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Architects Struggle With ‘Green’ Certification
Architects WANT to be green, and want to create buildings that make a minimal impact on the environment. This focus on healthier, environmentally friendlier building is the core belief of sustainable design.
And we all know that green building design is important to our environment. Most of us know that buildings account for as much as 48 percent of all greenhouse emissions and 68 percent of electricity consumption. The National Institute of Building Sciences’ “Whole Building Design Guide” states that buildings generate 35 percent of the carbon dioxide, 49 percent of the sulfur dioxide, and 25 percent of the nitrogen oxide found in the air. Everyone loves the idea of more energy-efficient buildings, and even government has jumped on the green building bandwagon. Several states have passed legislation requiring that state-funded public building projects meet high-performance building standards, and a wide array of tax incentives have been enacted to encourage the energy efficient buildings.
New architecture school graduates certainly “get it” about green building design. “Sustainable design,” says recent graduate Jason Medina, “makes us as architects realize we have a responsibility to do our part.”
If everybody loves the CONCEPT of green buildings, why aren’t there more of them out there? Why do LEED registered projects make up only 3% of the current U.S. commercial building market?
Most advocates believe standardizing the criteria of what makes a sustainable building is the first step in making green design easier to achieve. Therefore, for architects the most important question is: Who sets the standards in the debate among green designers?
What makes a building “green” anyway? Who determines if a building is “green”?
Many architects believe the best approach to standardization is the LEED program through the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) checklist assigns points for six major categories.
| Category | Possible Points |
| Sustainable Sites | 14 |
| Water Efficiency | 5 |
| Energy and Atmosphere | 17 |
| Materials and Resources | 13 |
| Indoor Environmental Quality | 15 |
| Innovation and Design Process | 5 |
LEED certification for a project provides four levels of “Greenness” based on points scored.
LEED certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum are the designated levels. A building undergoing this certification process must be registered; the completed design is then assessed based on the LEED criteria.
While praised as a step in the right direction, LEED has its critics. A major concern is the checklist system itself, which critics believe does not assign point value on a reasonable basis. Some easy-to-achieve tasks, like installing a bike rack, are worth one point, while more significant and environmentally important improvements, like increasing heating and cooling system efficiency by 10% are worth only two points. Certification costs, which are based on square footage, can run $38,000 for the registration, design and construction review, and required documentation of the project. The additional cost can make the decision to construct a green building pretty hard to sell.
Detractors label the LEED process as slow, confusing, unwieldy, too expensive, and claim that it makes green building more difficult than it necessary. They also worry that getting the certification, which provides the builder with a plaque to place in the front of the building - along with the ability to market the building as “green “ - has become more important than actually constructing environmentally friendly buildings.
Green Globes is also a popular certification program for sustainable design. This program is on-line and provides building assessment and design protocol.
The Green Globes assessment consists of 150 questions taking 2-3 hours to perform.
Green Globes gives ratings in seven areas:
- Project Management
- Site Energy
- Water
- Resources
- Emissions and Effluents
- Indoor Environment
- Buildings are assigned ratings of three to five globes based on certified assessment scores.
“The main advantage of the Green Globes system is that it’s interactive,” says Mike Gehrig of the Green Building Initiative.” Being interactive makes the system more flexible and practical than other programs,” he adds. Green Globes allows the builder to input changes to the project for up to one year and provides feedback on the environmental impact of the changes. “Green Globes provides design guidance throughout the process which can improve the sustainability strategies used by design and construction professionals” states Mr. Gehrig.
At $500 per self- assessment, the cost is significantly less expensive than many other certification systems, but a third party assessment is required in order to get certification for the building. The assessment cost is $4,000 for a building less than 50,000 sq. ft, and it also provides a plaque to be displayed advertising the “greenness” of the structure.
So the same concerns arise: has the right to market the building as green become more important than actually building an eco-friendly structure; and will the client be willing to pay the additional costs to be “green”?
Another problem is the self-assessment process itself: how objective can a designer be about his or her own project? Is it better to have an outsider’s input throughout the process or only when the design is finalized?
The strongest criticism of Green Globes is based on how the program approaches the use of wood. LEED only recognizes wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) while Green Globes recognizes timber certified through the FSC, the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), Canadian Standards Association( CSA) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). Many green designers claim only the FSC follows all the necessary criteria for forest preservation. Of the more than 390 million acres of certified forest in North America, less than 1/6th of the wood is certified by FSC. Supporters of Green Globe say this supply is totally inadequate, so other certified wood is vital in meeting building needs.
LEED and Green Globes have some commonalities; both had their start in the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and both emphasize energy, water and resource conservation, along with site ecology, indoor and outdoor air quality and pollution as controllable elements in building design: both use a point system to determine a building’s level of “greenness,” and both provide companies a certificate to display in the building. Both programs have helped raise the awareness of sustainable design in the architectural community as well as in the general public.
The rift between LEED and Green Globes advocates is where they disagree on the level of involvement of third party assessors, and on the supply side of wood products used.
Which system is best? It depends on whom you ask. Until the current systems evolve to meet all the needs of green builders and address the concerns for sustainability, and forest preservation , defining a “green” building will still be subjective and building one will be harder than it has to be.
The positive side to this debate is that architects are motivated to continue working at making green building better and easier.
During the facility design and development process, building projects should have a comprehensive, integrated perspective that seeks to:
- Reduce heating, cooling, and lighting loads through climate-responsive design and conservation practices;
- Employ renewable energy sources such as daylighting, passive solar heating, photovoltaics, and geothermal;
- Specify efficient HVAC and lighting systems that consider part-load conditions and utility interface requirements;
- Optimize building performance by employing energy modeling programs and optimize system control strategies by using occupancy sensors and air quality alarms; and
- Monitor project performance through a policy of commissioning, metering, and annual reporting.
What’s it mean to all of us in the long run? As Mr. Medina states, “What I choose to do architecturally is influenced by thinking of my grandkids and what they’ll be facing environmentally.”