Understanding Green Building Guidelines for Students and Young Professionals

Traci Rose Rider

2009. W. W. Norton & Co. 144 pp. $19.95.

This book is intended as a road map for newcomers to the world of green building. The author, a partner in a green building consulting firm, devotes roughly one third of the book to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design); another third to The Natural Step, Green Globes, and the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) National Green Building Program; and the final third to sketches of local green building guidelines in Austin, Arlington, North Carolina, Portland, Santa Monica, Scottsdale, and Wisconsin.

Special attention is paid to the organizational structure of the agencies issuing the guidelines, and to the proper use of jargon. For instance, “LEED” has no plural. Furthermore, buildings can be “LEED Certified,” whereas people can become “LEED APs” (Accredited Professionals), but in this system there are neither accredited buildings nor certified people. {19}

As the best-known and most widely used system, LEED takes pride of place (and space). The author mentions LEED’s ten variants (including commercial interiors and neighborhood development), and briefly outlines the new LEED v. 3, also known as LEED 2009. Then she gives a detailed account of the green credits available in the six primary categories under the previous system, LEED 2.2: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy & Atmosphere, Materials & Resources, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Innovation.

In essence, LEED requires a project to meet certain prerequisites to get in the game, and then awards credits for various verified practices; more credits allow a project to claim a higher place in the metallic rating scale that runs upward from certified to silver, gold, and platinum. The short-term intent is to encourage specific building practices that are environment-friendly. The long-term intent is for LEED’s standards to rise ahead of the general level of the market, so there should always be a tension between current and ideal practice.

The Natural Step begins from the opposite end, starting by seeking to derive good practices from four extremely general propositions — call them “system conditions” if you want to fit in. By way of example, “Condition 1” states, “In order for a society to be sustainable, nature’s functions and diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of substances extracted from the earth’s crust.” {57} Exactly how that should apply to the building industry on a day-to-day basis is not obvious. The author concludes, “The goal of Condition 1 is to moderate harmful waste.” {58} She also quotes from a Natural Step construction group in Oregon, which concluded, rather more drastically, that when a building or project is in “Full Alignment State,” one thing that would mean is that “All materials are non-persistent, non-toxic, and procured either from reused, recycled, renewable, or abundant (in nature) sources.” {66} It is not clear from this account that The Natural Step is user-friendly in the way that all other systems discussed are.

The Green Globes rating system has commercial and residential subdivisions. It takes each project through eight stages from predesign through commissioning. In most of the eight stages, seven “sections” or categories are considered: project management, site, energy, water, resources, emissions, and indoor environment. The process is more iterative (not to say repetitive) than LEED’s, with a series of questions to be answered within each section/category at each stage, that become gradually more specific as the project moves along. A second version, said to be “considerably more detailed and rigorous,” was to be issued in mid-2009. {88}

NAHB Green was launched in February 2008 by the National Association of Home Builders, whose members account for more than 80 percent of homes built in the US. {89} It applies only to new single-family houses (not to renovations or apartments) and uses six by now familiar categories, having to with the site, resource efficiency (materials), energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and “operation, maintenance, and building owner education.” {96} Each project must acquire a certain number of points within each of the six categories in order to be considered; after that, additional points may be garnered anywhere to achieve ratings designated as bronze, silver, gold, and emerald.

Local programs are sketched more briefly. Austin has separate standards specifically for residential, commercial, and multi-family construction. Arlington has its own Green Home Choice Program, and requires that builders seeking an exception to the zoning ordinance (or hoping to qualify for height or density bonuses on commercial projects) be involved in the LEED certification process. North Carolina’s HealthyBuilt Homes program has an eight-category checklist for residential construction. Portland, Oregon, has standards of its own and has also written some LEED requirements into law. Santa Monica’s Green Building Design and Construction Guidelines enumerate both required and recommended practices. Scottsdale’s Green Building Construction Guidelines has 28 prerequisites and the opportunity to earn additional points; multi-family and commercial checklists are also used. Wisconsin’s statewide Green Built Home program uses a similar checklist, and Madison in particular has adopted “guidelines . . . based on LEED but without the obligation to pursue actual registration and certification.” {134}

This book gathers a great deal of information that’s not easy to find in one place. At the same time, it suffers from being a book that deals with a field in constant flux. Thus the author has to explain two systems (LEED 2.2 and Green Globes 1) that are already being phased out. There is some general information on LEED 2009 or v. 3, enough to make it clear that this is not just an update of 2.2 but a reconceptualization of the system; those seeking any detail on it should look elsewhere. (Those who see LEED for Neighborhood Development as a significant green move away from architects’ fixation on individual buildings will also be disappointed to find it not discussed here.)

For a publication directed in part to young practitioners, the book’s overall tone is surprisingly acquiescent, even solemn. Not many hard questions are asked, and there’s little sense of irony. We are told, for instance, that LEED’s parent, the US Green Building Countil, issued a document in 2008 listing “established and generally approved initiatives and strategies that would likely count for ID [Innovation in Design] credits.” {53} In other words, design it exactly this way and you’ll be innovative! Recognizing the humor in this quintessentially bureaucratic procedure would be a wee bit subversive.

The author seems equally cautious about controversy, adding to the book’s semi-official flavor. She does acknowledge that some veteran green architects and builders think LEED has set the bar too low, especially on energy issues. This brief statement is immediately followed by a lengthy paragraph in defense of LEED’s general policies, which ends the discussion. {54-5} Not mentioned at all is the sentiment that what began as a volunteer and community-based project has turned into a money machine, although occasional sentences hint at the existence of such thoughts. Equally unbroached are obvious questions about whether a rating system devised and administered by an industry group can be depended upon to push the market in a green direction fast enough. Indeed, the very possibility that some rating systems might be “greener” as a whole than others doesn’t get much air time here.

The book’s language is usually straightforward and clear, but does occasionally veer into the incomprehensible or frivolous. Heat islands are said to be “impacted by surfaces (such as blacktop) that absorb heat and release it, raising the immediate temperature of the air around the site, which, in turn, can dramatically affect smaller, native ecosystems.” {32} Having mentioned that much water is wasted in commercial buildings, the author adds, “How much unnecessary or unused water is sent down toilets and into drains every day in corporate America? The number would probably make our heads spin.” {34} A kind editor would probably have insisted on either more information or none at all.

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