Friday, November 24, 2006
Environmental Sustainability, Green Buildings and LEED Join Forces at Greenbuild 2006
The recently concluded Greenbuild 2006 conference in Denver showcased the growing confluence of sustainability and environmental concerns, green buildings and the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating systems. The USGBC announced that it would sent to its members in January, for a vote, a proposal to amend the LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) version 2.2 rating system to require that each project achieve at least two of the “Energy and Atmosphere” points, resulting in a minimum of 14% energy savings against the prevailing ASHRAE 90.1-2004 standard. (At the present, no specific energy savings are required to become a LEED-certified project, just meeting the minimum ASHRAE standard). Green building and environmental consultants have been using the LEED rating system in increasing numbers, with more than 1,000 LEED-NC projects registered for the first time in 2005. This proposal would be a first response to the challenge posed to USGBC in October by Architecture 2030, a new nonprofit calling for a 60% reduction in building energy use by 2010 (versus the average in 2005). Because USGBC made a public and overwhelming commitment at Greenbuild to reducing the global “carbon footprint” of new (and existing) buildings as its first priority, look for this to be the first of many changes in the LEED rating system that will be required to assure meeting that commitment in the future.
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 11/24/2006 at 01:30 PM
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