Leed-eb Final1

John Fulmer East Mill Street Studio 313 Hardwick Place Joppa, Md. 21085 410.510.7513 814.512.1482 cell 814.975.1144 fax

LEED Revisions

After hearing grumblings that the LEED-EB (Existing Buildings) rating system was too costly and complicated, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) tweaked the guidelines and announced the revisions in New Orleans on Oct. 25. The USGBC heard more than 650 suggestions from architects, contractors and facility managers, among others, during the first public comment period held from Aug. 2 to Sept. 2. A second, two-week comment period ended in October. Doug Gatlin, USGBC’s national accounts director made the announcement. The USGBC was a big presence at the International Facility Manager Association’s “World Workplace” convention held in New Orleans that week. The USGBC also held its Greenbuild 2007 conference soon after in Chicago. Today’s Facilty Manager reported Gatlin said the rating system underwent a number of changes “to streamline documentation and make it even more relevant to building operations.” The revisions to LEED-EB 2.0 will be voted on by USGBC members in a balloting process that lasts for 30 days after the announcement. Teresa Sweek, an engineering consultant and LEED AP with Paladino, a Seattle contractor, was part of a panel that spoke on LEED-EB at Greenbuild. Though hesitant to endorse the revisions before the vote, Seewk said she was pleased with what she had seen. LEED-EB is still a hard sell and, during the question-and-answer period held after the panel spoke, many attendees

questioned the cost-effectiveness of LEED-EB’s intricate documentation process when they could aim for simpler, informal sustainability goals. But Sweek said the revisions have completely revamped the process. “One thing you can say is that we had a LEED-EB scorecard that was based on the existing program, and we looked at the pilot that came out and made a scorecard for that. We changed almost every single line item,” she said. “My personal opinion is that it’s n improvement. It’s really exciting. If you’ve gone through the current EB process, looking at the new one will be a different approach.” LEED-EB v.2008, as it’s now called, is designed to eliminate certain program prerequisites and intersects with LEED for New Construction (NC), clear up some fuzzy language, and put more stress on facilities operations, building commissioning, and maintenance. More emphasis was placed on green cleaning, which was given a single category. The revisions should help cut red tape. For example, to score commuting points in the current process, owners have to log on-site bike racks, car-pool numbers, and the site’s ease of access to public transit. The revisions require only the ratio of one-car commuters to those who use public or alternate transportation. Energy and water standards were also targeted for updates, including doubling the points for energy efficiency in EA Credit 1. Brand-new credits were introduced for energy best practices. Points for water efficiency were also doubled and credits for water metering and cooling-tower water efficiency were also introduced. LEED-ED v.2008 updated references to the latest versions of third-party standards, such as ASHRAE 62 and 55, the Uniform Plumbing Code, and Green Seal. Since existing buildings make up more than 90 percent of the country’s building stock, the revisions are seen as another important step in the greening of America. The USGBC initiated LEED-EB in 2001 and, after its development phase and first public comment periods, the program was activated in 2004. However, following its revision of LEED-NC standards in 2005,

the USGBC began overhauling its EB guidelines this year. The July 2007 issue of Building Design and Construction magazine reported that only 46 (5.6 percent) of 824 completed LEED projects earned EB certification. Michael Arny president of Leonardo Academy, consultancy firm that oversaw the EB committee from 2001-2005, told the magazine, “Everyone has been a little surprised about how long LEED for existing buildings has taken to sink into the marketplace.” Sweek said she thinks that will be a thing of the past and that she seen the number of LEEDEB registrations rise. “We have many clients, some of them with large portfolios, who are looking at LEED-EB, recognizing the importance and wanting to make a positive change,” she said. “In a nutshell, we will make the process more user-friendly by reducing the documentation and reporting burden,” Gatlin told the magazine.