that actually getting transport and food links correct had a greater impact than better building performance in terms of over all reduction in negative environmental impact. This is not to say building performance doesn't matter, it matters a great deal, however, it only goes so far in the wider picture.

[PaperStreet SoapCO]

I believe the new LEED 3.0 which drops around the end of April addresses a lot of the arbitrary weighting issues that existed before. I don't know for sure since I'm still waiting on my manual but I think this was one of the major revisions for 3.0

[cganiere]

LEED 2009 addresses the weighting of local priorities with regional credits. Each region has six priorities where you score an extra point if you complete that credit.
Every scoring system is arbitrary. The committees that reviewed the new version shuffled things around. I suspect it will happen again as science and priorities change over time.